Cintas fined for job safety violations

Cintas fined for job safety violations

	Published : Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:33 By : Agencies Print this Story

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) - Proposed job-safety fines against Cintas Corp., the nation's largest uniform supplier, exceeded $3 million after federal regulators cited the Ohio company Wednesday with 15 alleged violations at its Mobile plant similar to those at other sites.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration called for $196,000 in fines, saying it was 'disappointed to find so many of the same or similar hazards' at the Mobile plant after a number of safety problems, including the dryer death of a worker in Tulsa, Okla.

The agency in August proposed $2.78 million in penalties against Cincinnati, Ohio-based Cintas following the death of the Tulsa worker who fell into an industrial dryer. OSHA inspectors also proposed $117,000 in penalties against Cintas for worker safety hazards in Ohio and $13,650 in penalties in Washington state.

Cintas spokeswoman Heather A. Trainer said all the various fines are being appealed. She declined to comment on the Mobile violations until an appeal is heard. The company has 15 working days to contest the fines.

In a statement, Cintas President and CEO Scott Farmer said Wednesday that safety remains a top priority for the company, which has 34,000 workers at more than 400 plants. He said the worker's death in Tulsa and a worker's injury at a Yakima, Wash., plant 'have shaken all of us, and we have redoubled our efforts to be the safest-operating company in our industry.'

In Tulsa, Eleazar Torres Gomez fell into an operating industrial dryer and died while clearing a jam of wet laundry on a conveyor that carries the laundry from the washer into the dryer.

Harris Raynor of Atlanta, vice president and Southern region director of a union representing laundry and service industry workers, said Cintas should try to prevent workplace tragedies instead of appealing OSHA fines and hiring costly health and safety lobbyists.

Raynor's organization, New York-based Unite Here International, and the Teamsters represent about 400 Cintas workers.

In Mobile, where Cintas employs 126 workers, OSHA proposed penalties totaling $112,500 for four repeat violations, including failure to protect employees from electrical shocks and failing to provide adequate machine guards and procedures to prevent inadvertent machine startups.

OSHA said those four conditions are substantially similar to conditions discovered in other Cintas plants in New York state in 2004 and 2005.

The agency also proposed a $55,000 penalty for a potential fall hazard to the Mobile workers who periodically unjammed a conveyor. It called for $27,500 in fines for eight serious violations, including unguarded pits and floor holes and a broken emergency stop button.

A $1,000 fine was proposed for two less serious violations of failing to record a work-related injury and for allowing an exit door to be partially blocked.

Over the past three years, Cintas has had about 36 government inspections at its facilities, which can be prompted by an accident, a fatality or a worker complaint, among other reasons, OSHA said.