History & Operations

United Forming, Inc. is an employee-owned, private concrete structure builder with offices in Georgia, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. According to its website, United Forming has over 800 employees and is one of the largest concrete builders in the South (other sources list United Forming’s employee count much higher). According to Concrete Construction’s annual rankings for 2009, United Forming was the 5th largest concrete company in the US, with $241 million in annual revenues. Steve Lewis replaced long-time company head Tom Owens as CEO in August 2008.

OSHA Record

In the past decade United Forming has been the subject of dozens of OSHA investigations. Even after Informal Settlements and other dispositions resulted in dozens of deleted violations and reduced penalties, OSHA has fined the company nearly $100,000 for over 40 violations.

The company’s OSHA inspections include two fatalities. Jose Gonzales-Perez, 22, a form carpenter working on a high-rise condo in Holly Hill, FL fell 7 stories to his death. The local police chief stated “it appears that he was not properly tethered.” OSHA found the employee at fault and closed its investigation in October 2006 with no penalties to the employer. In October 2007, engineer Michael Long, an employee of UFI, fell to his death from the 10th floor of a condo under construction in Orange Beach, AL. UFI paid a $5,000 penalty and the case was closed in November 2008.

According to an EHS Today article, in 2003 OSHA cited UFI for “failing to protect employees working near unguarded elevator shafts, and failing to provide employees with proper fall arrest equipment and safe access to work areas.” OSHA deemed the violations “repeat” and initially proposed over $100,000 in penalties.

Click below for summaries of OSHA investigations of United Forming:

OSHA Investigations 2008 – Present

OSHA Investigations 2006 – 2008

OSHA Investigations 2002 – 2006

OSHA Investigations 2000 – 2002

Litigation

United Forming has been involved in approximately 40 lawsuits in the past decade. Below is a summary of just a few cases that were active in the past 2 years:

Tax Liens

Just over $117,000 in state and federal tax liens (including interest and penalties) have been issued against United Forming in the past few years. Click “Amount” in the chart below to download a copy of a tax lien, and “Release Date” for a copy of the release (the Mississippi liens are not available).

Undocumented Workers

According to news accounts, the ongoing $350 million Duvall County Courthouse project in Jacksonville, FL has had repeated problems with undocumented workers. After three rounds of arrests at the project, a cross-check of records by federal immigration officials in November 2009 found 103 of about 350 workers authorized to work on the site provided what appeared to be false identification documents. All of the workers with questionable documentation worked for United Forming or one of its subcontractors.

The general contractor on the Courthouse project, Turner Construction, announced in December that it would employ off-duty police officers to man the two gates and check the IDs of every worker who steps foot on the Duval County Courthouse construction site.

United Forming has had other high profile troubles with undocumented workers going at least as far back as 1995, when 37 of its employees were arrested during the construction of the Olympic Village in Atlanta.

Pension/Benefits

United Forming has an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, founded in 2001. In 2007, the plan purchased all stock held by the founder and became completely employee owned. Each year, the Plan allocates shares of stock to employees based on their compensation. In 2008, the Plan had 1,108 active participants. That number dropped by more than half to 525 active participants in 2009.

United Forming also has a 401k plan. In 2006 the number of participants with account balances in the plan is only one-third the number of participants in the ESOP. The number dropped dramatically in 2009, now only close to one-fifth of participants in the ESOP have account balances in the 401k plan. The following is a summary of data from the three most recent available plan years:

According to the most recent available filings for the United Forming Welfare Benefit Plan, it appears that about half of the employees participate in the company’s healthcare plan.  The plan had 414 participants in 2008 and 2009, and 422 participants in 2007.