Lawmakers want safety reviews company-wide: OSHA practices make it hard to identify patterns of work

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1428531/

Thursday, April 24, 2008; Posted: 06:53 AM

WASHINGTON, Apr 24, 2008 (The Charlotte Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX)

Workplace safety accidents and even near-misses should prompt regulators to conduct company-wide reviews to look for similar hazards at other plants, lawmakers said Wednesday.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., held a hearing to examine how to prevent accidents like the one that killed Eleazar Torres-Gomez, who died last year at a Cintas Corp. laundry in Tulsa when a conveyer belt dragged him into an industrial dryer operating at 300 degrees.

It wasn't the first time such accidents had happened at facilities owned by Cintas, the largest uniform supplier in North America. Woolsey, chairwoman of the House labor subcommittee on work-force protections, released documents detailing three other "close calls" involving employees who fell into washers and a dryer.

"What do we have to do to get a company like Cintas to be responsible?" asked Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill.

Cintas said it formed a safety council and trained employees to prevent future incidents.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration generally investigates plant by plant, rather than by corporation. That makes it difficult to identify hazards that might be common to a company in other plants.

FULL story at link.

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1. If we have strong unions we have strong work laws.