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OSHA Issues $5 Million Fine in Sugar Dust Blast—But Refuses to Set Dust Safety Standard |
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) today issued 120 citations for safety violations at the Imperial Sugar Co. plant in Port Wentworth, Ga., where incredibly high levels of sugar dust fueled an explosion Feb. 7 that killed 13 workers.
Dozens of other workers suffered serious injuries, and three remain hospitalized, two in critical condition.
Almost all the safety violations related to the accumulation of sugar dust. Along with the citations, OSHA issued $5 million in fines for the violations at Port Wentworth. Also today, OSHA issued $3.7 million in fines for 91 similar violations at Imperial’s plant in Gramercy, La.
OSHA found that 61 of the Port Wentworth violations were “willful” and “egregious,” as were 47 at the Gramercy facility.
The Savannah News reports that OSHA administrator Edwin Foulke said the explosion could have been prevented and that as early as 2002, senior company official knew of the risk from combustible dust but took “no responsible actions” to prevent accident or injury.
At a news conference, Foulke also said the agency sent Imperial a letter March 7 urging the company to make sure that dust in the Gramercy plant was properly controlled. But on a March 14 visit, OSHA inspectors found accumulated sugar dust as deep as 4 feet and issued an “imminent danger” notice. Click here video from the conference.
While most news coverage of the citations will focus on the size of the fines—the third-highest in OSHA history—workplace safety experts question OSHA’s lack of action on a dust standard and the lack of inspections that allowed such huge quantities of explosive dust to accumulate.
More than 130 workers have been killed and hundreds more seriously injured in combustible dust explosions in the United States since 1980. Two years ago, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) urged OSHA to adopt combustible dust standards. But the Bush administration’s OSHA has not moved on a rule to set dust level standards.
Instead, OSHA is relying on corporations to voluntarily police themselves. The agency says it has stepped up distribution of information about the danger of high dust levels and that what are known as “housekeeping rules” to clean and remove dust are sufficient to prevent explosions.
When dust builds up to dangerous levels in industrial worksites, it can become fuel for fires and explosions. Combustible dust can come from many sources, such as sugar, flour, feed, plastics, wood, rubber, furniture, textiles, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, coal and metals.
In April, the House passed legislation to force OSHA to set a combustible dust standard. The bill is before the Senate, but President Bush, with the backing of the sugar industry, has issued a veto threat. Says Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee:
This unfortunate tragedy didn’t have to happen. The Chemical Safety Board urged OSHA in 2006 to adopt rules that could prevent more deaths and injuries caused by combustible dust explosions. OSHA ignored those recommendations. The agency tasked by Congress to protect the health and safety of American workers has failed to aggressively address this deadly problem.
It is obvious from these events that existing rules and efforts by OSHA to prevent these explosions are not sufficient. The agency should immediately issue an emergency standard to prevent these explosive hazards. Failing that, Congress will act to ensure that the agency does its job.
On Tuesday, the Senate Workforce Protection Subcommittee will hold a hearing examining OSHA’s inaction on combustible dust levels.
In June, CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired a segment on the catastrophic explosion and OSHA’s foot dragging on issuing rules to protect workers from dust explosions. Click on the video above.
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As long as cost containment is more important than saving human lives, nothing real will be done to insure the safety and well-being of these and other workers. There is much more concern for the company’s bottom line and the stake of the share holders than there is for the workers and the families they leave behind when they die on the job at work. Is it really more cost effective to pay an insurance settlement to a surviving family than it is to clean up a plant?
There are those who would also argue that all these rules and regulations are what make American jobs disappear overseas. Does that mean that those off-shore lives, and those foreign families, are somehow more expendable than American workers’ lives? I don’t think so. Workplace safety should be a human right, extending to all workers across the globe.
Catbear, the right to organize labor unions of their choice as well as occupational safety are basic human rights adopted by the United Nations back in 1948. Only the U.S.A. refuses to comply with these rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Bosses here or abroad don’t give a damn about us or our brothers and sisters overseas. Only labor solidarity will keep us from becoming statistics for OSHA, MSHA and other impotent federal agencies.