Fatality on her first shift
December 15, 2009 by marketingPosted in: Fatality, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Lawsuits, Safety training
They didn’t even give the most minimal safety training to a temp who was just supposed to sweep the floor.
That proved to be a fatal error in more ways than one. The temp was killed one hour before she was supposed to have finished her very first shift.
The plant was engulfed in and eventually overwhelmed by litigation (criminal prosecution by the Department of Justice, multiple OSHA fines and abatement orders, plus a civil suit by the surviving husband), so a few months later the whole plant was forced to shut down.
The temp sweeping the floor around an assembly line wanted to do a good job to aspire to a permanent position in the plant. She had no trouble getting inside a fence that was supposed to keep people out. That’s when the machine started up and crushed her to death.
Safety officer lost his job, too
Among the people who lost their jobs in the plant closure was the safety manager.
When he was interviewed by OSHA inspector Vanessa Martin, she already knew from interviews with other employees that the fence safety locks were routinely rigged with Styrofoam wads.
“I’m actually kind of glad that you already found out,” the safety manager said, “because I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell you.”
From the presentation, “OSHA’s most interesting cases” at the National Safety Council.
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Tags: Fatality, litigation, Safety training
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December 10th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I wonder if there was any kind of signage outlining the danger(s) inside the fence. I’m assuming by using “styrofoam wads” a key wasn’t needed for access? Well I am going to use this to reinforce why I must have new employees on the first day to do safety training so at least some good may come from it.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
What a tragedy, and it’s a shame that it was entirely preventable. I also wonder if there were signs explaining the dangers existing behind the fence, and if . That simple step could have saved a life and many jobs, and sadly it does serve as an example to other safety programs. It seems like unqualified workers are often overlooked in the safety training process, and they can be as much of a danger to others as they can be to themselves.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I can’t help but wonder if the plant management had used training on first day on the job as a key performance indicator for line supervisors evaluation would it have made a difference. So sad to think of all the sites only tracking accidents, not using metrics to help prevent more of them.
December 15th, 2009 at 10:22 am
It would have been so easy for someone to take her around and show her where the hazards are. I can not imagine starting work at a new place without at least getting a tour of the facility.
New employees at my company are given 4 hours of safety training on their first day which includes a plant tour and explanations of existing hazards like machinery and traffic patterns for heavy equipment.
December 15th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I do Safety orientations for everyone, whether Temps or permanent full time. It’s a shame that a company, any company can be so negligent. They deserve to have their doors closed. A pity for all the dedicated workers, but shame on the supervisor and management that allow unsafe conditions to exist in the workplace!
December 15th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
It is virtually impossible to spend an adequate amount of time with temp employees to give them a proper safety orientation. A better solution is to provide the temp agency you employ with the info specific to your facility so they can properly orient their employees. There are lots of easy ways to do this and if the agency wants your business they will comply. But the bigger issue here is not the lack of orientation, it is the company’s decision to ignore the hazard. By-passing the safety cage appears to be a common practice that should have been addressed with proper inspections and progressive discipline. And just my opinion but I sense that the safety manager has zero support from upper management, which is critical to maintaining safety standards and awareness.
December 15th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
John, I agree with everything you said, except to pass the orientation on to the Temp agency. The agancy may not know of all the hazard that are in “your” facility, and I don’t think they should be required to know so. That is just another case of pass the safety buck to someone else, only to wipe your hands of the safty issue. Safety managers are in place (or should be) not only to inforce, but to educate every employee of all safety hazard that they may encounter everyday, and to prevent accidents. Even if that means shuting down an area, production line, walkway, ladder, on-off switch, PPE LO/TO, or whatever may cause injury.
December 15th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Joe - Sorry but I have to disagree. Requiring the temp agency to be involved in your safety program is not passing the safety buck; it is about inclusion and taking responsibility for the safety of their employees. As I said in my post, there are ways to accomplish this. I do it with videos that I produce, and then give to the temp agency so that when they arrive at our facility they know how to do the job and do it safely. I’m glad that you do what you do but in our case we have a temp for a day or two, and then we get someone different, so spending four hours on a worker that will be there for one day just doesn’t make sense. On the other hand, today I trained 8 temps on proper use of the powered hand trucks because the agency does not have the equipment for that. So for the record we do not pass the safety buck and wipe our hands, we simply provide the necessary tools to the agency for safety related training that they can accomplish.
December 16th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Are you kidding me…. The Safety Manager actually said “I’m actually kind of glad that you already found out,” “because I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell you.” That is pure negligence. He should have called OSHA long before that woman lost her life. He is absolutely a large part of the reason that she died. I know that all safety people are taught that you are legally resposnible for incidents and injuries if you don’t do training for employees. More OSHA inspections are done due to Safety People complaints than anyone would guess. OSHA does not tell who called. I say do your job or get out of the business and if you are just at work to collect a paycheck and not to take care of your employees and make sure they go home the same way they came to work then shame on you.
December 16th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
John, I capitulate, and think an applause is in order. I can see why you would have the Tempt agency do safety training for you. The fact is, Safety training is not being neleglected, by you. I would say, to keep the Tempt agency “on piont” I would have the Tempt person supply your company with a Training Progress Report, which they would have received from the agancy, regarding such training, pryor to their 1st day of work. I would also keep that report in a Personal file. If there is an injury OSHA won’t except “I thought the Tempt agency did safety training for us!” I learned early on, Document! Document!, and then Document….Take Care
December 16th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Safety Lady-
On the issue regarding the safety manager, where in my post did I say the safety manager was not negligent? I merely said that the safety manager has no support from upper management.
Joe2 - Thanks for reconsidering your position and for your advice about documentation. I never said we don’t insure proper training, only that we expect the agency to do what they can and we do what they can’t. Since the agency sends their employees to a variety of facilities, they need to do the generics like lock out tagout while we provide training specific to our facility like hazardous materials, safety interlocks, etc.
Hope you both have a safe holiday.
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:00 am
I walk around and notice people not wearing their steel toed shoes. I even walked up to the General Manager with a heavy weight in my hands and held it over his foot and asked “If I dropped this is your foot protected?” He said “No.” Then I followed up with “How can I be expected to enforce upon the rest of the employees to wear their safety gear if management isn’t wearing theirs?”
Many companies treat safety management as a collateral duty, I know it’s that way with me at my company. I’m also responsible for reviewing all the drawings produced by the engineers, creating part numbers, outsourcing, assisting with shop employees with errors or missing information for parts and for getting the work orders out to the shop for production. Often times the production work is more then one person can handle and it has to be sent out to keep the shop floor busy.
I have to do safety meetings, do safety walk through and safety indoctrination for new people. I’m never informed when a new person arrives and have to go out and ask when there is a break in production work. I normally try to take in several people at once to make good use of my time.
Everyone is responsible for safety and that is especially true for the supervisors. The supervisors are the ones that are supposed to do the enforcing because they are the ones that are right there on the spot. That one safety manager can’t be everywhere all the time and he needs to get with the supervisor of people that are conducting themselves unsafely.
People get to be too comfortable with their surroundings and it becomes especially apparent with an entire company if nothing serious has ever happened within that company. Even then after a couple years they will forget and it’s up to the safety manager to keep them reminded that accidents do happen and here’s a couple examples that have occurred right here.
I have a few that I keep fresh in everyone’s minds at just about every safety meeting every month:
- Had a guy lose his teeth from someone else using a table saw without the guard in place.
- Had a guy have both his legs busted because someone removed some boards that were in place to prevent a part of the machine from moving during it’s construction.
- Had a guy lose two fingers while adjusting some metal rectangular tubing that were 20′ long to be picked up by a forklift, one end slipped off the rack while his hand was holding the other end and it quickly went up and smashed his fingers against a part of the metal rack.
We’ve had several people get debris in their eyes even when wearing safety eye wear and I use that to enforce upon people that aren’t wearing theirs about how much more they are at risk.
I have eye wash stations that are few and far between. OSHA says they are supposed to be within 15 seconds walking from anywhere within the company. I tried to get some eyewash stations to satisfy that requirement and was shot down by management. They don’t want to spend the money. I even brought them out and showed them and it didn’t change anything.
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Robert -
You are preaching to the choir. But focus on the fact that while you don’t get everything you want or need to enhance safety, everything you do or every success you celebrate adds up to a safer workplace at the end of the day. In a perfect world safety would come first; anti-fatigue mats would be a no-brainer, new equipment would never begin production until approved for safety, and you would know every time a new employee started so a proper safety orientation could be done. But the world ain’t perfect and the almighty dollar rules. So hang in there and don’t give up, because what you and every other person in charge of safety does every day to eliminate hazards, create awareness, and change behavior, makes more of a difference than you know.
I wish a safe and happy holiday and an optimistic outlook in 2010 to everyone, but especially to those who think their safety efforts are in vain.
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Robert, it sounds to me like you are making every effort. John is right. If you can make one person understand the importance of safety or make a difference for one employee you have accomplished a lot more than someone who just gives up. Every person that is in the safety proffession that really cares about the well being of employees makes a major difference. However, make sure that you document everytime that you brought a safety regulation up to upper management and were shot down due to financial reasons or lack of urgency/caring on their part. It is important to protect yourself as well. I am very fortunate in that I only answer to the President of the company and that he is 100% behind me. Many safety people don’t have that going for them. Document everything.
Everyone have a safe and happy holiday season!!!!!!!!
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Safety Lady -
WOW- we agree! Earlier posts had me thinking we were at odds so sorry if I came off a little defensive. I think we’re all in the same boat, but some of our ‘captains (ceo’s, etc.) think that getting to the destination (the bottom line) is worth any cost (damn the torpedo’s, full speed ahead). You are right in saying that you’re lucky to have support. I’ve had to leave jobs where I cared about the people but could not help them, not even a little. And thanks for the reminder about protecting yourself. I need to start saving e-mails. If management support is weak on a daily basis, surely there would be no support if a willful violation (informed by me, ignored by mgmt) resulted in a fatality and criminal prosecution.
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:10 pm
A safety officer who calls OSHA on his own company might as well quit his job at that company. I assure you that if I called OSHA on my company I would be fired on the spot with extreme prejudice. Calling OSHA on your own company is a ridiculous idea and equates to running to mommy or daddy because you aren’t brave enough or lack the fortitude to confront people face to face.
The safety officer simply should not have allowed the gate issue to exist at all. If his supervisors insisted on over-riding him then he needed to be a whistle-blower and contact the corporate office. If that doesn’t work, then the company simply doesn’t have a safety program and therefore the safety officer really doesn’t have a job and ought to look for one. In the interim, he should buck the corporate rule because he has law on his side and simply lock the gate himself and if need be, make it so that he’s the only one with a key. Sure he’d get fired at this point in time, but he’s done his due diligence and will be a better person for it. Maybe at that juncture he needs to let OSHA know. Additionally, if he’s smart, his correspondence on the issue would have been done via email so that it is documented and he should have a copy of the documentation.
Never, ever, ever call OSHA on your own company.
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I agree with Mike.
In my situation, I might not get the support I need for anything that requires spending money but when it comes to mechanical issues that we have the capability of fixing ourselves and that involves practically everything mechanical here, I get results, I have the support I need in that aspect.
I think the safety officer of that company could have gotten it taken care of, he just chose not too and it bit him in the butt.
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Robert -
Glad you have the support to get machine hazards rectified, but I really don’t think the guy in the story chose not to get the gate fixed. He probably hounded and preached continually but he can’t be in all places at all times. If the floor supes don’t get a directive from on top or if they feel pressure to get the jobs out they WILL take shortcuts. This didn’t bite the safety guy in the butt, it bit management, who I’m sure will now up their safety ante, at least for a while.
October 19th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
To be honest all this stories make me wonder everyday if I should call OSHA or not. I have the best of the intentions and the drive to make things happen but the last two companies I have worked for don’t. I have included copies of articles like this in emails I sent and in our safety meetings but they neglect training and programs that are so important like LOTO. I have been told by my superiors that if they have not have a fine for 25 years we can wait 5 more to make things happen and to focus on the safety meetings IIPP etc… And many of us know that without support from the owners there is not much you can do…I need my job but I can not carry someone’s life in my concience. So Mike and Robert… you are wrong. There are times when calling OSHA is the only way to be ethical and to do the right thing not for you but for the hundreds of workers you represent… Since I have not been here very long I am trying to give them a chance and find different alternatives to motivate them to do what is right but if things continue the same…. I WILL CALL OSHA.