VT Halter Marine’s Pascagoula, Mississippi, shipyard, seen through a hole in fencing fabric. Credit: Julie Dermansky for Reveal

Three Democratic senators called today for a federal criminal investigation into a major shipbuilder that has reaped hundreds of millions of dollars building vessels for the U.S. Navy even as its workers have been killed and injured.

In a letter, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Patty Murray of Washington urged the Justice Department to launch an inquiry into VT Halter Marine Inc., citing a recent investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting that uncovered how the Navy and Coast Guard rewarded private shipbuilders with $100 billion in contracts despite serious workplace safety violations.

“It is clear that without aggressive action, VT Halter will continue receiving contracts and putting workers in danger,” the senators said.

Two workers died and five were injured in an explosion in 2009 aboard a tugboat at one of VT Halter’s three Mississippi shipyards. The company won an $87 million Navy contract a month later. It then settled with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, agreeing to pay a fine of $860,500 and acknowledging it willfully violated 12 safety rules.

Former Labor Secretary Hilda Solis excoriated the company, calling the explosion a “horrific and preventable situation.” Since that accident, VT Halter has gone on to receive more than $345 million from the Navy despite a string of other serious and deadly accidents, including one in which a worker’s face was sheared away and another that blinded a crane operator.

In each of those cases, the company was slapped with more OSHA penalties. But Navy contracts continued to flow in, eclipsing those comparatively modest fines.

Navy and Coast Guard officials said they do not enforce workplace safety for employees in these shipyards. In addition, a federal workers’ compensation law generally prevents shipyard workers from suing their employers.

Alexander Caballero and his mother, Sandra Lanier. Caballero was 25 when he was killed in an explosion at a VT Halter shipyard.Credit: Photo courtesy of Sandra Lanier

“In order to bring justice to the injured workers and the families of those who have died as a result of VT Halter’s recklessness, as well as to deter further wrongdoing that may cause more tragedies, we strongly urge the Department of Justice to launch an investigation of VT Halter and its leadership, and, if sufficient evidence of criminal conduct is uncovered, to prosecute such wrongdoing to the fullest extent of the law,” the senators wrote.

“VT Halter has been untouchable,” said Sandra Lanier, whose 25-year-old son, Alexander Caballero, was killed in the 2009 explosion. “They haven’t been punished because they keep getting contracts. A life is worth nothing to them. It has to stop.”

Reached by phone, a spokeswoman for VT Halter referred Reveal’s call requesting comment to the company’s lawyer, who did not immediately respond to a message.

In their letter, the senators invoked federal labor laws that allow for criminal penalties for willfully violating workplace safety laws that result in deaths, including fines and imprisonment.

Jennifer Gollan can be reached at jgollan@revealnews.org. Follow her on Twitter: @jennifergollan.  

 

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Jennifer Gollan

jgollan@revealnews.org

Jennifer Gollan is an award-winning reporter. Her investigation When Abusers Keep Their Guns, which exposed how perpetrators often kill their intimate partners with guns they possess unlawfully, spurred sweeping provisions in federal law that greatly expanded the power of local and state police and prosecutors to crack down on abusers with illegal firearms. The project won a 2022 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and has been nominated for a 2022 Emmy Award.

Gollan also has reported on topics ranging from oil companies that dodge accountability for workers’ deaths to shoddy tire manufacturing practices that kill motorists. Her series on rampant exploitation and abuse of caregivers in the burgeoning elder care-home industry, Caregivers and Takers, prompted a congressional hearing and a statewide enforcement sweep in California to recover workers’ wages. Another investigation – focused on how Navy shipbuilders received billions in public money even after their workers were killed or injured on the job – led to tightened federal oversight of contractors’ safety violations.

Gollan’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Associated Press, The Guardian US and Politico Magazine, as well as on PBS NewsHour and Al Jazeera English’s “Fault Lines” program. Her honors include a national Emmy Award, a Hillman Prize for web journalism, two Sigma Delta Chi Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, a National Headliner Award, a Gracie Award and two Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing awards. Gollan is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.