Illegal activities of Southern Bosses for the weeks between Friday, January 24, and Friday, January 31
Trumps’ administration has continued to not issue new enforcement actions or announce the resolution of old enforcement actions. This is true at least at the following agencies: Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), Wage and Hour Division (WHD), Department of Labor (DOL), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), etc.
However, we did see a story out of Alabama.
Alabama Endangerers
Last week, a worker at a GE appliances manufacturing facility in Decatur, GA (Haier US Appliance Solutions Inc) was injured on the job, and was taken to the hospital.
From WAFF: “Officials say Decatur Fire and Rescue, Morgan County EMS and Decatur Police officers were dispatched [and] determined the employee was suffering from non-life-threatening injuries due to an incident involving a forklift.”
If that facility and town sounds familiar to readers of the newsletter – it should be. Here is a portion of our entrance from Boss Watch literally two weeks ago:
Federal workplace safety investigators found that a Decatur manufacturer of GE-brand appliances failed to follow required machine standards that could have prevented a 58-year-old front-line supervisor’s fatal injuries while trying to service a door molding machine.
Inspectors with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration opened an investigation of the July 2024 incident at Haier US Appliance Solutions Inc. and found the company allowed workers to bypass the machine’s safety doors and did not use required procedures to prevent employee injuries in the carousel-like machine.
“Haier US Appliance Solutions could have avoided this tragedy but put production schedules and profit ahead of employee safety,” said OSHA Area Office Director Joel Batiz in Birmingham, Alabama. “This company’s troubling history of safety failures in its manufacturing process has posed a significant risk to the more than 1,500 workers at its Decatur location who rely on a safe and healthy workplace.”
OSHA cited the company, which operates as GE Appliances, for one willful violation for failing to follow lockout/tagout procedures to de-energize the machine before allowing service or maintenance. Inspectors also cited Haier for two serious violations for permitting employees to bypass interlocking safety doors to gain access to the machine and for not maintaining annual inspections for lockout/tagout procedures.
The company faces $193,585 in proposed penalties, the maximum that OSHA can legally recommend.
This incident continues a history of 40 safety inspections dating back to 2016 at two Haier US Appliance Solutions’ manufacturing facilities in Louisville, Kentucky, and in Decatur. These inspections included many machine safety violations, including two repeated and two serious violations of lockout/tagout requirements cited after a 55-year-old worker’s fatality in Louisville in February 2019.
When this happened last year, even initial reporting noted that OSHA was investigating. No such indications of an investigation exist at this time.
Union Busters
Brought to you by LaborLab: The nation’s leading watchdog standing with working families to stop employer coercion and intimidation. Visit www.laborlab.us for more info.
Below are the net-new LM-20s that were filed this week:
- LRI Consulting Services was hired by Jacintoport International for $425/hour for pre-petition consulting
- Santana International was sub-contracted and made $212.50/hour
- RoadWarrior Productions was hired by Titan Florida for $3,800/day (agreement letter attached); there is an open R case filing
- RallainConsulting was sub-contracted
- ICWE and The Crossroads Group were hired by UnityPoint Healthy for $400/hour and $450/hour respectively
In addition, the following LM-20 was amended:
- Government Resources Consultants of America amended their LM-20 with Paragon to add sub-contractors
In addition to the above, Labor Lab informs me that they are investigating some persuader activity at Laboratory Corporation of America in Portland, OR. They have a verified report that three persuaders are on site. One is Emma Medina – President of the Galilea Corporation. There are reports that the busters are using fake names, too.
Emma Medina has been a consultant since 2014. Galilea Corp was incorporated in February 2017. The company is currently active and is registered in Chandler, Arizona. Medina has also sub-contracted for The Labor Pros, Team Optimal Employee Relations, Lev Labor, Labor Advisors, and HMD Consulting Services. Medina is bilingual–she speaks English and Spanish. She specializes in the ACT Training and Union Vulnerability Assessment Audits.