Michels Corporation, a construction company owned by a GOP gubernatorial primary candidate in Wisconsin, has been fined $160,862 for repeated federal regulatory violations over the past decade, the Center for Media and Democracy has learned.
Tim Michels, endorsed by former President Trump for the August 9, 2022, Wisconsin primary, is the owner of Michels Corporation, a pipeline and energy construction company headquartered in Brownsville, Wisconsin.
Of the total fines, $132,571 were imposed by the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), in 10 separate cases from 2011-2016.
OSHA fines were not the only federal regulatory violations committed by the company. The Wage and Hour division of the U.S. Department of Labor fined Michels Corporation $8,886 in 2012 for violating federal prevailing wage law for public works. Federal prevailing wage law, also known as Davis-Bacon has, among other goals, preventing non-union firms from undercutting union firms in public construction projects.
Additionally, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration won $8,700 in fines against Michels in a civil lawsuit in 2019.
There was also an enforcement action by the Mine Health and Safety Administration (MHSA) of the Department of Labor against Michels, the result of a worker fatality from a dust gas explosion of crushed limestone in 2015. The penalty was suspended when Michels took corrective action to prevent future accidents.
In that case, MHSA determined, “(T)he cause of the accident was the introduction of a flame into an enclosed area where flammable gasses had accumulated. The root cause of the accident was management’s failure to establish a safe work procedure for this task that would have included appropriate warnings of possible hazards.”
There was also a settled personal injury lawsuit against Michels. In 2021, a $4.5 million settlement was reached on behalf of a worker whose leg was ultimately amputated as the result of an injury from a fall from the top platform of a construction job trailer on Feb. 6, 2015, in Rossville, Ill. Michels was one of three defendants.
Michels is one of two candidates leading in the Wisconsin GOP primary that will be held on Aug. 9, with the other being former Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.
The winner will take on incumbent Gov. Tony Evers (D) in November.
The OSHA data comes from Violation Tracker, a project of the nonpartisan Good Jobs First.
One of their employees hit a pedestrian in Ohio just over 4 years ago, severely injuring and permanently disabling this man. They are trying to lie their way out of any type of compensation. On top of that, the employee,Travis Worley of Steelville, MO, is a confederate flag displaying racist. He has a picture on his Facebook with his daughter, both with Michels helmets on, and the flag on a license plate behind them. Plus he had one on his truck when he hit this poor man. And they are backing this guy 100%, so of course he lies through his teeth just like they are. The man was walking in the crosswalk when he hit him going 23mph in a Ford f-250. Can you imagine? All the info is at the website below. They are fabricating things to try and sway the judges to rule them not liable.Its disgusting. These people are disgusting. Backing a racist than ran over some poor guy so you don’t have to do the right thing and justly compensate this man. But if you look up Michels track record on anything, it’s not surprising