Companies Avoid OSHA Penalties After Workplace Deaths

ʻI Think About It A Lotʼ

Every Monday morning at 6:30, the management and employees at Crucible Specialty Metals met to talk safety. Speaking for the workers on the mill floor often fell to Rocky Saccone, who embraced the role.

“They would say, ʻRockʼs on a roll; let him go,ʼ ” Saccone recalled. “It would be days or weeks or months before they would address these issues on the mill, and they wonder why you get upset. It was like pulling teeth.”

One issue that repeatedly surfaced, he said, was installing guards to enclose the rotating shafts on the mill — like the ones that crushed Jack Grobsmith.

“It should have been corrected years and years ago,” he said.

A few years before Grobsmithʼs death, Saccone said he nearly suffered the same fate when the sleeve of his shirt touched an unguarded shaft.

“It ripped it right off in about half a second,” he recalled. “All that was left was the collar of my shirt. The rest of the shirt was disintegrated.”

Then, in May 2008, another workerʼs shirt was caught in an unguarded bar straightener, federal records show. He was flipped over and injured.

OSHA investigated and issued a citation. By that time, OSHA had already cited the company multiple times – in 1997 and again in 2002 – for failing to have machines guarded.

An inspector noted portentously in 2002, “Potentially an employee could trip or slip … and be caught in the two rollers.”

Though OSHA said Crucible fixed the specific problem cited in 2008, the agency told the Center: “The company should have installed guards on similar machines throughout the plant.”

Had Crucible done so, “this may have prevented” Grobsmithʼs death, OSHA wrote.

In 2009, OSHAʼs Syracuse area director authorized the maximum fine for violations related to Grobsmithʼs death “to get the necessary deterrent effect,” he wrote in a memo, noting the companyʼs history of accidents and failure to guard machines.

Three days after a judge approved the settlement between Crucible Specialty Metals and OSHA, a private equity firm finalized its purchase of the company.

A few months later, OSHA received a letter, this time on Crucible Industries letterhead, saying it would take longer than initially agreed to fix the problems inspectors found.

The company “does not admit it bears responsibility for any citations and penalties … issued to and incurred by the previous owners.” It maintained it was correcting cited hazards “in the interest of providing of Crucible Industriesʼ employees a safe workplace.”

Both the settlement agreement and the letter were signed by the same person.

Crucible employees said that, with new owners, there have been safety signs both positive and negative.

“I want to believe that the people up top want the cultural change and want it to work, but Iʼm not sure it filtered all the way down,” said Ed Moran, the safety chairman for the United Steelworkersʼ local.

After her husbandʼs death, Sue Grobsmith considered a lawsuit.

Because of state workersʼ compensation laws, she couldnʼt sue Crucible; her lawyerʼs only option was to investigate the contractors who installed the equipment. Crucible, however, said it couldnʼt find any of the contracts.

“Clearly, Crucible … was to blame,” the lawyer wrote to her. “Unfortunately, with all of this evidence against the employer, we still canʼt sue them.”

Now 59, Sue works for the local school district and keeps in touch with Jackʼs friends from Crucible.

One recent fall day, Saccone and Dave Peel, another longtime friend from Crucible, sat with Sue in the living room of the house she and Jack bought 32 years ago, drinking coffee and talking about Jack.

Sue and Jack started dating in 1969, in high school.

“Right out of high school, I worked for Allstate Insurance, Jack went to school and we knew we were going to get married,” Sue said.

When Jack finished at a two-year college, he planned to go back to school and become a teacher and coach. Yet a summer job at Crucible changed his mind; the promise of a good paycheck enticed him.

They married in 1972 and had three children. As Jack ascended the ranks at Crucible, double shifts became common. He became close with co-workers, sharing barbecues, graduations, weddings.

“Heʼd have me in tears at times because heʼd be so damn funny,” Rocky said. “It could be an old, stale joke that I would still laugh at after 30 years.”

Inevitably, the conversation returned to Jan. 15, 2009. As Rocky described running to Jackʼs battered body, Sueʼs expression changed.

“I didnʼt know that you were the first there,” she said, grabbing his hand. “Thanks, Rock.” Rocky paused, and his eyes welled.

“I think about it a lot,” he said. “I still do. I think about it a lot.”

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/12/21/11945/even-after-workplace-deaths-companies-avoid-osha-penalties

Originally published by The Center For Public Integrity, December 21, 2012

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