McWane Executive Sentenced to Prison For Clean Air Violations

Some companies never seem to learn. Charles Matlock, an executive with an affiliate of the notorious McWane Corporation, has been sentenced by a federal court to a year and a day in prison and a $20,000 fine for violating the federal Clean Air Act.

As one reader pointed out to me upon reading about this, the company's fines would have been much lower if they had just filtered the air through workers lungs instead of into the outside air. The only way an employer can go to jail under the Occupational Safety and Health Act is if they knowingly violate a standard that results in the death of a worker. Penalties under the Clean Air Act (and most other environmental legislation) are much more severe.

Matlock is an executive of the Pacific States Cast Iron Pipe Co in Sprinville, Utah. Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Company, owned by the notorious McWane Inc., an Alabama-based conglomerate whose extensive record of safety and environmental violations was highlighted in a 2003 NY Times/Frontline series.

On Feb. 8, a federal judge sentenced McWane to pay a fine of $3 million – the largest criminal environmental fine in Utah history – and serve a 3-year period of probation, after it pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act. At that time, Matlock also pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act by rendering inaccurate a stack emissions test required under the act.

"[The] sentencing of the former vice president and general manager of Pacific States Pipe Company underscores McWane's lamentable record of serious environmental misconduct nationwide," said Granta Nakayama, EPA's assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance. "The message should be clear that prosecutions will go as high up the corporate hierarchy as the evidence permits and we will hold senior managers of corporations accountable, as well as the corporation itself. All company employees should definitely think twice about knowingly breaking the law because they should clearly understand that they will face incarceration and fines for harming the environment and putting the public at risk."

Prosecutors were not happy with McWane's actions:

"Protecting local communities from harmful air pollution depends upon honest reporting by regulated companies, and when senior corporate executives cheat on required tests, public health and the environment suffer," said David Uhlmann, chief of the Justice Department's Environmental Crimes Section.

Last April, Atlantic States, along with four of its managers at a New Jersey plant, were found guilty of conspiring to evade workplace safety and environmental laws. After that verdict, Uhlmann said that the verdicts "demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that McWane is one of the worst and most persistent violators of our nation's environmental and worker safety laws," said in an interview.

Related Articles

• GUILTY: The "McWane Way" May Land Managers In Jail, April 27, 2006
• McWane Guilty Again June 12, 2005
• Jury To McWane: It's Not Nice To Pollute Mother Nature, June 12, 2005
• McWane Admits to Environmental CrimesMarch 23, 2005
• Of Fish and Men: Corporate Penalties And The Law, March 19, 2005
• Another McWane Death, January 25, 2005
• McWane Employee Admits Illegal Dumping, May 31, 2004
• More Charges Against McWane, May 26, 2004
• McWane a "Model Corporate Citizen?"....God Help Us All!, December 16, 2003
• McWane/Tyler Pipe: Getting better or Same Old, Same Old?, September 28, 2003
• McWane Fined Again, September 8, 2003
• Oops, McWane Does it Again: Mistakes Are Made, July 24, 2003
• Three Finger Defense: McWane/Atlantic Pipe Talks to the Press, July 24, 2003
• McWane Fingered in Workplace AccidentThe NY Times ..., June 5, 2003
• More McWane Violations: High Crimes, Low Fines, April 15, 2003

GUILTY: The "McWane Way" May Land Managers In Jail

Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Company, owned by the notorious McWane Inc., an Alabama-based conglomerate whose extensive record of safety and environmental violations was highlighted in a 2003 NY Times/Frontline series, along with four of its managers, were found guilty earlier this week of conspiring to evade workplace safety and environmental laws.

Yesterday's verdict marks the fifth time a McWane plant has been found guilty of federal crimes since The New York Times published a series of articles in 2003 about McWane's safety and environmental record.

In the four previous cases, McWane was ordered to pay a total of $19 million in fines and restitution, and several current or former managers were fined or sentenced to probation. The Atlantic States verdict is likely to bring many millions more in criminal fines; Atlantic States was found guilty on 32 of 34 counts. The four managers, all found guilty of multiple felony charges, face possible prison terms.

Prosecutors didn't have many nice things to say about the company

"Today's sweeping verdicts demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that McWane is one of the worst and most persistent violators of our nation's environmental and worker safety laws," David M. Uhlmann, chief of the Justice Department's environmental crimes section, said in an interview. The case represented the most serious confrontation yet between McWane and the Justice Department.

Prosecution witnesses, including several former foundry supervisors, depicted a brutal and dangerous workplace at Atlantic States, in Phillipsburg, N.J. They told of rigged smokestack tests, of polluted wastewater dumped under cover of night, of regulators stalled at the front gate while flagrant safety violations were hidden. Workers, they said, were blamed for accidents even when shoddy equipment or inadequate training was the real cause. Prosecutors called it "the McWane way."

"Welcome to Atlantic States, a division of McWane, where production is priority number one — everything else is incidental," Norv McAndrew, an assistant United States attorney.

***

Two incidents framed much of the trial testimony. The first concerned the foundry's response when environmental officials showed up one weekend day in 1999 to investigate the cause of an 8.5-mile oil slick on the Delaware River. The second focused on the actions of foundry managers after an employee was run over by a forklift and killed in 2000.

In both cases, prosecutors said, top foundry managers conspired to obstruct official investigations. "There was an implicit agreement between all of them," Mr. McAndrew said, "to work together for the common goal, and that goal was to deceive. That goal was to lie."

The managers that face jail time were convicted of a variety of crimes:

Besides the conspiracy charges, the four Atlantic States managers were convicted on other charges involving specific environmental and workplace crimes.

[John] Prisque, the plant manager, was convicted of making false statements to safety investigators after three separate workplace accidents, including the forklift fatality. In another, a worker had three fingers amputated in a cement mixer, and in another a worker lost an eye when a saw blade broke.

[Craig] Davidson, Jeffrey Maury, the maintenance supervisor, and Scott Faubert, the human resources manager, were all convicted of lying to either environmental or workplace safety investigators.

The New York Times article, written by David Barstow who is the Pulitzer Prize winning co-author of the oringal McWane series, points out that this is one of the first cases where the federal government is using stiffer environmental laws, on top of the much weaker Occupational Safety and Health Act to prosecute workplace wrongdoing. OSHA announced this program with little fanfare around a year ago.

Personally, while I think it's quite appropriate to to see prison sentences being used to punish workplace crimes instead of generally ineffectual financial penalties, you have to wonder if the managers are just evil, or whether they're acting under the direct (or implied) orders from above. In other words, what was it about the environment or "culture" in which they worked that encouraged them to cut corners, neglect safety standards and lie to government officials?

You can't help but feel sorry for the relatives:

Outside the courtroom after the verdicts were read, Jane Prisque, the elderly mother of defendant John Prisque, the plant manager, sobbed in the arms of Phyllis Davidson, the mother of defendant Craig Davidson, the finishing supervisor at the foundry.

"They don't deserve this. They were doing their jobs," Prisque said. "They took them out of the plant in chains. They're all good men. They didn't do nothing."

Craig Davidson's father, Stuart, stood nearby seething at prosecutors and jurors.

"I can't believe it. It's just pathetic what our government can do to us," he said. "They're just a bunch of tree huggers."

Well, not quite. And just "doing their jobs" sounds like a line out of Nuremburg. Nevertheless, if, as we hope, the idea of criminal prosecution catches on in this country, we need to do a lot more thinking about the issue of of "who should go to jail" -- particularly in big companies with many layers of management .



Related Articles

• McWane Guilty Again June 12, 2005
• Jury To McWane: It's Not Nice To Pollute Mother Nature, June 12, 2005
• McWane Admits to Environmental CrimesMarch 23, 2005
• Of Fish and Men: Corporate Penalties And The Law, March 19, 2005
• Another McWane Death, January 25, 2005
• McWane Employee Admits Illegal Dumping, May 31, 2004
• More Charges Against McWane, May 26, 2004
• McWane a "Model Corporate Citizen?"....God Help Us All!, December 16, 2003
• McWane/Tyler Pipe: Getting better or Same Old, Same Old?, September 28, 2003
• McWane Fined Again, September 8, 2003
• Oops, McWane Does it Again: Mistakes Are Made, July 24, 2003
• Three Finger Defense: McWane/Atlantic Pipe Talks to the Press, July 24, 2003
• McWane Fingered in Workplace AccidentThe NY Times ..., June 5, 2003
• More McWane Violations: High Crimes, Low Fines, April 15, 2003

Workplace "Dirty Dozen" Report Calls For Stopping Corporate Killers

The National Council on Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) released a report today listing twelve companies -- a dirty dozen -- whose reckless disregard for their employees’ safety and health has had tragic consequences for workers and their families. Coinciding with Workers Memorial Day, April 28, the report announces a new National COSH campaign, “Stop Corporate Killers” which calls for an overhaul of the regulatory system to ensure that workers realize the right to a safe and healthy workplace that the Occupational Safety and Health Act promised.

The "Dirty Dozen" consists of the following companies: British Petroleum, Cintas Corp, DuPont Corp, Hayes Lemmerz International, Honda Motor Company of America, International Coal Group (Sago Mine), McWane, Safety Bingo Inc, Sunesis, UNICCO, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and W. R. Grace.

The “Stop Corporate Killers” Campaign calls for

1. Stronger enforcement of current standards and regulations, including higher penalties and increased criminal prosecution of corporate irresponsibility in cases of willful and egregious actions by employers that result in fatalities and serious workplace injurie


2. Promulgation of new and revised standards to address known hazards.


3. Revision of policies to increase the participation of unions in the OSHA process after the inspection and investigation occurs.


4. Revision of OSHA policies to include families of victims in agency procedures and access to information and increased rights to compensation.


5. Preservation of the right of workers and citizens to bring suits in the civil courts and have their claims presented before a jury of their peers when corporations have wantonly violated their rights to safe workplaces and communities.


6. Appointment of individuals to key safety and health positions on the basis of knowledge and competence, not ideology and political connections


7. Passage of a criminal prosecution law authorizing OSHA to indict corporations for felony manslaughter when they cause the death of workers by willfully violating safety and health laws.

Donald Coit Smith, whose son (far right in the photo) was killed last year in a meatpacking fatality, stated that:

Another death incident was posted at OSHA. A company in North Tonawonda, New York was cited $60,000 for 20 violations as a result of Corporate America not caring. No lockout procedures, no employee training, no lockout inspections just to name 3 of the citations given. OSHA does not have the power to stop these killings. Our legislature and lawmaking entities MUST TAKE CHARGE and quit covering up for companies killing people. Violations of the law, especially where death is concerned, must carry stiff penalties to include long jail terms. There's no difference in what happened in New York and someone getting run over by a drunk driver...except the laws protect companies. They are, in effect, getting away with murder.

The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health is a federation of local and statewide "COSH" groups--Committees/Coalitions on Occupational Safety and Health consisting of health and technical professionals, labor unions, and others that work to promote worker health and safety through education, training, and policy advocacy.

A Spanish language copy of the report can be found here.

McWane's Latest High Crimes

When Santa sits down to decide who's been naughty and who's been nice, McWane and its subsidiary Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Co. will be in for a major lump of coal.

Atlantic States is on trial in New Jersey for a variety of environmental and workplace crimes. McWane, you may remember, is the company made notorious for its workpace safety and environmental crimes, first publicized in a 2003 New York Times/Frontline series. The most disturbing thing about this story and all the other McWane stories (see the list at the end of this post) is not so much what we know about McWane's crimes, but all that we don't know about what is going on in other workplaces across the country that OSHA (or the New York Times) never has a chance to get to.

Tom Quigley of the Easton, PA Express-Times is covering the trial. You really need to read all the articles to get the full flavor, but here's a taste of Atlantic States' high crimes and misdemeanors.

• Federal prosecutors allege a March 19, 1998, oil slick on the Delaware River stemmed from large oil puddles and other sources within the Atlantic States plant.

• Atlantic States plant managers intimidated workers. :

Isabel Mendoza said he suffered serious burns on one hand while working near the foundry's' huge production oven. He said he later hired an attorney to help him file a worker's compensation claim.

But Mendoza said Prisque told him he would only get $700 or $800 in the settlement.

"He said 'What are you going to do with that money if you don't have a job,'" Mendoza testified.

Mendoza said he understood Prisque's words to mean he'd be fired if he pursued his claim. Mendoza told jurors he called his attorney and canceled the claim.

• Plant managers ordered workers to lie to OSHA inspectors:

Mendoza said the former plant manager also ordered him to lie to a federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigator after a co-worker was injured on June 25, 1999, while operating a saw used to cut the big pipes.

After the injury occurred, Mendoza was told to wear a hardhat with a face shield, goggles, safety glasses and gloves while operating the saw, he testified. He said after the injury, a wire mesh was added to a safety shield between the operator and the saw.

Prisque told Mendoza to tell the OSHA inspector that operators always wore the protective safety equipment and that the wire mesh on the shield was in place at the time of the accident, Mendoza said.

He told jurors he lied to the investigator as ordered. "I wanted to keep my job and put food on the table," he said.

***
Defense attorneys on Thursday cited reprimands issued against Mendoza for failing to abide by the safety rules in place at the foundry. Mendoza admitted he did not wear safety equipment and said the equipment made if difficult to see.
He said everyone at the plant did it and workers would quickly put the gear on when they saw a manager come by. Then they simply removed it.

"It was a joke," he said.

Donning safety goggles and a hard hat with a safety shield, O'Reilly strolled in front of jurors as he questioned Mendoza about the company's rules requiring workers to wear the equipment.

"You can wear it," Mendoza said, "but then you can't work."

(Note: Reread the above paragraph and then think about Senator Michael Enzi's (R-UT) newly introduced OSHA deform legislation that would penalize workers for not wearing personal protective equipment like goggles.)

• To save money on equipment maintenance, Atlantic States managers forced employees to work in unsafe conditions:

Robert Owens described the day a blade from a cutoff saw broke off and struck him on the head while working at the Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Co. in Phillipsburg.

Owens told jurors Monday during the ongoing Atlantic States trial that he was cutting pipe when the injury occurred. He said the next thing he remembers is regaining consciousness as workers picked him up off the floor with blood running down his face and a throbbing sensation in his head.

"I couldn't see out of the left eye," he said. He now has a prosthetic eyeball that replaces the eye he lost in the June 25, 1999, accident at the foundry.

"I always say if I got a million dollars tomorrow I still wouldn't get my sight back," the 57-year-old Stroudsburg resident said after testifying. Owens said another plant employee walked him outside and then drove him to Easton Hospital in a pickup truck.

Owens said he lost his eye in the accident and also suffered nerve damage and a head injury that led surgeons to put two plates in his head. Owens testified that he was working as a relief man in the foundry's finishing department when the accident occurred.

The job required him to fill in at various work stations as employees took their breaks. One of those stations involved operating the cutoff saw.

He said a safety shield designed to protect workers from flying debris was always too dirty to see through and he had to bend and extend his head beyond the shield to see. Owens said he also couldn't wear the safety goggles supplied by the foundry because they always fogged up. He told jurors he often had to dodge flying blade parts when operating the saw.

"I would basically have to step to the side or get out of the way the best way I could," he testified.

He said the saw's 24-inch blades would gradually get smaller as a result of cutting the pipes and often shatter. Owens said he noticed the blade was small when he stepped in to relieve the cutoff saw operator about noon the day of his accident.

Defendant Craig Davidson, the finishing department superintendent at the time, discouraged workers from using too many saw blades, Owens told jurors. He said Davidson told him the blades cost $100 apiece.

• Atlantic States let oil, water and other material raining down from the casting machines wash into a storm drain that leads to the Delaware River. Some of the liquid was emptied into holding tanks that would overflow and spill onto the ground, then run into a stormwater drain leading to the Delaware River. In addition, plant managers would order employees to empty a pit full of oil and water by running a hose out to an area near a railroad bed by the foundry and pumping it onto the ground.


• Atlantic States employees were regularly ordered to take steps to skew the results of smokestack emissions testsconducted by state and federal environmental inspectors. When the inspectors were doing air monitoring, cleaner plate and structural steel was melted in the furnaces instead of the dirtier scrap iron and old cars that were normally melted in the furnaces.

McWane Inc., Atlantic States' Alabama-based parent company, sent a representative to the Phillipsburg foundry tell the foundry's foremen and supervisors exactly what to do when an inspector from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration paid a visit to the plant.

"Take them to a secluded room away from the facility and call a supervisor," is the instruction Houston said he and others who attended an hour-long meeting received from the McWane official.

Houston told jurors the goal was to "hold them off until a supervisor arrived." Then it would be left to the supervisor to "handle" the OSHA inspectors, he said.

Over the past year: McWane attorneys reached an out-of-court settlement with the widow of a Northampton County man killed in a forklift accident at the Atlantic States plant, was ordered to pay a $5 million fine and complete a $2.7 million environmental project for violating the Clean Water Act and discharging polluted wastewater into a creek from its Birmingham, Ala., plant. Three McWane executives were sentenced to probation and fines and two of the executives were also sentenced to home detention. Meanwhile, McWane's Tyler, Texas, Tyler Pipe pleaded guilty to two felonies and agreed to pay a $4.5 million fine, Pacific States Cast Iron Pipe Co., a McWane division in Provo, Utah, and two executives were charged with conspiracy, violating the Clean Water Act and submitting false statements to the government, and finally, Union Foundry Co. in Alabama, also a McWane division, drew $4.25 million in criminal fines, community service and probation after a guilty plea was entered on the plant's behalf to illegal treatment of hazardous waste and worker safety violations that resulted in an employee's death.

Related Stories

• McWane Indicted Again; Wins Safety Award, November 4, 2005
• Jury To McWane: It's Not Nice To Pollute Mother Nature, June 12, 2005
• McWane Admits to "Environmental Crimes": $4.5 million Fine, March 23, 2005
• Of Fish and Men: Corporate Penalties And The Law
, March 19, 2005
• Another McWane Death
, January 25, 2005
• McWane Employee Admits Illegal Dumping
, May 31, 2004
• More Charges Against McWane, May 26, 2004
• McWane a "Model Corporate Citizen?"....God Help Us All!, December 16, 2003
• McWane/Tyler Pipe: Getting better or Same Old, Same Old?, September 28, 2003
• McWane Fined Again, September 8, 2003
• Oops, McWane Does it Again: Mistakes Are Made, July 24, 2003
• Three Finger Defense: McWane/Atlantic Pipe Talks to the Press, July 24, 2003
• McWane Fingered in Workplace AccidentThe NY Times ..., June 5, 2003
• More McWane Violations: High Crimes, Low Fines, April 15, 2003

McWane Indicted Again; Wins Safety Award

Yet another McWane indictment, this time for pollution:

Pipe Company Faces Pollution Indictment

McWane Inc., one of the world's largest pipe manufacturers, was indicted yesterday in Utah, accused of a six-year conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act and falsify tests to cover up emissions of a dangerous air pollutant.

According to the six-count indictment, McWane conspired to mislead regulatory officials into believing that Pacific States Cast Iron Pipe, its pipe foundry in Provo, Utah, was in compliance with air-pollution laws. The indictment accuses senior executives of tampering with pollution monitoring devices, knowingly making false statements to regulators and obstructing the Environmental Protection Agency.
McWane is based in Birmingham, Ala.

McWane is the company made notorious for its workpace safety and environmental crimes, first publicized in a 2003 New York Times/Frontline series.

Oh, but wait, nevermind:

McWane's Union Foundry recognized for exemplary safety

A McWane Inc. facility in Anniston has been honored by the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce for its community involvement and outstanding safety record.

Union Foundry was the winner in the safety category and a finalist in the community involvement category during the chamber's 2005 Industry Awards of Excellence, which were presented by chamber president Sherri Sumners during a breakfast ceremony recently.

Tim Douty, assistant general manager of Union Foundry, said in a prepared statement he was especially proud of receiving the safety award. "Union Foundry is being noticed by the Chamber of Commerce as a leader in the community for recognition of worker safety and our safety program," he said. "This award is a reflection of the commitment our employees have toward safety."

So what's next? Michael "Brownie" Brown and I Lewis "Scooter" Libby win Presidential Medal of Honor?

Related Stories:

• McWane Guilty Again, August 31, 2005
• Jury To McWane: It's Not Nice To Pollute Mother Nature, June 12, 2005
• McWane Admits to Environmental CrimesMarch 23, 2005
• Of Fish and Men: Corporate Penalties And The Law, March 19, 2005
• Another McWane Death, January 25, 2005
• McWane Employee Admits Illegal Dumping, May 31, 2004
• More Charges Against McWane, May 26, 2004
• McWane a "Model Corporate Citizen?"....God Help Us All!, December 16, 2003
• McWane/Tyler Pipe: Getting better or Same Old, Same Old?, September 28, 2003
• McWane Fined Again, September 8, 2003
• Oops, McWane Does it Again: Mistakes Are Made, July 24, 2003
• Three Finger Defense: McWane/Atlantic Pipe Talks to the Press, July 24, 2003
• McWane Fingered in Workplace AccidentThe NY Times ..., June 5, 2003
• More McWane Violations: High Crimes, Low Fines, April 15, 2003

McWane Guilty Again

Union Foundry, a division of the notorious McWane Industries, has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $4.25 million fine for an environmental crime and safety violation that led to the death of an employee.

In court papers unsealed yesterday in Federal District Court in Birmingham, Union Foundry, a McWane plant in Anniston, Ala., admitted that it had willfully violated federal safety rules, resulting in the death of Reginald Elston, a 27-year-old worker who was crushed in a conveyor belt. There was no required safety guard on the conveyor belt, even though an employee at a McWane foundry in Texas had been crushed to death in another unguarded conveyor belt less than two months earlier.

Union Foundry also admitted that it had illegally handled dust contaminated with lead and cadmium, two substances the federal government has linked to lung cancer.

Causing the death of a worker by willfully violating safety rules is a misdemeanor. Illegally disposing of contaminated dust is a felony. In deciding to plead guilty, McWane agreed to pay a $3.5 million criminal fine. It also agreed to submit a proposal to the United States attorney in Birmingham to spend an additional$750,000 on a community service project in Alabama that either improves workplace safety or protects the environment. No individuals were charged. The plea agreement requires approval by a federal judge.

McWane's criminal and deadly treatment of its workers was the subject of a 2003 Pulitzer Prize winning NY Times/Frontline series. . Union Foundry will pay $3.5 million in criminal fines and $750,000 for federal agencies to spend on services to benefit the Anniston Alabama community.

Last March, Tyler Pipe, another subsidiary of McWane pleaded guilty to "environmental crimes," fined $4.5 million, placed on probation for five years and required to spend an estimated $12 million on plant upgrades. And in June, a federal jury found industrial pipe maker McWane Inc. and two of its executives guilty of environmental crimes, including conspiracy to violate the Clean Water Act. Another McWane executive, the company's vice president for environmental affairs, was found guity of making false statements to the Environmental Protection Agency.

And moving from the tragic to the ridiculous, news of the guilty plea comes just a week after Union Foundry announced that in late June its employees "have surpassed 1,000,000 work hours with no lost time due to injury or illness" Their press release also announced that:

Union Foundry employees are next working towards achieving success in the OSHA, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) Star Program, which promotes effective employee driven worksite-based safety and health. The VPP designation is OSHA's official recognition of the outstanding efforts of the employer and employees who have achieved exemplary occupational safety and health.

If they gain VPP status, they will be joining asbestos-killer W.R. Grace which was granted VPP "Star" status, in the official VPP rogues' gallary.

And in case you were curious,

Founded in 1921, McWane, Inc. is a family-owned business based in Birmingham, Alabama with thirteen iron foundries and related businesses across the United States, Canada and Australia. McWane's divisions focus on the safe, environmentally friendly manufacturing of ductile iron pipe, fittings, hydrants, valves, propane tanks and fire extinguishers.

With fine, upstanding corporate citizens like these, who needs corporate outlaws? After all, it's been almost 8 months since McWane has killed anyone.


Related Stories

• Jury To McWane: It's Not Nice To Pollute Mother Nature, June 12, 2005
• McWane Admits to Environmental CrimesMarch 23, 2005
• Of Fish and Men: Corporate Penalties And The Law, March 19, 2005
• Another McWane Death, January 25, 2005
• McWane Employee Admits Illegal Dumping, May 31, 2004
• More Charges Against McWane, May 26, 2004
• McWane a "Model Corporate Citizen?"....God Help Us All!, December 16, 2003
• McWane/Tyler Pipe: Getting better or Same Old, Same Old?, September 28, 2003
• McWane Fined Again, September 8, 2003
• Oops, McWane Does it Again: Mistakes Are Made, July 24, 2003
• Three Finger Defense: McWane/Atlantic Pipe Talks to the Press, July 24, 2003
• McWane Fingered in Workplace AccidentThe NY Times ..., June 5, 2003
• More McWane Violations: High Crimes, Low Fines, April 15, 2003

Jury To McWane: It's Not Nice To Pollute Mother Nature

McWane Inc continues to live up to its reputation and one of the country's leading corporate criminals. Unlike Enron, however, which robbed peopal of their jobs and life savings, McWane robs people of their lives and health.

A federal jury found industrial pipe maker McWane Inc. and two of its executives guilty of environmental crimes, including conspiracy to violate the Clean Water Act. Another McWane executive, the company's vice president for environmental affairs, was found guity of making false statements to the Environmental Protection Agency.

McWane was found guilty of 20 counts in all. James Delk, 37, the former general manager at McWane Cast Iron Pipe Company, the plant in Birmingham, was found guilty on 19 counts. Michael Devine, 44, the former plant manager at McWane Cast Iron Pipe, was convicted on seven counts. Mr. Delk and Mr. Devine continue to hold positions at other McWane plants. McWane faces potentially millions of dollars in criminal fines, while the three managers face fines and possible prison time.

During a trial that lasted five weeks, numerous McWane employees, including two former plant managers, testified that McWane managers had ordered them to discharge industrial wastewater into storm water drains, which emptied into Avondale Creek. Prosecutors asserted that McWane managers then engaged in an elaborate subterfuge to hide the discharges from regulators.

Last March, McWane Corporation pleaded guilty to "environmental crimes" for knowingly violating the Clear Air Act by making major modifications at its Tyler Pipe plant in Tyler, Texas, without installing the necessary air pollution controls. The compay was fined $4.5 million, placed on probation for five years and required to spend an estimated $12 million on plant upgrades.

McWane was the focus of a 2003 NY Times/Frontline series about the high number of workplace injuries and fatalities at that company's facilities. The company is also accused of conspiring to violate environmental and workplace safety laws at its plant in Phillipsburg, N.J.

.

McWane Admits to "Environmental Crimes": $4.5 million Fine

Our old friend McWane Corporation has pleaded guilty to "environmental crimes," fined $4.5 million, placed on probation for five years and required to spend an estimated $12 million on plant upgrades.

McWane was the focus of a 2003 NY Times/Frontline series about the high number of workplace injuries and fatalities at that company's facilities.

The plea is a significant development for McWane, which is facing a sweeping federal criminal investigation of its plants in several states. Based in Birmingham, Ala., McWane already faces federal indictments in Alabama and New Jersey, accused of conspiring to violate environmental and workplace safety laws.

"This is the third criminal prosecution of McWane in the last 16 months, and the first time that McWane has pleaded guilty and accepted responsibility for criminal conduct," said David M. Uhlmann, chief of the environmental crimes section of the Justice Department.

At a court hearing in Tyler, the company admitted two felony offenses. It said it knowingly violated the Clear Air Act by making major modifications at Tyler Pipe without installing the necessary air pollution controls. The company also acknowledged that it knowingly made false statements to environmental regulators.

The company is also facing indictments in New Jersey and Alabama, but is fighting those. The Alabama case should be interesting as a former McWane manager admitted that the company had flooded a creek with millions of gallons of water poisoned by heavy metals over a period of years.

The NY Times/Frontline series revealed the company as a corporate criminal for it high number of injuries and fatalities, and OSHA's failure to bring criminal charges:

From 1995 to 2002, at least 4,600 injuries were recorded in McWane foundries. In that same period, the company was cited for more than 400 safety violations and 450 environmental violations.

In 2002, the company paid a $250,000 fine for a willful violation of workplace safety standards that resulted in the death of a worker.

$4.5 million penalty, plus $12 million in upgrades versus $250,000 for a workplace death. Once again we see the difference in penalties assessed for environmental crimes versus crimes that kill workers.


Related Stories

• Of Fish and Men: Corporate Penalties And The Law, March 19, 2005
• Another McWane Death, January 25, 2005
• McWane Employee Admits Illegal Dumping, May 31, 2004
• More Charges Against McWane, May 26, 2004
• McWane a "Model Corporate Citizen?"....God Help Us All!, December 16, 2003
• McWane/Tyler Pipe: Getting better or Same Old, Same Old?, September 28, 2003
• McWane Fined Again, September 8, 2003
• Oops, McWane Does it Again: Mistakes Are Made, July 24, 2003
• Three Finger Defense: McWane/Atlantic Pipe Talks to the Press, July 24, 2003
• McWane Fingered in Workplace AccidentThe NY Times ..., June 5, 2003
• More McWane Violations: High Crimes, Low Fines, April 15, 2003

Another McWane Death

Thomas Lawlor, 41, an employee of Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Co, died from blunt chest trauma when a pipe weighing several hundred pounds fell on him Thursday night.

The death came as managers from the foundry were preparing for a September trial on charges that they sacrificed the health and safety of employees in the name of production.

Federal prosecutors said the managers ruled the iron pipe company with an iron fist, tampering with evidence at accident scenes, intimidating workers into lying to safety investigators and discharging pollutants into the river.

Among the examples they cited: A worker who died in 2000 after being run down by a forklift with faulty brakes, an employee who lost three fingers using a cement mixer that had its safety guard removed and another who was allegedly ordered not to see a doctor after being scalded by water.

However, in December 2003, workers at the foundry told a Star-Ledger reporter that safety improvements had been made.

Atlantic States is a subsidiary of McWane Industries which was the focus of a 2003 NY Times/Frontline series about the high number of workplace injuries and fatalities at that company's facilities. McWane was indicted in December 2003 in New Jersey for conspiring to violate workplace safety and environmental laws, as well as "obstructing government investigations by lying, intimidating workers and altering accident scenes."

More here.

McWane Employee Admits Illegal Dumping

A day after a grand jury has brought 25 charges against the McWane Corporation for environmental crimes, including illegal dumping, a former McWane manager told prosecutors of illegal dumping by the company.

McWane Inc. flooded Avondale Creek with millions of gallons of water poisoned by heavy metals over a period of years, a former employee has told prosecutors.

Don Harbin, the former manager of McWane's northern Birmingham plant, told prosecutors Wednesday that he directed workers to dump the contaminated water at night.

Harbin has agreed to plead guilty to environmental crimes and is assisting the government's prosecution of Birmingham-based McWane, one of the top four U.S. makers of water and sewer pipes.

McWane was the focus of a 2003 NY Times/Frontline series about the high number of workplace injuries and fatalities at that company's facilities.

More Charges Against McWane

A grand jury has brought 25 charges against the McWane Corporation for environmental crimes, including illegal dumping. McWane was the focus of a 2003 NY Times/Frontline series about the high number of workplace injuries and fatalities at that company's facilities.

The indictment charges that senior McWane managers, including Charles Robison, the corporation's vice president for environmental affairs, conspired to dump huge quantities of polluted wastewater into a creek that runs through McWane's oldest foundry, the McWane Cast Iron Pipe Company, on the outskirts of downtown Birmingham.

***

According to the indictment, the defendants conspired over several years to routinely dump thousands of gallons of polluted wastewater generated daily by the foundry. They then repeatedly lied to environmental regulators to cover up the violations, the indictment states.

McWane was indicted last December in New Jersey for conspiring to violate workplace safety and environmental laws, as well as "obstructing government investigations by lying, intimidating workers and altering accident scenes."

Barstow/Bergman Win Pulitzer for Workplace Safety Series

David Barstow and Lowell Bergman won the Pulitzer Prize for the New York Times series about worker safety at a company where lax enforcement allegedly contributed to thousands of injuries and some deaths.

The New York Times won for an unusual collaboration across media with the PBS program "Frontline'' and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. The piece examined workplace hazards at the foundries of cast-iron pipe manufacturer McWane, Inc.

"This represents an extraordinary pioneering example of a hybrid form of journalism,'' Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said. "It's another demonstration that whatever may be said about the Times being stodgily traditional, the fact is, we can do whatever we put our minds to."

Last December, Barstow also completed a series of articles on the federal government's failure to pursue criminal convictions when employers willfully kill workers. Both series can be found here.

(Yet) More McWane

Some of you more observant folks out there may have noticed in my latest Weekly Toll about a McWane Worker dying "in a fall." Turns out he "fell" into a sand collection machine and was crushed to death when he got caught in a conveyor belt. The worker, Timothy J. Blow, 45, had been working alone.

McWane, as you are undoubtedly aware, became infamous due to a New York Times/Frontline series last year on the horrid health and safety practices at the plant

2003 In Review: The Top Ten Fourteen Health And Safety Stories of the Year

In no particular order....

1. Dangerous Business Series in the NY Times & Frontline: Evil walks the earth, and one of its names is McWane. David Barstow of the NY Times, working with Lowell Bergman of Frontline documents in a three-part series how one of the bad guys gets away with murder and mayhem while OSHA has few tools, and even less political desire to do anything about it.



2. Washington State Ergonomics Standard Repealed: After repeated failures in the legislature and courts, anti-ergonomics industry interests buy and lie their way to repeal of Washington State’s ergonomics standard. More here and here, and here, and here



3. Ergonomics Experts Boycott OSHA Symposium: In the year's rare act of collective courage, a group of the nation's leading ergonomics experts, most of whom had participated in previous National Academy of Sciences studies in support of the ill-fated OSHA ergonomics standard, decided to boycott an upcoming OSHA ergonomics research symposium called by OSHA as part of its CompRehensive APproach to ergonomics (CRAP). The message: “Been there, done that, now stop wasting our time until you get serious about actually doing something”



4. When Workers Die New York Times Series: Employers are literally getting away with murder. So what else is new? An exhaustively-documented three part NY Times series by David Barstow reveals not just OSHA’s sorry enforcement practices, but also tells us the tragic stories of the victims behind them.



5. Europe REACHes Out to Protect Someone: The European Commission issues a draft plan that reverses the current U.S. and European practice of considering chemicals to be innocent until proven guilty -- by death, illness or environmental damage. The U.S. chemical industry and U.S. government are having fits, threatening a trade war. More information here, here, here , here and here.



6. National Safety Council Drops ANSI Ergonomics Standard: Even voluntary ergonomics standards are too much for business foes of ergonomics protections who, as I said before, remind me of the Barbarian hordes early in the first part of the last millennium: behead the men, rape the women, enslave the children, burn the village, mow down the crops and then sow the earth with salt. Kill the farm animals and throw them down the wells. And eat their pets. More here.



7. OSHA Drops the Proposed TB Standard: Last week OSHA withdrew its TB proposal (see below) arguing that it was no longer necessary because the disease is under control. As I wrote before, “ditching the TB standard could probably have not come at a worse time with a public health system approaching the breaking point between new demands placed upon it by preparations for SARS, new homeland security requirements, gigantic state budget problems and the Bush tax cuts eating up any chance of significant federal assistance. The TB standard could have been an important measure to help prepare this country not just to prevent a possible future increase in TB infections, but to also confront assaults from other air-borne diseases like SARS.” More here.
   
   
8. OSHA Suppresses Ergonomics Recordkeeping: “Eat my shorts, working people. If you can't count 'em, they don't exist,” OSHA tells those who still think ergonomics is a problem. In July, the agency announced that it had decided not to put a separate column for MSDs on the log that employers are required to use to record workplace injuries and illnesses. The revoked requirement -- for employers to check a box for MSDs -- was a simple measure issued in 2001, designed to help employers and workers identify and address ergonomic hazards. The administration also decided not to develop a definition of MSDs (which had also been included in the 2001 regulation) and leave it up to employers to figure it out for themselves.
   
   
9. OSHA Drops Nursing Home Initiative: Over half the injuries in nursing homes result from ergonomics hazards. But despite citing only 7 nursing homes for ergonomics hazards out of almost 1000 inspections on the list of 2500 nursing homes with above-average injury and illness statistics, OSHA declared "mission accomplished" and canceled its nursing home initiative. Announced with great fanfare in response to criticisms of its CRAP (CompRehensive APproach to Ergonomics), the nursing home initiative was intended to address the massive back injury problem in nursing homes, as well as bloodborne pathogens, tuberculosis and slips, trips & falls.



10. OSHA Declines to Revise its Process Safety Management Standard to Cover Reactive Chemicals: In September, OSHA announced that because there is no consensus on how to revise the process safety standard to include reactive hazards (as the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board had recommended after an exhaustive investigation), the agency will instead put more information on its web site.



11. Court Orders OSHA To Issue Hexavalent Chromium Standard: In April, the courts say that OSHA lied about being too busy with 9/11 to begin work on a standard protecting workers against hexavalent chromium. The court order was in response to a lawsuit filed last year by Public Citizen and the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union. A proposal must be issued by October.



12. Data Quality Regs Threaten Workplace and Environmental Protections: The Office of Management and Budget says that “peer review” of the environmental and workplace safety studies that form the basis of regulations and informational documents is a good thing -- as long as the “peers” are the industries that are being regulated. Everything else is suspect, including evidence that suggests that asbestos in brake linings is bad for auto mechanics.
More here.


13. EPA & OSHA Drop the Ball in World Trade Center Response: EPA is found to have toned down a press release – at the White House’s request -- addressing possible asbestos hazards following the World Trade Centers collapse, but the real scandal may have been OSHA’s failure to enforce its respirator requirements on the workers subjected to high levels of toxic dust during the cleanup.


Saving the best for last:


14. Founding of Confined Space: The first (and so far only) weblog dealing with health and safety issues. The rest is history.

NY Times Workplace Safety Series Update

Two Cheers for the NY Times:

First, you all know how I complain endlessly about the NY Times' obnoxious practice of making internet readers pay for articles that are more than a week old. Well, the Times has graciously set aside a free site for those who want to read David Barstow's recent "When Workers Die" series, or the "Dangerous Business" series on the McWane Corporation that appeared last January.

All of the articles can be found -- free of cost -- here.

Second, if you click on the series and scroll down a bit, you will notice the "More Resources" on the right-hand side of the page that consists of three items: the OSHA website, the National COSH Network, and, yours truly, Confined Space.

What an intelligent newspaper! A remarkable journal!

(But they really need to stop charging for articles more than a week old.)

"It's Just Disgusting" Says Widow of Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe/McWane Victim

While everyone concerned about workplace safety applauds yesterday's indictment of States Cast Iron Pipe officials yesterday, the federal government's action had special meaning for the families of the victims of McWane Corporation, parent company of Atlantic States.

Every time Gloria Peacock hears of a workplace injury at the Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Co., she gets angry.

She sees it as proof that not much has changed in the nearly four years since her husband, Sonnie, died at the Phillipsburg plant.


"It's just disgusting," Peacock said.

The Harmony Township widow was pleased Monday upon hearing that the pipe manufacturer and five of its managers face federal charges of violating federal workplace safety laws, obstructing criminal and regulatory investigations and breaking federal clean air and water regulations.

"It's about time somebody went after them," Peacock said. "I don't believe in an eye for an eye, but they should be made accountable for all the things that have happened there."

Sonnie Peacock, 54, died in January 1999. The electrician was hit by a crane as he repaired a conveyor motor on an elevated platform.

Peacock's death was one of two fatal accidents and a spate of less serious incidents that have occurred at the foundry in the last few years.

More on the Atlantic States indictments here and here.

McWane a "Model Corporate Citizen?"....God Help Us All!

You may remember the Frontline and NY Times series earlier this year on the McWane corporation whose corporate strategy left a trail of dead and maimed workers in its wake.

Well, they're back in the news, as David Barstow continues the sad story in the NY Times....

Senior managers of a New Jersey foundry owned by McWane Inc., the nation's largest manufacturer of cast-iron pipe, conspired for years to violate workplace safety and environmental laws and then obstructed repeated government inquiries by lying, intimidating workers into silence and systematically altering accident scenes, according to a sweeping federal indictment unsealed here on Monday.

The motive, the indictment said, was to enrich the foundry, Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe in Phillipsburg, N.J., and its managers by maximizing production "without concern to environmental pollution and worker safety risks."

The foundry's managers routinely dumped thousands of gallons of contaminated wastewater into the Delaware River, repeatedly exposed workers to unsafe conditions and regularly deceived environmental and workplace safety regulators, the indictment charges.

When one worker, Alfred E. Coxe, was struck and killed by a forklift with a history of brake problems, the indictment stated, the McWane managers "took steps to conceal facts" and instructed one employee to "provide a misleading account" to hide the plant's faulty forklifts from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The managers took other steps to evade regulators, the indictment asserted. They falsified injury logs, submitted false pollution monitoring reports and burned incriminating evidence in the foundry's cupola, a furnace that turns scrap metal into molten iron.

"To Atlantic States' blue-collar work force, composed in large part of immigrants, some non-English speakers, all working in an area with few jobs that could support a family, these defendants routinely presented a harsh choice," Tara Donn, a special agent for the Environmental Protection Agency, wrote in an affidavit that accompanied the indictment. "Perform an unreasonably dangerous work task or lose your job; work injured or lose your job; lie to OSHA or lose your job; lie to environmental regulators or lose your job; forego filing workers compensation claims or lose your job."

In court on Monday, defense lawyers entered pleas of not guilty for Atlantic States and its managers, who were released on bail but ordered not to return to the plant without permission because of reports of witness intimidation.

Later, at a news conference, a lawyer for McWane, the former Whitewater prosecutor Robert Ray, called the company a "responsible corporate citizen" that has demonstrated a willingness to change its culture. While acknowledging "areas where the company has fallen short" in the past, Mr. Ray said that McWane had spent tens of millions of dollars on new safety equipment and pollution controls and remained committed to making all of its plants "model facilities for the 21st century."

Right, an this just in. Saddam Hussein's lawyers called the former dictator a "responsible world citizen" who has demonstrated a willingness to change his ways. While acknowledging "areas where his regime had fallen short..." Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Comment: As usual, this is a great report that exposes one of the worst corporate actors in America today. But don't let this leave you with the impression that McWane is the only bad one out there. They may be larger than most bad actors, but check out the "Weekly Toll" that I publish every couple of weeks. Many of these companies treat their employees no better than McWane. And remember that generally only fatalities make the news (and not all of those). Many deaths and the vast majority of serious injuries are never known by anyone except witnesses and the families.

Thankfully, we have stories like these in the NY Times to reaveal some of the daily carnage in our workplaces. It's up to all of you to make sure that all of the others aren't forgotten.

McWane/Tyler Pipe: Getting better or Same Old, Same Old?

McWane corporation, owner of Tyler Pipe is in the news again. McWane, you will remember, was the subject of a New York Times/Frontline investigation into the high number of injuries and deaths at McWane-owned facilites over the past several years.

McWane says they're doing better, and OSHA agrees.

David Willis doesn't agree.

David Willis was working against the clock. His shift was ending soon and he still had a job to do.

The mechanic had a choice, the kind that has become routine at the Tyler Pipe foundry. He could do things the slow, safe way but maybe not finish in time, or be fast, risky and, if all went well, get the job done.

Like so many colleagues before him, Willis went for speed. Eighteen days later, he left a hospital, lucky to be alive.

Willis skipped the "lock out" process, which would have kept his machines shut off while he changed a 500-pound iron mold. Without that safeguard, the machine was somehow triggered by co-worker Jason Testerman, crushing Willis against an elevated deck. Ribs broken and a lung collapsed, his face turned purple as he shrieked for his life.

***

Tyler Pipe officials insist conditions have improved in recent years. But workers point to Willis' July 22 accident and other problems as proof that the East Texas foundry is still fraught with risk.

And do we think there's a connection here:

Lost workdays are still higher than the most recent industry standard. In 2001, Tyler reported 17.1 percent of workers had injuries that prevented them from doing their usual jobs, compared with the industry standard of 7.4 percent. In 2002, Tyler improved to 13.8 percent. Industry figures are not yet available for 2002.

More training hours are now required, the company said. There's also a safety task force and incentives for complying: company jackets, caps and watches to workers who avoid accidents; cash prizes for reporting hazards

Some workers evidently think so:

While some employees agree, others say the shift is superficial. It's still bottom-line first, they say, noting that training is limited to videos, relief workers are still scarce, and employees are still asked to work alone and do jobs they're not trained to do.

There are also grumblings that the safety incentives are a joke because some supervisors don't enforce rules and bully workers to keep quiet about violations.

Anyway, no matter how hard you try, shit happens.

Company officials say they're doing all they can, but they can't prevent everything.

"Sometimes," said Ruffner Page, the McWane president, "mistakes are made."

But "sometimes" the ones who make the mistakes are not the same as the ones who get hurt.

McWane Fined Again

OSHA has fined McWane Inc. another $103,000 for 21 serious and three repeat violations at the M&H Valve fire hydrant plant in Anniston, AL. According to the Birmingham News:

In the spirit of cooperation, we have agreed to settle this matter rather than dispute OSHA's determination," Thomas Walton, the plant's general manager, said in a written statement. "We realize that our company is under intense scrutiny at this time, and that we will be held to a higher standard than other companies as a result."

McWane, you will of course recall, was the subject of a scating NY Times Frontline series earlier this year. If we keep this up, maybe we can finance the war.