Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [193]
178 Richard Skala was beheaded: See Jim Morris, “Easy Prey: Harsh Work for Immigrants,” Houston Chronicle, June 26, 1995.
Carlos Vincente: See “Guatemalan Man Dies after Falling into Machinery of Beef Processing Plant,” AP, November 3, 1998; “Ft. Morgan Firm Faces $350,000 in OSHA Fines,” AP, May 4, 1999.
Lorenzo Marin, Sr.: See Mark P. Couch, “IBP Told to Pay Damages to Family,” Des Moines Register, June 7, 1995.
Another employee of DCS Sanitation… The same machine: See Jim Rasmussen, “Company Expecting Fines Today; Death at IBP Plant May Cost Ohio Firm,” Omaha World-Herald, October 7,1993.
Homer Stull climbed into a blood-collection tank: See Allen Freedman, “Workers Stiffed: Death and Injury Rates among American Workers Soar, and the Government Has Never Cared Less,” Washington Monthly, November 1992.
Henry Wolf had been overcome: See “Liberal Packing Plant Fined $960,” UPI, October 19, 1983.
179 its 1,300 inspectors: See Kenneth B. Noble, “The Long Tug-of-War over What Is How Hazardous; For OSHA, Balance Is Hard to Find,” New York Times, January 10, 1988; and Christopher Drew, “Regulators Slow Down as Packers Speed Up,” Chicago Tribune, October 26, 1988.
more than 5 million workplaces: Cited in “Here’s the Beef,” p. 4.
A typical American employer: Cited in Susannah Zak Figura, “The New OSHA,” Government Executive, May 1997.
The number of OSHA inspectors: See Noble, “The Long Tug of War”; and Drew, “Regulators Slow Down.”
a new policy of “voluntary compliance”: See “Here’s the Beef,” p. 3.
While the number of serious injuries rose: See Christopher Drew, “A Chain of Setbacks for Meat Workers,” Chicago Tribune, October 25, 1988.
“appear amazingly stupid to you”…“I know very well that you know”: Quoted in Drew, “Regulators Slow Down.”
“to understate injuries, to falsify records”: “Here’s the Beef,” p. 21.
180 every injury and illness at the slaughterhouse: Ibid., pp. 3, 14.
the first log recorded 1,800 injuries… The OSHA log: Ibid., p. 14.
denied under oath: Ibid., p. 15. See also Philip Shabecoff, “OSHA Seeks $2.59 Million Fine for Meatpacker’s Injury Reports,” New York Times, July 22, 1987.
“the best of the best”: Quoted in “Here’s the Beef,” p. 9.
as much as one-third higher: Ibid., p. 9.
investigators also discovered: Ibid., p. 21.
Another leading meatpacking company: Ibid., pp. 21–22.
“serious injuries such as fractures”: Ibid., p. 8.
180 “one of the most irresponsible and reckless”: Quoted in Donald Woutat, “Meat-packer IBP Fined $3.1 Million in Safety Action; Health Problem Disabled More than 600, OSHA Says,” Los Angeles Times, May 12, 1988.
“the worst example of underreporting”: Assistant Labor Secretary John A. Pender-grass, quoted in Shabecoff, “OSHA Seeks $2.59 Million Fine.”
difficult to prove “conclusively”: “Here’s the Beef,” p. 19.
fined $2.6 million by OSHA: Shabecoff, “OSHA Seeks $2.59 Million.”
fined an additional $3.1 million: Woutat, “Meatpacker IBP Fined $3.1 Million.”
fines were reduced to $975,000: See Christopher Drew, “IBP Agrees to Injury Plan,” Chicago Tribune, November 23, 1988; Marianne Lavelle, “When Fines Collapse: Critics Target OSHA’s Settlements,” National Law Journal, December 4, 1989.
about one one-hundredth of a percent: According to Robert L. Peterson, IBP’s revenues that year were about $8.8 billion. “IBP’s Presentation at the New York Society of Security Analysts,” Business Wire, October 28, 1988.
a worker named Kevin Wilson: My account of the Wilson case is based upon John Taylor, “Ex-IBP Worker Gets $15 Million in Damage Award,” Omaha World-Herald, December 3,1994; “Opinion,” Kevin Wilson v IBP, Inc., and Diane Arndt, Supreme Court of Iowa, no. 258/95–477, February 14, 1997; “$2 Million Punitive Award Won by Injured Employee,” Managing Risk, March 1997; and “IBP’s Appeal of $2 Million Punitive Award Rejected,” Omaha World-Herald, October 7,1997