State FAiled to Charge Bethlehem
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Officials dropped safety citation before fatal mishap
(This was one of the first articles I wrote about safety conditions at the Sparrows Point mill.)
By Mark Reutter
Published on Sunday, August 27, 1978
© 1978, The Baltimore Sun, © 2006,
Mark Reutter
Eleven months before a steelworker was killed in a wire machine last June, top officials of the state safety program withdrew a citation that would have required the Bethlehem Steel Corporation to install safety guards around the machines.
The violation and a $150 fine against the steelmaker were rescinded after officials from the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health unit (MOSH) met with Bethlehem officials at a private prehearing conference in July 1977.
“No hazard, no violation,” a MOSH official wrote in a memorandum explaining why the violation was withdrawn. “The provision of a break bar [emergency stop] is sufficient to protect workers.”
In all, 14 items classified as “other than serious” violations at the Sparrows Point rod and wire mill were dropped by the state agency following the July 14, 1977 meeting.
But after Robert E. Hall became entangled in one of the high-speed machines and was killed two months ago, the safety agency reversed its position and cited Bethlehem for 34 “serious violations” involving the absence of safety guards on the equipment.
Mr. Hall was killed when his left hand got caught in wire running into the nip point of the machine. He was flung headfirst around a giant metal spool. Halfway around the spool, his body set off an emergency switch and the machine stopped.
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After investigating the fatality, the safety agency concluded that the emergency switches on the machines were not sufficient to prevent similar accidents in the future and fined the company $27,200, the largest penalty ever proposed by the agency.
Bethlehem has tentatively agreed to pay the fine and install safety cages over the wire-drawing machines.
The state’s handling of the 1977 case is now under study by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Byron R. Chadwick, OSHA area director, said a report is being prepared on the case, but refused further comment.
An examination of MOSH documents and interviews with key officials disclose a number of oversights in the Maryland agency’s handling of the earlier inspection.
An investigation by The Sun also uncovered evidence that both Bethlehem and union officials knew of the dangers posed by the unguarded wire machines, but neither persisted in making sure that protective devices were installed.
Charles A. Della, assistant commissioner of MOSH, denied last week that his department made any errors in the matter. He said he and his aides were not previously aware of the specific hazard – being drawn into the machine’s nip point – that caused the fatal accident.
Instead, the 1977 violation was based on the danger of wire breaking on the spool or the nip point and spinning around the room. (The nip point is the spot where the wire, running at speeds of up to 1,500 feet a minute, begins wrapping around the spool.)
While saying he also was not aware of the nip-point hazard, David S. Miller, the inspector in the 1977 case, stated in an interview Friday, “I thought there had to be something definitely done on those machines in general to protect the employees.”
As a result, Mr. Miller said, he cited Bethlehem for violating a state safety law that required exposed machine parts to be guarded, including the nip point.
Mr. Miller, who had never before inspected the Sparrows Point steel mill, said he was disappointed when his superiors later dropped the wire machine violation.
“I thought I did a lot that was thrown down the drain, but I’m just the inspector. If someone over me says they’re going to throw it out, I’m going to rely on their experience,” he said.
Under MOSH procedures at the time, Mr. Miller was not asked to be present at the meeting in which the wire machine and other violations were withdrawn by the agency. The decision to drop the violations was made by an assistant attorney general assigned to the agency and Harold C. Barringer, a middle-level administrator.
Although neither man has much knowledge of steelmaking machinery, they agreed to rescind the wire-machine violation after talking to two Bethlehem officials and without consulting the agency’s safety staff.
“I really don’t remember how we arrived at the decision [to revoke the violation], but it was based on the merits of that particular case,” Edward M. Ranier, the assistant attorney general who made recommendations in the case, said last week. He added that based on the inspection report, there did not appear to be a hazard created by the exposed nip points.
Under agency procedures, minutes are not kept of prehearing conferences. Such discussions, which are called “very informal” by the department’s chief counsel, are held when a company contesting a citation seeks a settlement with the state before the matter goes before a hearing examiner.
According to Mr. Della, who approved the withdrawal of the violations, the agency has a set policy of notifying union officials of a prehearing conference with management. But in this conference, no members of Local 2609 of the United Steelworkers of America were present.
David Wilson, president of Local 2609, said his union was never informed of the meeting. “Had the union been present, no one would have agreed to withdraw that citation on the wire machines because we knew they were hazardous,” he asserted last week.
There is no material in MOSH records to indicate that the union was contacted about the conference. Mr. Della acknowledged, “There’s a human factor involved here. Maybe one of the girls [in the office] was sick and didn’t notify the party. That may happen once in a million times.”
Nevertheless, according to Mr. Della and Mr. Ranier, a copy of the settlement of the case, including the dropping of the wire machine violation, was posted at the mill. “If there was any problem, the union could have notified us,” Mr. Ranier said.
Harry G. Ford, chief of safety inspections, said the union was at fault for not telling Mr. Miller of hazards on the wire machines during the inspection. “In places that an inspector is not familiar with, he has to talk to operators and rely on their judgment,” Mr. Ford said. “Originally in this case, the nip point was not the thing in question.”
As he remembers it, Mr. Miller said that only one or two steelworkers were operating the wire machines during his hour-long inspection of that section of the mill.
“What happens is that word passes ahead that the inspector is coming, and the supervisors will say, ‘Take a break,’ and nothing much will go on when you’re walking through the area,” he stated.
He added that he was unaware of a long-standing practice at the mill whereby operators apply rosin to the speeding wire several inches from the machine’s nip point in order to keep the wire tightly wrapped around the spool.
“I was told by the [company] officials I was with that nobody worked next to the machines, that they [the operators] walked away from the machines after they set them up,” Mr. Miller said.
M. Hamilton Whitman, spokesman for Bethlehem, said Friday that the company would not comment on any aspect of the case because the citations had not been formally settled.
According to Mr. Wilson of Local 2609, the union was well aware that the machines were dangerous, especially the 1917-vintage, single-block equipment that Mr. Hall was operating at the time of the fatal accident.
To back up his statement, Mr. Wilson provided a 1974 report by a union safety committeeman calling the wire machines hazardous to employees and asking the company to enclose the equipment. Also in the files was a 1973 union accident report to Bethlehem about an operator whose hand was drawn into the nip point of a wire machine. The accident required the partial amputation of three of the employee’s fingers, according to the union.
Despite this and several other accidents on the machines, the union never filed a complaint to MOSH because Bethlehem promised to fix the equipment. “We only make a complaint to MOSH when all else fails,” Wilson said. “If we didn’t do this, inspectors would be in the mill 24 hours a day.”
In early 1975, Howard Phillips, a Bethlehem safety official, told a union safety representative that the company planned to guard the wire machines shortly, according to union documents. But the guarding program did not get underway until last year because Bethlehem said it was having problems designing the guards.
Joe Dolinar, a Bethlehem safety supervisor, was quoted in MOSH’s 1977 inspection report as saying that all 85 wire-drawing machines were expected to be guarded by the end of 1977.
However, only 50 of the 85 machines had been shielded at the time of the fatal accident two months ago, according to MOSH. Mr. Hall was killed on one of the machines without safety guards.
Mr. Hall’s hand apparently was caught while he was applying rosin on the wire. After the accident, Bethlehem banned this practice.
In a prehearing conference on the latest citation, Bethlehem tentatively agreed not to contest the $27,200 fine and to install safety cages around the nip points and spools of all wire machines. The cages and related electrical equipment will cost the steelmaker more than $100,000, according to sources.
Each of the cages will include a device that will stop the machine automatically when an employee opens a hatch to gain access to the rotating parts. Under the proposed settlement, Bethlehem will be given an additional six months to erect the safety barriers.