LaPorte OSHA Citations Show Clear Lack of Safety and Failure of DuPont to Lead on Safety

CINCINNATI

The union that represents workers at DuPont’s LaPorte, Tex. insecticide facility is expressing outrage at DuPont’s legal challenge to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) citations. OSHA citations of $99,000 were levied for the DuPont’s serious and repeated safety violations that led to the deaths of four workers on November 15, 2014. In addition, the union is also calling for an end to DuPont’s “World Class Employee Safety Consulting” business, saying that DuPont should focus on safety in its plants before it markets its flawed safety practices as protecting workers at other companies.

“DuPont’s citations are clear examples of failures of operation that lead to the loss of life,” said Frank Cyphers, President, International Chemical Workers Union Council of the United Food and Commercial Workers (ICWUC). “All the recent legal challenge does is use precious resources that would be better spent improving the safety of the LaPorte plant or assisting the families of the deceased. DuPont should drop their legal challenge and put their money where it needs to be – with these workers’ families and ensuring safety in this plant.”

On November 15, 2014 at least 22,000 pounds of methyl mercaptan were released through a faulty valve in the LaPorte plant and killed four workers, including members of the ICWUC. However, this is not DuPont’s first or only serious safety failing. A few months prior, workers were exposed to hazardous chemicals in a leak at the DuPont plant in Deepwater, N.J. In 2011, there was a toxic chemical leak at a DuPont plant in Beaumont, Tex. Both prior incidents resulted in OSHA fines due to sub-standard safety practices. In 2010, the United States Chemical Safety Board investigated a string of incidents at the DuPont plant in West Virginia that resulted in at least one death and cited preventable safety lapses as one of the causes of the problems. This again demonstrates the need for OSHA to fully enforce these standards and have increased oversight of the chemical industry.

“The recent citations are yet again another example of DuPont, a supposed leader in health and safety, failing to adequately guarantee safety in their plants. DuPont has continued to cut corners and failed to implement OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard,” continued Cyphers. “DuPont has been cited repeatedly at a number of their facilities for failing to meet OSHA standards – causing deaths and injuries. When workers are losing their lives in your facilities, it is time to re-evaluate if not reject your safety training model.”

“DuPont has failed to meet the minimum standards to protect their workforce,” said John Morawetz, the Lead Investigator of the Health and Safety Department of the ICWUC. “In case after case, the failure to follow the Process Safety Management OSHA standard is cited as leading to either worker deaths or violations of OSHA standards at DuPont facilities. This is unacceptable.”

“At LaPorte there are too many unanswered questions: Why did DuPont continue to operate when key control equipment, exhaust fans, were broken?” continued Morawetz. “Did DuPont train the workers on how lethal methyl mercaptan is? Why weren’t there adequate warning devices? Why wasn’t there a safe procedure to free plugged lines? Why weren’t there safe work practices to drain vent lines? Yet DuPont still markets themselves as safety consultants. The evidence is damning; the DuPont way is not working.”

These penalties cannot be compared to the tragic loss of four lives on November 15, 2014, especially because OSHA continues to be seriously limited in penalty limits that are decades old and much too low. Four families have lost their loved ones, a tragedy that cannot be undone, but DuPont can show respect for those families by stopping their opposition to these OSHA penalties. In addition, they can prevent future tragedies by ensuring that the same “safety culture” that caused these deaths is not brought to other workplaces.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150609006613/en/

International Chemical Workers Union Council/UFCW
John Morawetz
Health & Safety Department
(o) (513) 621-8882
or
United Food and Commercial Workers
Evan Yeats
Communications
(c) (202)257-8673