'I lost everything': Subcontractor says LRT job led to personal, professional ruin
"I’ve worked for a lot of tunnel companies in my life, and I’ve never worked for a company so bad, so mismanaged."
Taylor Blewett, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: March 9, 2020
When Frank Schwenzer signed on to help to construct Ottawa’s light rail transit system, he had no idea it would cost him everything he cared about.
There were no red flags to suggest it would be any different from the tunnels his company Hardrock Concrete had worked on before, spraying concrete — known as shotcrete — to line underground passageways like the Confederation Line tunnel that runs between Lyon, Parliament and Rideau Stations.
Based on their $4.7-million subcontract, Schwenzer and his crew of 40 workers expected to shoot 50 to 100 cubic metres of concrete daily and finish the job in seven months, tops. It would be another major infrastructure project Schwenzer, 58, could add to the résumé of the business he spent two decades building, from a two-man show with $500 in his pocket to a thriving Toronto construction company with 26 employees.
Confederation Line builder Rideau Transit Group and its general contractor, OLRT Constructors, were backed by some of the biggest names in the industry: EllisDon, SNC-Lavalin and ACS Group.
“I did my homework. They seemed to be straight-up, honest corporations,” said Schwenzer. “The scope of work was very crystal clear … All my employees were very well-trained.
“I was very, very, very comfortable doing it.”
As Schwenzer tells it, that feeling was gone before long. First off, Hardrock’s planned February 2016 start date was pushed back more than half a year.
Once on the work site, his crew was only managing to shoot a fraction of their projected daily shotcrete output the majority of the time — and they were getting paid by the cubic metre. Schwenzer blames delays, inexperienced management and disorganization that had nothing to do with his people.
“I’ve worked for a lot of tunnel companies in my life, and I’ve never worked for a company so bad, so mismanaged.”
One example: Schwenzer said he’d be directed to one of the underground LRT stations and told it was ready for shotcrete. He’d mobilize his crew and they’d move the necessary materials and equipment through the tunnel — a task that would take several days.
“The minute we get there, they’re not ready. And we’re sitting there for three weeks, with nowhere to go.”
Another example: showing up at a work site, finding tonnes of garbage in the way, and being forced to clear it themselves. Or, wading through three feet of mud while spraying concrete.
According to Schwenzer, conditions were so poor that his crew felt uneasy working without him present. This newspaper spoke with multiple employees who corroborated Schwenzer’s account of the dysfunctional work site experience.
In November 2016, three Hardrock workers were on a lift, spraying concrete, when a piece of reinforced steel buckled towards the lift, leaving them trapped. Emergency personnel were called in for the rescue, and one worker needed stitches.
Schwenzer said he warned management about the structural integrity of the rebar at that site.
“They told me I didn’t know what I was talking about, to go shoot (the shotcrete),” he said. “It was the most unsafe work site I’ve ever worked in.”
After that incident, Schwenzer said his crew had to wait two months to get back to work. Meanwhile, he had dozens of workers on his payroll who had been expecting 12-hour-plus days, six days a week, living accommodations and a per-diem.
He said he kept meticulous documentation and would regularly invoice for their work and the delays that were hindering it. “I wasn’t seeing money for months,” said Schwenzer. “It was like talking to a wall. I would get every excuse under the sun. ‘The cheque’s in the mail’ … The mail never came. It was like that on a regular basis.”
In a lawsuit filed last month against RTG, OLRT and the City of Ottawa, Schwenzer alleges that Hardrock is owed more than $10.8 million for its work on the Ottawa LRT tunnel. The company also lost out on $1.5 million in profit, thanks to the extra time it had to spend on the work site, and incurred more than $3 million in delay-related expenses, according to the statement of claim.
The City of Ottawa declined to comment on the lawsuit and the allegations Schwenzer made in his interview with this newspaper. “The matter is between Rideau Transit Group (RTG) and the subcontractor,” said city solicitor David White, in an emailed statement.
RTG said it can’t comment as the matter is before the courts.
This isn’t the only litigation the consortium is facing. At least three other LRT subcontractors have launched multimillion-dollar suits over payments they allege are outstanding, with two of the plaintiffs citing extensive project delays, skyrocketing costs, and “negligence” on the part of the project’s general contractor, OLRT Constructors.
In statements of defence and counterclaims, OLRT denies all of the allegations against it and rejects the subcontractors’ claims for outstanding payment. In fact, it says they’ve been overpaid, and the various subcontractors “failed to perform the work in accordance with the terms of the subcontract(s), resulting in the supply of substandard materials and services, delays and failure to complete the work under the subcontract(s).“
Rather than the anticipated seven months, it took Hardrock Concrete 18 months to finish the LRT tunnel job. Schwenzer said he dug deep into his own pockets to ensure his employees were paid, even when he wasn’t.
“I used all my money to keep going,” he said. “My retirement money, the money that I’d saved, the money that I had from other jobs, went all into the Ottawa tunnel.”
By the end, he was selling off his equipment to cover payroll. Schwenzer estimates he spent a combined $2.8 million from his business and personal savings to finance Hardrock’s work on the LRT project.
Why not walk away? There’s the likelihood of a subsequent lawsuit, but Schwenzer said it went deeper than that.
“I’m a firm believer that a company’s employees make the company, and I’ll stick to that till I die … I wanted to keep my employees working. And I just wanted to finish the job.”
He also said he told from the beginning that he could invoice for any excess work or delays.
“I really believed that we could have resolved the issues, because it was so well documented. And they would see — ‘We messed up. We owe this guy the money’ — and they would pay me.”
On his final drive back to Toronto from Ottawa in February of 2018, Schwenzer remembers wondering if he’d dug himself into a hole too deep to climb back out from. Ultimately, it was.
Nearly out of money, he was unable to get more work and had to help his employees find jobs elsewhere. For months, he agonized over the LRT contract, trying to figure out if he held any responsibility for the way it unravelled. He spoke with crew members, and said everyone concurred — they’d heard nothing but praise for their work.
Soon grappling with severe depression, and in dire financial straits, Schwenzer’s home life deteriorated. He had a wife, two kids, and his own pre-existing post-traumatic stress diagnosis from his earlier years in the military, including three tours in Afghanistan.
For weeks at a time, he would confine himself to a guest room in the basement. It got to be too much for his family, so Schwenzer moved into his shop where he slept on a couch. He soon lost the shop and most of his equipment and spent four months living in the back seat of his truck.
A visit to the Hardrock Concrete Facebook page shows a previously bustling business, with photos from job sites, re-posted letters of reference from former employers, and updates on projects in-the-works. That activity slowed to a crawl in 2018, and now, it’s been almost a year since the last post.
“My family and my business. That was my heart and soul,” said Schwenzer. “I lost everything.”
Slowly, he’s starting again. A friend found him a basement apartment in Newmarket, north of Toronto, and he began a new construction job last Monday where he works for someone else and gets paid by the hour.
Meanwhile, his $12.8-million lawsuit is before the courts. OLRT has filed notice of its intention to defend against Schwenzer’s claim.
“I feel like I just went back 50 years in time, or a million steps backwards,” he said. “But it is what it is. That’s the cards I have to play with now, and that’s all I can do.”
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...rk-led-to-personal-and-professional-ruin
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