Cintas Fine Highest Ever

National workplace safety regulators are proposing an unprecedented $2.78 million fine against Cintas Corp. for violations that led to the death of a worker at a company laundry in Tulsa, Okla.

Cintas can appeal the fine recommended by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) but, if upheld, the penalty will be the largest ever fine issued in the service sector for health and safety violations.

Safety inspectors reported 46 illegal hazards in the Tulsa laundry— including 42 “willful” violations. At least one citation was for not protecting workers from the type of equipment that was involved in Eleazar Torres-Gomez’s death in March. Under OSHA rules, willful violations are committed with “intentional disregard” for the law or “plain indifference” to worker safety.

Torres-Gomez died after he became caught in a conveyor belt and was dragged into an industrial dryer, where he was trapped for 20 minutes in a compartment where temperatures reach 300 degrees Fahrenheit. He was 46 and had worked at Cintas for seven years when the accident occurred.

Cintas CEO Scott Farmer issued a press release blaming Torres-Gomez for his own death shortly after the incident, and the company is fighting his family’s worker compensation claim. The Torres-Gomez family has since filed a negligence lawsuit against Cintas.

“The thought of how my father must have suffered haunts me and my family everyday,” said Emmanuel Torres, one of Torres Gomez’s four children, in a prepared statement. “We hope our loss will not be in vain and that Cintas will fix the unsafe conditions in Tulsa and throughout the country.”

Also, OSHA has proposed an additional $117,500 fine against Cintas for similar conditions at the company’s Columbus laundry.

Cintas may appeal the OSHA citation, which would delay the requirement to fix
the hazards for up to several years.

Records show that Cintas has been cited for more than 170 OSHA violations in its facilities nationwide since 2003. Of that number, more than 70 citations were violations that OSHA determined could cause “death or serious physical harm.”

In fact, Cintas has paid nearly $200,000 in initial penalties, including more than $30,000 in penalties for “repeated” violations of the same identical standards in multiple company locations.

Overall, OSHA inspectors have found multiple hazards or violations in 31 of the 42 inspections that they have conducted in that period -- for an astonishing 75 percent rate of failure.

Last year the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health listed Cintas as one of “America's 12 most dangerous employers.”

Cintas’ safety record is getting congressional attention. The House Committee on Education and Labor is pushing OSHA to conduct a sweeping nationwide workplace safety investigation of Cintas.

“After years of indifference and downright negligence when it comes to workplace safety, this multi-million dollar citation should serve as a wakeup call to Cintas that it has both a moral and legal obligation to protect its employees,” said U.S. Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.), a former clothing factory worker and a member of the House Education and Labor Committee.

“OSHA's findings prove that Cintas’ inaction led to the death of Mr. Torres-Gomez —despite the company’s ridiculous allegations that he tried to commit suicide or was too ‘stupid’ to operate the machinery,” Hare continued. “I am pleased at the historic amount of this fine and hope Cintas will begin to install necessary safety equipment in its laundries across the country. For too long Cintas has found it cheaper to pay fines for labor and workplace safety violations than to actually change the way it does business.”

Based in Mason, Cintas is the largest uniform supplier in North America. In 2006 the company reported sales of $3.4 billion, an 11 percent increase from its previous year’s revenue of $3.07 billion.

— Kevin Osborne

Comments

[No Justice, No Peace!]

Send some of them to jail. That will give them a real wake up call.

[John Fox]

I'm the editor of CityBeat, so of course what I'm about to say is completely biased and self-serving. But Kevin's original cover story last month on Cintas' safety record was and remains a classic example of the value of the alternative press. Cintas is run by the powerful Farmer family and provides a lot of jobs in this area, so the mainstream media is loathe to criticize them. The Enquirer gave up investigative reporting involving corporations after they were pulverized by Carl Lindner and Chiquita back in 1998. Of course, many allegations of that original Chiquita series have proven over the years to be true, but The Enquirer will not take on private businesses any more. No one else in the mainstream media does either. Kevin's story (which he links to above) opened the door for the public to know what's going on at Cintas, and now this OSHA fine recommendation takes that story one step further. I can tell you it's a little nerve-wracking for a small organization like CityBeat to take on a huge corporation, but that's our duty and our mission. And we're very fortunate to have staffers like Kevin who understand that the more uncomfortable a story makes you as a writer the more valuable a story it probably is.

[Dan]

The Enquirer ran a tepid little item in the business section of today's paper.

Speak truth to power!