Worker safety bill would toughen penalties

[Guest guest]

(I wonder what Steinberg thinks about IAQ legislation?)

http://www.amcity.com/eastbay/stories/1999/08/09/editorial3.html?h=workers

August 9, 1999

Worker safety bill would toughen penalties

Darrel Steinberg

Under California law, a worker's life isn't worth much. That's wrong. My

Assembly Bill 1127 will change it.

The state should go after employers whose willful safety violations kill or

injure workers. Five workers in two years have died in explosions and fires

at Tosco Corp.'s Avon refinery near ez. Glanzman, 41, burned

to death in a 1997 Tosco fire that injured 46 others. Tosco was fined

$277,000, the largest OSHA fine ever against a refinery. But after appealing

the fine, the company paid only $136,000.

In the wake of this fatal accident, Tosco resisted efforts to make its plant

safer. The company laid off health and safety workers. Two years later, four

more workers ­ Tom Rodacker, 49; Rollin Blue, 35; Ernie Pofahl, 48; and

Enriquez, 37 ­ burned to death on a 133-foot scaffold. A witness

said Tosco supervisors refused to shut down a pipe that was leaking

flammable chemicals. Tosco cut worker safety programs and neglected

maintenance. But Tosco managed to pay its five top executives $28 million in

bonuses just a few weeks before the last deadly fire.

Too many corporations think of OSHA fines as simply another cost of doing

business. AB 1127 raises the fines and the " cost of doing business " for that

small group of corporate officials who willfully endanger the lives of their

workers for financial gain.

Corporate officials who risk workers' lives would face prison sentences, and

the corporations could be fined up to $2 million. Repeat corporate offenders

who maim or kill workers would face fines up to $4 million.

Multiple-employer, 21st century workplaces increasingly challenge OSHA

inspectors' ability to determine responsibility for safety and prevent

accidents before they occur. AB 1127 tries to prevent accidents by codifying

a multiple-employer regulation from the Pete administration, making

the regulation easier to enforce.

There's a saying that writing a law to address one bad incident such as

Tosco creates one bad law. But there's more than one bad story:

Rolling box cars, referred to as " silent killers " by workers at a Kaiser

International coal loading facility in San Pedro, regularly threatened

lives. No warning sounded. Greg Arias, 40, lost a part of his left leg in

1991. Four years later at the same spot, another rolling rail car crushed

Martha 's foot. Even after the second accident, no warning device was

installed. In 1996, at the same spot, 66-year-old Jimmie Magallanez was run

over and killed. Kaiser was convicted of a misdemeanor and paid the maximum

fine ­ $70,000.

Pasillas, 24, was crushed to death in 1997 when a subway construction

tunnel collapsed in Hollywood. He worked for the giant construction company

Tutor-Saliba-Perini. Company officials admitted knowing the faulty chain

that caused the accident was unsafe, but did nothing to correct it.

Tutor-Saliba's supervisor pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges. The company

was cited for 11 violations and fined $70,500, but is appealing the fine.

Tosco, Kaiser International and Tutor aren't typical employers. For them,

prison sentences and multiple million-dollar corporate fines would send a

strong message. Companies that refuse to comply with safety laws shouldn' t

be rewarded in the marketplace.

Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento is chairman of the Assembly

Committee on Labor and Employment.