Anyone who has been in the organized construction industry knows that three-year labor contracts have been the norm for decades. In St. Louis, the pipe trades and their contractors broke the mold, to say the least.

Local 562 union plumbers and pipe fitters signed a 10½-year contract with the local Mechanical Contractors Association and Plumbing Industry Council, which is believed to be the longest labor contract ever negotiated, according to the Engineering News Record.

In each year of the contract, a $1 per hour increase will go on the paycheck and a 25-cent per hour increase will go toward health and welfare benefits. In the first year of the contract, which began Jan. 1, that represents a 3 percent increase.

The wage and fringe provisions in the contract can be reopened in the fourth and seventh years. Working foremen get an additional $1 per hour over the wage increase.

"We felt it was important to create a contract that would create a 'win-win' for everyone, the consumer, the contractors who hire our people and our members," said Local 562 Business Manager Jim O'Mara. The local has 2,500 active members.

The ENR said the contract also includes an industry first: all journeymen will be required to have 24 hours of upgrade training programs over three years.

Jeffrey Highfield, an employee of Mason, Ohio-based LeMaster Steel Co., fell 25 feet to his death in 1998 while working on the roof at a construction site.

Instead of immediately calling 911, company foreman Ronald Lee Creighton instructed workers to quickly install fall protection cable at the accident site. The company neglected to have the required safety gear in place, according to OSHA's chief investigator in the case, Bill Murphy.

Murphy said at first Creighton stuck to his story that the fall protection was in place prior to the accident, but he ultimately changed his story after witnesses were interviewed. However, two company managers, LeMaster's safety director Michael Onyon and regional director Jay Holloman, continued to lie to OSHA.

To make the punishment fit the crime, OSHA saw to it that the case was prosecuted criminally. Now Onyon and Holloman are serving six months in jail for obstruction of justice. Creighton confessed to making false statements and served four months in jail.

OSHA rarely prosecutes in criminal court, but "this is a particularly tragic and flagrant case where the employer not only failed to adequately protect its workers, but then tried to deceive OSHA in the investigation of the fatality," said Charles Jeffress, assistant secretary of labor.

LeMaster has closed down its operation in Mason, which is nonunion.