Following allegations of dangerous housing and job site conditions for its workers, the Vermont Construction Company signed a preliminary agreement with labor rights nonprofit Building Dignity and Respect Standards Council in January to work toward new safety standards. The company has previously worked at Middlebury College on at least one roofing project, although the college has said it does not expect to use Vermont Construction Company in the future.

This fall the town of Colchester, Vt. repeatedly cited Vermont Construction Company for placing workers in “grossly hazardous and unsafe” conditions, issuing emergency evacuation orders for substandard buildings, as first reported by VTDigger.

The company paid over $13,000 in fines last year for lacking work site protections and providing crammed non-residential housing for workers. State and town inspectors found that the industrial buildings used as worker housing lacked required fire detection or suppression equipment, according to Seven Days. In addition, the company received three Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations last year for having workers at high elevations without proper fall protection measures.

The Vermont Construction Company prominently displays Middlebury College as a recent client on the main page of its website. Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration David Provost said the college has previously paid the company $45,000 for roofing work.

“Middlebury College has contracted with Vermont Construction Company subsidiary KSM once or twice over the last 6 years,” Provost wrote in an email to The Campus. “They are not a primary contractor for the college and we don’t expect to use them in the future.”

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