U.S. Senate panel pushes
OSHA on worker safety
John Young
Recapper
Oleksandr Zdrylyuk
Truck Driver
(Oregon fatalities are from information
supplied by the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services.)
OREGON COMBAT MILITARY
DEATHS IN 2007
Army Sgt. Joshua C. Brennan
Ontario, Oregon
Army Sgt. Michael Louis Vaughan
Otis, Oregon
Army Sgt. Eliot W. Scott
Portland, Oregon
Army Private Brett Andre Walton
Hillsboro, Oregon
Army Cpl. Graham McMahon
Corvallis, Oregon
Army Sgt. Jason A. Shaffer
Hood River, Oregon
Army Capt. Drew Jensen
Clackamas, Oregon
Army Sgt. 1st Class John J. Stephens
La Grande, Oregon
Army SFC Adrian Marcos Elizalde
North Bend, Oregon
Army Sgt. Nicholas J. Lightner
Newport, Oregon
Army PFC Daniel Allen Leckel
Glendale, Oregon
Marine Lance Cpl. Nathan Windsor
Newport, Oregon
Army Cpl. Kory Wiens
Albany, Oregon
Army Sgt. Long N. Nguyen
Portland, Oregon
Army Specialist Michelle Ring
McMinnville, Oregon
Army Private 1st Class
Brian A. Browning
Astoria, Oregon
Marine Lance Cpl. Steven Stacy
Coos Bay, Oregon
Marine Lance Cpl. Juan Manuel
Garcia-Schill
Grants Pass, Oregon
Army Private 1st Class Ryan J. Hill
Keizer, Oregon
Army Sgt. Sean P. Fennerty
Portland, Oregon
in Afghanistan and Iraq.
16 from the Oregon National Guard;
1 from the Washington National Guard;
Army Specialist Dominic N. Rodriguez
Klamath Falls, Oregon
1 from the New York National Guard;
58 from the United States Army;
3 from the United States Army Reserve;
Army Sgt. 1st Class
Christopher Henderson
Hillsboro, Oregon
Marine Lance Cpl. Dale G. Peterson
Redmond, Oregon
APRIL 18, 2008
19 from the United States Marine Corps;
1 from the United States Air Force;
5 from the United States Navy.
workers are afraid to complain about the working
conditions because they are fearful they will lose
their jobs,” Morrow said of her 1,000-worker
Tyson Poultry plant in Robards, Kentucky.
Those conditions, she added, are far worse than
people imagine. A poultry plant, for example, has
maximum temperatures of 40 degrees Fahrenheit,
with wind whipping through on cold days, icy and
dangerous floors, and common respiratory and
musculoskeletal problems affecting workers who
must lift heavy tubs of chicken on a rapid produc-
tion line at all times.
Frumin said Cintas was repeatedly warned of
the danger of its conveyor belts sucking workers
into its dryers long before one sucked in Gomez.
OSHA has fined Cintas for the same hazards since
Gomez’ death, Frumin told lawmakers. The fine,
which may be reduced on appeal, is $3 million.
That’s “one day’s profits” for Cintas, Frumin
said.
Bianco admitted health and safety attitudes
must come from — and change at — the top for
workers to see any progress.
“This is not a consequence of there being a few
bad apples” in the corporate barrel, said Isakson,
who ran his own business for 33 years before en-
tering politics. “They’re encouraged to be a bad
actor,” he said of corporate titans’ quest for profits.
“If there’s a judicial process that made the CEO
personally accountable for part of the fine, or that
he could be ordered to put in a safety officer” that
would wake companies up, he said.
Isakson, Murray and other lawmakers said they
will work on legislation that identifies and penal-
izes “a pattern and practice” of health and safety
violations. “Penalties for that,” Isakson said,
“would ripple through an industry.”
Wages, job safety at top of
Steelworkers’ bargaining list
104 Oregonians have died while serving
Army Specialist Joseph P. Kenny
Veneta, Oregon
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) — U.S. senators
may be moving in a bipartisan manner toward
pushing the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) to come down hard on
companies that repeatedly skirt safety rules.
At least it sounded that way April 1 at a hearing
of the Senate Workplace Safety Subcommittee.
Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.), co-sponsored
legislation a year ago following the death of Cintas
worker Eleazar Torres-Gomez, who was sucked
into a 300-degree dryer in Tulsa, Okla. Murray
said OSHA has done little to go after repeat viola-
tors.
And the subcommittee’s top Republican, Sen.
Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), said one big fine against
one key firm in an industry for a pattern of ignor-
ing worker safety would send a signal to all the
others, through their trade associations, to obey the
law. Isakson’s state was the scene of a fatal blast
at a sugar refinery, caused by igniting dust.
The senators spoke after Change to Win Health
and Safety Coordinator Eric Frumin, former
OSHA Administrator Gerald Scannell, United
Food and Commercial Workers Local 227 Shop
Steward Doris Morrow, and health and safety con-
sultant Carmen Bianco testified about health and
safety working conditions — 38 years after the
Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed.
A followup hearing will be on April 29, keyed
to Workers Memorial Day, which is April 28.
All four agreed that safety and health on the job
is not just a matter of numbers of deaths and in-
juries, which have been declining for years, but of
corporate culture. “If bosses make safety and
health a priority, injuries, deaths and fear on the
job go down,” they said.
Otherwise, even at a union shop, “many of the
McMINNVILLE, OR — Cascade Steel
Rolling Mills is doing well. Production at the
company’s steel mill here set a record in March,
and sales for the most recent quarter hit a record
202,000 tons. With steel prices also up, about $80
a ton, earnings are up by almost half since a year
ago.
So what was the company’s proposal to its
union workers March 31?
A wage freeze. No cost-of-living increase. And
that’s after workers got just one cost-of-living in-
crease in the last three-year contract — a 1.7 per-
cent raise last April.
For its part, the union wants workers to share in
the good times, starting with decent raises. Cur-
rently, pay starts about $11 and goes as high as
$25, for what can be pretty dangerous industrial
work. The union also wants rules improving par-
ticipation on the safety committee. They want a
$25 increase to the $125 annual boot allowance;
boots with the required metatarsal guards cost that
much and more, and better-made boots of U.S.
manufacture can be over $200. And they want in-
creased job security through a successorship
clause, so that the union contract would remain in
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
force if parent company Schnitzer Steel Industries
decides to sell the mill.
Cascade Steel Rolling Mills produces concrete
reinforcing bar (“rebar”), and various grades of
wire and bars, using scrap steel purchased from
Schnitzer’s steel recycling operation. Much of the
steel produced at the plant is used in construction,
which is experiencing a downturn, but the outlook
remains good for the company. Chinese demand is
soaking up steel production in other Pacific Rim
countries, so Cascade Steel Rolling Mills and one
other U.S. competitor have the West Coast U.S.
market to themselves.
Granted, the wage freeze was the company’s
opening gambit, but the bargaining committee at
United Steelworkers Local 8378 was not amused.
The month before bargaining began Feb. 29,
members voted to authorize the bargaining com-
mittee to strike if needed. Local 8378 President
Joe Munger wonders if the company might be
pushing the union to strike.
The previous contract has expired and is being
extended on a day-to-day basis. The union could
call a strike with 72-hour notice.
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