More than two weeks after I wrote this story, I’m still hearing about hellish work conditions at the Sound Transit tunnel project in Beacon Hill.

But that story dealt with the graveyard shift, where black workers say they were harassed and/or targeted for termination. Brian Corwin, a miner, worked the swing shift, and he is white (Alaskan, actually) and while he doesn’t feel like he was chased off the job the way black workers allegedly were, Corwin reports the same dangerous corner-cutting as regards worker safety.

The agreement with his union, says Corwin, stipulated that the contractor -- Japan-based Obayashi Corp. in this case -- would provide the workers with all their tools and safety equipment. After all Obayashi had been awarded a $280-million contract from Sound Transit, and that money was supposed to pay for these supplies.

Only it hasn't -- not according to firsthand reports of workers, anyway. The graveyard shift workers complained about getting ill-fitting boots (which made them prone to slips), but Corwin says he didn't get a fall-protection harness, which, as its name implies, is pretty damned important when you're working on rocky walls. Also, there tends to be not much light 180 feet below the earth's surface, and so Corwin would have appreciated a helmet with a light, which he says was also a requirement of the contract. Instead, claims Corwin, the company was selling them to their workers for $25. "You have a multi-billion dollar corporation, and they're nickel-and-diming their own workers."

Then there's the issue of tools. Though he says it violates the terms of the contract with the union, Corwin claims Obayashi supervisors expected him to bring his own tools. "They said to me, 'You're going to have to be here a month before we trust you with our tools.'" If what he says is true, a laborer is expected to dig into his own pockets and inflict the same wear-and-tear on his own tools that Sound Transit is paying a multi-national corporation to provide.

The tools that Obayashi provides also raise concerns among workers. Corwin and another miner were drilling with a powerful machine known among miners as a "bull prick." There's a lock that keeps the drill from flying off and slamming into a worker, and on this machine, the lock was broken. Typically, says Corwin, the contractor will fix or replace the equipment immediately, fearing an injury. But Corwin says he and the other miners were simply expected to assume the risk.

Corwin says that workers are supposed to toil right through their lunch breaks -- which didn't bother them except that they didn't get overtime pay for it, as they should have.

Months ago, when word circulated that the job paid $26.40/hour, there were no shortage of miners willing to take the work. But mining is a dangerous job under the best of conditions, much less when the contractor is taking safety shortcuts. It trips the instinct of experienced miners who have seen their kind maimed and killed. "I heard from other guys, 'That's a good hitch,'" says Corwin. "Then I became a witness to all the bullshit, and I said, 'I can't do this.'"

Corwin quit last Saturday, after an incident where he says his irate supervisor dropped a sharp spike inches from his foot -- nearly shearing it off.

So here's the $280-million question: If (as Corwin and other workers allege) Obayashi is saving money by doing less than it was paid to do, then where is the rest of that money going? Perhaps we supporters of Sound Transit can hope to get a check in the millions of dollars back from Obayashi, with a note that says, "We cut some corners and look what we saved you!"

Or perhaps Obayashi's low bid was unrealistic in the first place, and the company needed to slash overhead costs in order to ensure this is a profitable enterprise. In any case, it sounds as though miners are assuming the real risk.

(I have a call in to Paul Zick, Obayashi's project director, but I've yet to hear back.)