A Greater Cincinnati-based company is facing yet another large fine from workplace safety regulators for failing to install guardrails around conveyor belts in its facilities.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a citation this week against Cintas Corp. over alleged safety hazards at its laundry facility in Mobile, Ala. The agency imposed $196,000 in penalties against Cintas for exposing Mobile workers to illegal hazards "likely to cause death or serious physical harm," OSHA’s citation stated.
OSHA reported 15 violations at the Mobile site, including exposing workers to potentially lethal electrical shock hazards, as well as exposing them to “injurious corrosive” chemicals and large, open pits filled with waste water.
Also, OSHA stated that workers were exposed to a potentially fatal falling hazard while they were on top of the conveyors, a hazard the agency classified as “willful.” Willful violations are committed with “intentional disregard” for the law or “plain indifference” to worker safety, according to OSHA guidelines.
The latest penalty is the fifth time that government safety inspectors have cited Cintas for potentially lethal safety hazards at its facilities since a worker was killed at the company’s Tulsa laundry in March.
Eleazar Torres-Gomez died after he became caught on a large, robotic conveyor belt that is used to transfer uniforms from washers to dryers. Gomez was dragged into the dryer and already was dead from burns when another worker found him about 20 minutes later.
In August, OSHA proposed an unprecedented $2.78 million fine for violations that led to Gomez’s death. Cintas is appealing the fine but, if upheld, it would be the largest ever penalty issued in the service sector for health and safety violations.
Additionally, the California version of OSHA issued a special order against Cintas at its Stockton, Calif., facility. The agency gave Cintas until Jan. 4 to install guardrails around automated conveyer belts there. OSHA has issued citations for similar violations at Cintas facilities in Ohio and Washington.
A congressional subcommittee is urging OSHA to conduct a comprehensive investigation of all Cintas facilities nationwide. The House Committee on Education and Labor earlier this month sent a letter to the agency repeating its request.
Casual readers, however, wouldn’t know much about the hometown company’s abysmal safety record from reading Cincinnati’s newspaper of record. In fact, Peter Bronson — The Enquirer’s conservative columnist — wrote a glowing column Sunday about Cintas that blamed all of the company’s ills on a unionization effort by the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). In his column, Bronson noted a vigil held at Cintas’ corporate headquarters in Mason last week while its annual shareholders meeting was underway. Picketers carried signs that read, “Remember Eleazar Torres Gomez.”
Bronson wrote, “Who is Gomez, I wondered, and what does he have to do with Cintas? The answer tells us a lot about how far unions will go to distort the truth and destroy a successful company.”
That Bronson didn’t already know who Gomez was speaks volumes about the columnist’s appallingly narrow view of current events and lack of intellectual curiosity.
Bronson asks one or two Cintas workers for their opinions about the company before concluding, “Just ask employees — Cintas bosses are good people. They care about their employee ‘partners.’ That’s why UNITE can’t get a toehold.”
As part of CityBeat’s ongoing coverage of safety hazards at Cintas, we’ve talked to several current and former employees — most of whom paint a strikingly different picture.
Workers are tempted to climb atop conveyor belts to meet unrealistically high quotas set for them by supervisors, many workers said. Those quotas are the main factor used to determine pay raises, raises that often are denied for minor infractions like getting a “Cintas parking ticket” for parking in the wrong space outside the facility.
Tellingly, the workers said Cintas supervisors are paranoid about any unionization efforts and regularly tell them anti-union propaganda. Maybe that attitude is why the National Labor Relations Board this spring issued a complaint against a Cintas facility in Vista, Calif., alleging the company impeded unionization efforts by threatening to close the facility, threatening to rescind some benefits and ordering workers to sign an anti-union petition.
The complaint alleges management told workers that one supervisor would “kick (workers) with steel-toed boots” to show he wasn’t afraid of union organizing efforts.
Regardless, 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.”
Overall, 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.
Let’s see how Bronson spins those statistics.
— Kevin Osborne
(Illustration: Safetecvision.co.uk)
Bronson is a tool. His columns aren't even well-written. I can't imagine why the Enquirer keeps him around. Maybe we should start some sort of campaign demanding his ouster?
Posted by: Caleb | November 02, 2007 at 11:08 AM