Lowell Bergman revisits a report on worker safety concerns at McWane's iron ore plants, and how the company has changed its ways in the face of regulatory and legal woes after the report.
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00:01Tonight's program contains disturbing imagery. Viewer discretion is advised.
00:20Tonight on Frontline, an update of a story we first broadcast five years ago about one of the most dangerous businesses in America.
00:29Working conditions is probably the worst that you can imagine, probably even worse than underground in a coal mine.
00:35McQueen, an iron pipe company where workers risked their lives.
00:39Fatalities, injuries and illnesses, and amputations are not accepted practice.
00:44After our original broadcast, the Justice Department investigated.
00:48We had never seen a company that committed criminal violations at so many of its facilities.
00:55Now, five years later, we return to the McQueen plants.
00:59When the story first aired, I said to myself, yeah, get that line, get them.
01:04Get them, show them who they really are.
01:07Without the Frontline, things can be any change.
01:11And we find a company transformed.
01:13The results speak for themselves.
01:15There's been a dramatic turnaround in this company.
01:18First, a story originally reported by the New York Times, Frontline, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
01:24Then, an update.
01:26A dangerous business revisited.
01:29A dangerous business revisited.
01:31Though they discussed, they are a little late.
01:33They have cultures who often give the following in the days already.
01:35Or so they did
01:40or so they continued to leave.
01:44Are they joined
01:52uj!
01:53What's up
01:54we have done?
01:56I think it's not curious what we were doing.
01:58Every morning, Marcos Lopez says, his day begins with pain.
02:14He is 45 years old.
02:17Since high school, he has been working at a pipe foundry now owned by the McQuain Corporation.
02:24Last March, while working on a pipe-molding machine, he suffered a serious back injury, becoming
02:30one of more than 4,600 McQuain workers hurt on the job since 1995.
02:38And like others, he is struggling with his disability.
02:43I work all my life.
02:44I put all my time, my energy.
02:47I put a lot of, I'm a dedicated worker, never been late and everything, and I feel this
02:54going to destroy.
02:57Marcos Lopez worked here, at Tyler Pipe in Tyler, Texas, McQuain's largest plant.
03:04Since they bought this plant seven years ago, federal officials say it stands out as a repeat
03:09violator of safety rules, the workforce that has endured burns, amputations, and violent
03:15industrial accidents.
03:17The workload force you, you know, to care less about safety and just do your work, and you
03:22got this point, you know, you reached this point that you just don't care about you and
03:27you set your mind on work, and that's what they want, and that's how people get hurt.
03:33Many McQuain workers say safety is sacrificed to increased productivity.
03:39Since the 1970s, the McQuain way of management has spread, as the company aggressively expanded.
03:47It has estimated annual revenues approaching $2 billion.
03:52Buying up antiquated plants, they now have foundries across North America, increasing profitability
03:58through what they call disciplined management practices.
04:04Here in Tyler, Texas, disciplined management practices meant reducing the workforce by nearly
04:09two-thirds of the people working there.
04:12There were a lot of changes, and it changed for the works for every employee.
04:17I'm embarrassed for people to even know that I have been employed by those people.
04:22John Howell worked at Tyler Pipe for 42 years as a design engineer.
04:28Now retired, he blames McQuain for increasing profits at enormous human cost.
04:33A human being can only hit so many buttons on a machine.
04:37If he's operating a machine, they put another machine behind him, now he's got to operate
04:41two machines.
04:42Well, they got room to put another machine over here, now he's got to work three machines.
04:46Sometimes I work 16 hours up there a day, 16 hours, and I will find my supervisor and
04:54ask him and I go, he said, no, you will live when I tell you to.
05:00In the relentless drive to increase productivity, Tyler veterans say McQuain's disciplined management
05:05practices at times curtailed even the most basic human needs.
05:11If you have a need, you just have to relieve it there at the machine.
05:16You're saying that they're not allowed to go to the bathroom?
05:19When they hold up their hand, they need to go to the bathroom.
05:25They're told, you can hold it, no, just don't.
05:29And they've had to sit there and, excuse me, they've urinated in their pants.
05:36We were tired, exhausted, dangerous.
05:39We work in a real dangerous environment, you know, there's a lot of parts moving, there's
05:44a lot of things, you know, going and on.
05:50Dangerous moving parts are supposed to be covered with safety guards.
05:55Equipment with moving parts must be stopped for adjustments or repairs.
05:59These are the rules set out by the Federal Safety Agency called OSHA.
06:05But these basic safety rules have been repeatedly ignored in McQuain plants, with tragic results.
06:13Recorded in the files of OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
06:18We've reviewed thousands of pages from their files.
06:22This is Ira Cofer.
06:23He was a mechanic at Tyler Pipe working around an unguarded moving conveyor in January 1997.
06:30A sleeve became entangled in the machinery.
06:33His arm was pulled into the belt system and trapped there.
06:36Because of layoffs, he was working alone.
06:39The report of his accident is graphic.
06:41It was missing.
06:43Cofer was missing for more than two and a half hours.
06:45Yet he was crying out for help the entire time.
06:49When he was finally heard, they found him standing on top of his hard hat, trying to relieve the
06:53pressure on his arm.
06:59He watched helplessly as his left arm slowly disintegrated.
07:02Bill rubbed it all down to the bone and took all my flesh off.
07:09He remembers that he talked to God and that the pain eventually ceased.
07:14But today, he lives with the permanent result of an accident that could have been prevented.
07:21I know that I got to get used to it, but sometimes you just can't never get used to.
07:31Every day, he struggles with his disability.
07:34But he was lucky.
07:36Every year, researchers say tens of thousands of American workers die from workplace diseases
07:42and 6,000 workers die from accidents.
07:46Jerry Hobson died a long, slow death after an accident that happened at Tyler Pipe seven
07:53months before Ira Cofer's.
07:56As Hobson was taking a familiar shortcut across an unguarded machine, the machine started up
08:02and crushed him.
08:04Bobby Hobson used to work at Tyler.
08:07He remembers his brother in grief and anger.
08:09Why didn't they wait, though, for him to get all the way through and clear before starting
08:16that machine back up?
08:17Production.
08:18The company should have had a shield up there or some kind of guard where those guys could
08:24not walk across that cylinder.
08:32Was it any kind of secret to supervisors, to management, that guys were taking that sort
08:36of stuff?
08:37Supervisors go across there, too.
08:38So the company knew there was a hazard, knew that men were walking through this hazard, but
08:43didn't it?
08:44No.
08:45No.
08:46No.
08:47No.
08:48No.
08:49No.
08:50No.
08:51No.
08:52No.
08:53No.
08:54No.
08:55No.
08:56No.
08:57No.
08:58No.
08:59No.
09:00No.
09:01No.
09:02No.
09:03No.
09:04No.
09:05No.
09:06No.
09:07No.
09:08No.
09:09No.
09:10No.
09:11No.
09:12No.
09:13No.
09:14No.
09:15No.
09:16No.
09:17No.
09:18No.
09:19No.
09:20federal regulations, while instructing employees to work safely and as efficiently and quickly
09:27as possible. But on the shop floor, workers and managers told us there was a gap between
09:34policy and practice. They preached it. They're telling you, be safe, but you get down there
09:41and do it. But sir, I've got to have two or three guys with me. Well, you better round
09:46them up and be down there in 30 seconds, and I want that thing fixed and running. And
09:51if it's not, it's not making production, and we're going to see the numbers the next week,
09:55and it's going to be your fault if it didn't make those numbers.
09:59As productivity increased, so did the accidents. There were four more amputations following
10:05Ira Kofers. Sixty percent of the maintenance workers in one plant were injured, and OSHA
10:11inspectors would find 30 more safety violations involving unguarded machinery in 1999. Tyler
10:19Pipe and McQuain continued to violate OSHA rules and put workers at risk.
10:24When we have a rogue company, when we have a renegade company like this, and our local
10:31staff knows that there are problems, they send a message up the line that, hey, here's somebody
10:36we need to get their attention. Charles Jeffress was OSHA's administrator in the late 90s. He
10:41tried to get McQuain's attention without much success. The current law is inadequate to deal
10:48with serious violators, repetitive violators, situations where people are put at risk day
10:53after day. It sounds like the law doesn't have significant penalties to it. The penalties
11:00in the OSHA Act are inadequate to deal with people that don't take their safety responsibility
11:05seriously. The penalties were first established in 1970. They've only been increased one time
11:10since then, and it's very low. A serious violation, something that might lead to someone's death,
11:17carries a maximum penalty of $7,000.
11:23In 1999, four years after McQuain bought Tyler Pipe, an OSHA inspector's report described conditions
11:30there. Many workers have scars or disfigurations, which are noticeable from several feet away.
11:37Burns and amputations are frequent. Throughout the plant, in supervisors' offices and on bulletin
11:44boards next to production charts and union memos, is posted in big orange letters, reduce man
11:51hours per ton. In just a few years, the new management philosophy had turned Tyler Pipe into an employer's
11:59of last resort. And the company tried to cope with heavy turnover in the workforce by recruiting
12:06ex-convicts from local prisons.
12:09The word had got out about Tyler Pipe, what the management philosophy was, how the employees
12:17were treated. You couldn't find a local in East Texas that really wanted that job. And if they took it,
12:24they'd be gone in a month. What was that management attitude? What was that mindset?
12:31It doesn't matter. Just put another warm body in there.
12:36Roland Hoskin was desperate for work. His daughter and twin brothers say he had nowhere else to turn.
12:43He was divorced and in debt. But in May 2000, he took a maintenance job on the graveyard shift
12:50at Tyler Pipe. And he was afraid.
12:54He was always, you know, saying how dangerous it was out there. That's all. You know, he didn't...
13:02Really, the training wasn't adequate. He didn't believe that nobody showed nobody how to do nothing.
13:07You know, they just... You're on your own.
13:11Working alone at 4 in the morning with little experience, he entered a sand pit
13:16to adjust a moving, unguarded conveyor belt. A dangerous and illegal, but routine practice.
13:26The machine grabbed his arm.
13:29The graphic photographs by investigators show Roland Hoskin never had a chance.
13:36After the accident, the company argued that it was his own fault.
13:41My dad isn't the kind of person... He wasn't stupid.
13:47He wasn't stupid, but he didn't want to lose his job.
13:51And he felt like if he didn't do whatever he needed to do, that he would lose his job.
13:57And he was just trying to make it. Trying to get back on his feet and make it.
14:04We all miss him, you know, just went to work and didn't come back.
14:19Roland Hoskin was one of nine workers killed in McQueen plants since 1995.
14:24And the only one whose death would result in McQueen being held criminally responsible under federal law.
14:31The company was charged with a maximum penalty, a misdemeanor, and then paid a fine of $250,000.
14:40No one was sent to jail.
14:43You can't send someone to jail for any significant period of time for willfully violating the law and killing somebody.
14:49That's the problem. The law is inadequate.
14:52An injured worker like Ira Koefer will get medical bills paid and a portion of his income through workers' compensation benefits.
15:01But as he and Jerry Hobson learned before he died after more than 20 operations, workers' compensation isn't just about compensating workers.
15:10It provides the company with immunity.
15:16None of the managers at Tyler Pipe would speak to us about the deaths or injuries there,
15:20referring us instead to the McQueen corporate headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama.
15:25The company was started here in Birmingham by James Ransom McQueen in 1921.
15:37The McQueen's are one of the wealthiest families in the South,
15:40known for their philanthropy, endowing museums and universities.
15:45And they are also known for their avoidance of publicity.
15:49This is the only photograph we could find of Philip McQueen,
15:52great-grandson of the founder and current head of the company.
15:57He wouldn't talk to us, nor would he permit any company official to speak on camera,
16:03nor allow us access to any of their plants.
16:08This is footage from inside the original McQueen cast iron pipe foundry, filmed for a Hollywood movie.
16:16We found a former plant manager who was willing to speak on the record.
16:21Working conditions is probably the worst that you can imagine,
16:24probably even worse than underground in a coal mine.
16:26I mean, it's hot, dirty, nasty, but they pay good money.
16:34Robert Rester has spent his entire career working in the dangerous world of pipe foundries.
16:39It's metal against metal all day, pipe rolling down steel rails, pipe hitting pipe,
16:45pipe hitting kickers, kickers kicking pipe, a lot of pinch points, a lot of heavy equipment.
16:51And if it's not maintained, then you've got dangerous spots.
16:56In his 24 years at McQueen, Rester rose from the shop floor to become a McQueen plant manager,
17:03a conservative southerner with a no-nonsense leadership style.
17:07When we met him, he was on sick leave for stress and a heart condition,
17:12acquiring first-hand a whole new perspective on the McQueen management philosophy.
17:18I went off sick the first time I'd missed a day in 25 years,
17:22and they started giving me a hard time about that, and I never could understand why.
17:26And then I finally realized that they were doing to me what I've watched them do for 25 years to other people.
17:33You know, I've been watching and waiting and watching for years,
17:37and the way people got treated, and I was a part of it,
17:40and I knew for a long time that sooner or later somebody's going to have to stop it,
17:45that somebody's going to have to say something.
17:47And I was always hoping it would be somebody besides me.
17:50I never knew I'd be the end of the one talking or pushing the issue,
17:55but that's at the point I was at.
18:02Rester now laments having been part of what he says is an abusive management culture
18:07that placed the production of pipe above all else.
18:13The job, like I said, was a good job and money.
18:15As far as conditions, it would be .
18:17The way you treat people would be awful.
18:19I mean, just, you know, the people, they're nothing.
18:23They're just a number.
18:24You move them in and out.
18:25I mean, if they don't do the job, you fire them.
18:27If they get hurt, complain about safety, you put a bull's eye on them.
18:31I mean, they're targeted.
18:33That means that they're not going to have a job in the near future.
18:40While the company wouldn't meet with us, they have responded in writing,
18:43denying Mr. Rester's allegations.
18:45We do not put production concerns ahead of safety and environmental compliance.
18:53In emails and letters, they point to recent multi-million dollar improvements
18:57at plants like this one, Union Foundry in Anniston, Alabama,
19:01where until six months ago, Robert Rester worked as a manager.
19:05Safety starts here with attitude.
19:08That's to try to make the public look like that they're really concerned
19:11about somebody's health and all, and they say it starts with attitude,
19:15and you can walk through that gate, and the attitudes in there,
19:18it's unbelievable how bad they are.
19:20You know, every day somebody's forced to do a job out there
19:23while a piece of equipment's running or something like that,
19:26and it's unsafe, and these guys get to the point where they just hope
19:29that, you know, they can make it another day without getting caught
19:32on one of these jobs, it's dangerous.
19:36Reginald Elston's file is consistent with many others we've investigated.
19:41An electrician, out of the Navy, had a baby daughter, needed work,
19:46took a job at Union Foundry on maintenance.
19:49August 22, 2000.
19:55Working at a conveyor belt that was running and unguarded,
19:58he was yanked headfirst into a machine, where he died,
20:02his left hand just inches away from a safety shutdown switch.
20:07Clyde Dorn was in charge of safety at Union Foundry
20:10when Reginald Elston was pulled into the unguarded conveyor belt.
20:14How had this escaped your attention?
20:17There was new construction going on in that department.
20:21As a matter of fact, they were putting in a whole new machine.
20:24They told me that this particular belt was a part of the new construction.
20:28I was not allowed to get involved in new construction.
20:32In fact, this tail pulley was actually in regular operation.
20:36From what I understand, afterwards, yes.
20:40Clyde Dorn admitted to us that he was fired last year
20:42after he was arrested and convicted for trafficking
20:45in the painkiller OxyContin.
20:47Before going to prison, he spoke with us
20:49about his six years working at Union Foundry.
20:52Had you ever worked in a foundry before?
20:55No, I had never worked in a foundry.
20:57How many previous jobs had you held as a safety director
21:00before coming to Union?
21:01That's actually the first job I had as a safety director.
21:04As the safety director, did you have the authority to stop production?
21:09No, I had to go to the plant manager, and the plant manager would make the decision.
21:16No matter... no matter what?
21:20Well, if somebody was caught in the machine, I could shut it off.
21:24So you have no budget, you have no staff, you have no authority.
21:29How can you possibly be effective, then, as a safety director?
21:35It's difficult.
21:38Clyde Dorn's job was also to deal with OSHA and its inspectors.
21:43Soon after he started work, there was a fatality on his watch.
21:48Johnny Brewster was a machine operator, temporarily assigned to cleanup duties.
21:54He was working in the bottom of an elevator shaft.
21:57The elevator continued operating.
21:59It descended and crushed him.
22:02When OSHA fined the company $12,000, the safety director fought it
22:07and got the fine reduced to $4,500.
22:11You took offense to that fine.
22:14It's my job.
22:16Dorn says he not only fought OSHA fines,
22:19but on occasion he withheld information from federal inspectors.
22:24You lied to OSHA.
22:27Well, yeah.
22:29The McWane way is don't tell anybody anything,
22:32especially if they're going to do the testing.
22:34We know that...
22:35You mean, don't tell anybody, even if it's the anybody as government regulators?
22:39Yeah.
22:40Well, I mean, you don't convict yourself, let them do it.
22:44That's what they get paid for.
22:46Over the last 20 years, the judgment in Washington has been that regulation was strangling business.
22:56After heavy lobbying by industry, OSHA's authority and budgets have been curtailed,
23:01making it easier for some companies to dismiss the agency.
23:05They consider OSHA a mosquito.
23:07That they'd rather pay the fines than bring their plants into compliance.
23:11That they think the law is so ineffective that it's more profitable for them to take the risks
23:18by not having safety programs in place than to comply with the law.
23:22That is a serious problem.
23:24But Jeffress' successor, John Henshaw, who was appointed by President Bush,
23:28believes he has the tools to do the job.
23:30Are the laws tough enough?
23:32They are strong.
23:34Obviously, we're constantly looking at where we need to improve that,
23:38and we'll continue to make those improvements as we go forward.
23:42What happens when you come across a company that has, as in the case of Tyler Pipe, repeated violations,
23:48and then it turns out repeated instances in other plants owned by the same people?
23:54With Tyler Pipe or McWayne or other organizations, when they have a pattern, we need to take special attention
24:03to make sure that we don't have the same kind of pattern going throughout the organization.
24:07How many criminal referrals have there been since you've been the head of OSHA?
24:12I don't have that statistic.
24:14After our interview, Mr. Henshaw told us he had referred five cases to the Justice Department.
24:20But if history is a guide, there is little likelihood of stiffer enforcement.
24:25Since OSHA was established 32 years ago, there have been more than 200,000 workplace-related deaths.
24:32In all that time, there have been only 11 short jail sentences handed out.
24:38It appears to be true that under federal law, you get a more severe penalty for harassing a wild borough
24:45on federal land than you do for willfully killing a worker in your factor.
24:49That's true, and we have many more wildlife protectors than we have industrial plant inspectors.
24:54Why hasn't this situation changed?
24:56There hasn't been a groundswell from the public to get Congress' attention to change the situation.
25:02Any change in the law has to come from Congress.
25:05And in this era, regulatory programs, enforcement programs are not popular in Congress.
25:12And enforcing OSHA misdemeanors is not popular with federal prosecutors around the country.
25:19The U.S. attorney is generally going to spend his or her time on felony convictions, on things with big fines.
25:25And if all you can bring is a misdemeanor case, it just doesn't get the attention that a felony case would.
25:31These are the faces of the workers who have died at McQuain plant since 1995.
25:38All these deaths were declared accidents by local authorities, so tougher state felony charges were never filed.
25:46Pipe foundries like the McQuain plant in Birmingham are not only inherently dangerous, they are dirty.
25:56And McQuain plants have been declared in violation of pollution laws and emission limits more than 450 times in the last seven years.
26:05McQuain's attitude is, unless you catch us, unless you push us, unless we're right up to it, to the limit, we're not going to do anything we have to do.
26:16Bart Slauson ought to know.
26:17He's an Alabama environmental lawyer who threatened to sue McQuain for problems at their Birmingham foundry.
26:23There had been complaints from people who work in the downtown buildings about McQuain,
26:28because they'd be sitting in their offices and here'd be this big cloud of junk coming up from McQuain.
26:33They'd get mad and they'd call the health department.
26:35Well, the health department didn't do anything about McQuain's air pollution.
26:39And I got asked to look into it, and I did, and I found this long line of air pollution violations.
26:45So I wrote them a 60-day notice that said, under the Clean Air Act, in 60 days we're going to sue you
26:52for several million dollars for violating your air permit and polluting the air in that area.
26:58The company reacted to Slauson's notice and agreed to clean up the emissions from their Birmingham plant.
27:03But environmentalists would discover that air pollution wasn't the only problem.
27:08Well, apparently they were dumping, you know, pollution from their processed wastewater
27:14and runoff from the plant into basically a pipe that ran into Village Creek,
27:22an illegal discharge of polluted water.
27:25A pipe foundry like the McQuain plant in Birmingham uses vast quantities of water for cooling pipe.
27:35Wastewater contains oil, silica, and heavy metals.
27:38The law requires that it be collected in holding ponds, then treated and recycled.
27:44But what happens when the holding ponds become full?
27:48According to Robert Rester, you break the law with a little help from Mother Nature.
27:54Any time there was excess oil or something in there, they would wait till a big storm or something come along,
28:00then go out there and open that up.
28:02And then that way the storm water and all would just flush the oil and everything all out at one time
28:07in the middle of the night or whatever.
28:09Did that happen when you were the plant manager?
28:11Yes.
28:12More than once?
28:17Yes.
28:18Did the general manager know this?
28:20Oh, yeah.
28:21The executive vice president of the corporation knew what was going on.
28:25We had to do...
28:27All he would ever say is, whatever we had to do to run, we need to do it.
28:31You know, get rid of the water, we gotta run.
28:34We tried to contact the general manager and the vice president,
28:38but they refused to speak to us, referring us to McQuain headquarters.
28:48The problem with wastewater wasn't just in Alabama.
28:51The Delaware River flows by Phillipsburg, New Jersey, and millions have been spent over the years to clean it up.
29:00But on the morning of December 5th, 1999, residents noticed this oily sheen on the river.
29:08It grew into an oil slick eight miles long.
29:13Investigators eventually found the source.
29:16A city storm drain somehow turned into an industrial sewer.
29:20They started pulling manhole covers to find where the oil was coming from.
29:29The trail led them here, to Atlantic State's foundry, a pipe plant owned by the McQuain Corporation.
29:39Even after the FBI and state officials raided the foundry, they were unable to find out who at the plant released the contaminated wastewater.
29:47To dispose of the case, McQuain paid $50,000 to an environmental group.
29:53But we found former employees who told us that this was not an isolated incident.
29:58Getting rid of wastewater was a constant headache for Brad Schultz.
30:02Once or twice a week, we were told that we had to pump it out.
30:06That's 100,000-some gallons of fluid that you're losing every single day.
30:10It's got to go somewhere.
30:12And the nearest somewhere was through a storm drain that led here, the Delaware River.
30:17My supervisor gives me that order.
30:19And who was that?
30:20At the time, it was Bobby Bobinas.
30:27Come on up, Bob.
30:29Bobby Bobinas wasn't supervising much when we found him.
30:32He was in the Sunbury, Pennsylvania jail.
30:35He was in for a driving offense.
30:38But he worries about the legality of some of the things he did when he worked for Atlantic State's foundry,
30:43like getting rid of contaminated wastewater the easy way.
30:48You had to pump it out.
30:50And held, what, in holding tanks?
30:51There's holding tanks, but they can't hold the capacity.
30:54When you pump 20,000 gallons of water into a 10,000-gallon tank and it overflows, it runs down out of the storm sewers.
31:00It goes wherever the storm sewers end up, which is usually in the Delaware River.
31:03But I just want to get this clear.
31:06The water's overflowing every day.
31:08Mm-hmm.
31:09Did your supervisor know that?
31:11Yes.
31:12You mentioned it.
31:13Yeah, because me and my supervisor were sitting out in a bunch of pipes about 5 o'clock one morning,
31:17and I looked at him and I said, I don't want to go to jail for this, because I realized what was going on.
31:22And that's...
31:23And what did he say?
31:25And I said, shh.
31:28That's when I realized what the magnitude of what was going on was, when he said that.
31:32He just looked at me and said, shh.
31:35The supervisor in question would not talk to us.
31:38In an exchange of letters and emails, company officials have assured us that overall they are trying to do better.
31:45McQuain says it's spending tens of millions to clean up the air and water pollution from their foundries around the country,
31:52five million alone at the Atlantic states, where they say they have sealed off the foundry from the town's storm drains.
31:59In a letter to us, McQuain pointed out that in the real world they're fighting for survival,
32:04competing against foreign manufacturers who have little or no regard for the safety of their workers or the environment.
32:12But in Washington, McQuain's record may finally be getting some attention.
32:19OSHA administrator John Henshaw.
32:21We counted up 420 OSHA violations over a seven year period.
32:26How can that possibly happen if there's an effective enforcement program going on?
32:31I can't speak to the past, but the fact is McQuain has had 595 violations.
32:39And we've had over 111 inspections of those facilities.
32:43So clearly they have a serious record with us.
32:46And we need to do something different.
32:48Because my only concern is that they get the message, that they turn themselves around and manage that company more appropriately.
32:54And fatalities are not accepted practice.
32:57Injuries and illnesses and amputations are not accepted practice.
33:01And you think they're going to change?
33:03Proof's in the pudding.
33:05McQuain says in emails to us that a new company-wide emphasis on safety has lowered their injury rate.
33:12At Tyler Pipe, the company says hundreds of safety hazards have been eliminated.
33:17But a month after our interview with Mr. Henshaw, there was another accident at Tyler Pipe in Texas.
33:24A worker was crushed by a vehicle.
33:27The accident happened October 29th, in the middle of an OSHA inspection.
33:33Doctors fought for days to save Guadalupe Garcia's life.
33:38His pelvis and his legs were crushed.
33:41It took hundreds of units of blood to keep him alive.
33:44A week after the accident, they had to amputate both legs.
33:49The accident is still being investigated.
33:56Another family devastated by a workplace accident.
34:03A family friend expressed their grief and anger.
34:07A family friend, Elisa Soriano.
34:09You hear about OSHA this, OSHA that.
34:12They should force them to be more safety cautious and avoid this.
34:19This is unnecessary.
34:24The sad thing is this keeps happening over and over and over.
34:29After the McWane story first aired, the Department of Justice took action.
34:47The 35-pound indictment against Atlantic States and five of its top managers alleges a far-reaching conspiracy within a division of McWane, Inc.
34:57In all, federal felony charges would be filed against McWane at five separate plants.
35:03Pacific States in Utah, Union Foundry and McWane Cast Iron Pipe in Alabama, Tyler Pipe in Texas, and Atlantic States in New Jersey.
35:18And charges were also returned against 10 of McWane's vice presidents, plant managers, and supervisors.
35:23To cover up those crimes through lies and false statements, and to obstruct justice by silencing witnesses.
35:30At the time, David Ullman was the head of the Justice Department's Environmental Crimes Section.
35:35Across the five facilities where we prosecuted McWane, we saw every kind of environmental criminal violation and worker safety violation you could see.
35:46And they were all there at McWane.
35:49He told us that the Department of Justice knew little about McWane before 2003.
35:54The reality of how we found out about McWane was we found out about McWane from the news media.
35:59We found out about McWane from Frontline and the New York Times.
36:03Ullman led a nationwide investigation of McWane that relied not just on worker safety law, but on the much tougher provisions of environmental law.
36:12And the penalties for an environmental crime are greater than the penalties for, let's say, a worker safety crime?
36:18On the criminal side, they're not even in the same ballpark.
36:21For better or worse, under the current Occupational Safety and Health Law in the United States,
36:26there's not a lot in the way of criminal sanctions available.
36:29The environmental laws provide heightened penalties, 15-year felonies for knowingly endangering others while committing an environmental crime.
36:38The indictments produced a cascade of convictions.
36:42By 2006, McWane, the corporation, and eight of its executives and managers had been convicted of 125 environmental, health, and safety crimes,
36:53including violations of the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, as well as obstruction of justice, lying to government officials, and conspiracy.
37:03The prosecutors who worked on the case said they'd never seen anything like it.
37:08They'd never seen an environment quite like McWane.
37:12And they'd never seen a culture of fear quite like the McWane employees described to them.
37:19In addition, the courts imposed nearly $20 million in criminal fines,
37:24and government regulators levied millions more in civil penalties.
37:28During the 20-year history of the environmental crime section, we had never seen a company that committed criminal violations at so many of its facilities.
37:40There was, in effect, a culture of lawlessness.
37:43This was the McWane way.
37:48In the past, McWane refused even to meet with us.
37:51But this time, when we contacted them, we received an immediate response.
37:56McWane President Ruffner Page wrote a letter saying that,
38:00I welcome the opportunity to share information and talk about the dramatic transformation of our company
38:06since the original publication and broadcast.
38:09He also gave us an invitation to see for yourself what we have accomplished.
38:14And so reporter Lowell Bergman went to Birmingham, Alabama, home to the McWane Corporation for over 80 years.
38:26McWane told us we might be able to interview Ruffner Page at a later time,
38:30but first, they insisted, we hear about their turnaround.
38:34Welcome to McWane. We're very happy we have the opportunity to give...
38:38McWane set up a briefing with these new executives who told us that since our initial broadcast,
38:43many of the old managers have been forced out.
38:46Ninety percent of our senior management is new,
38:49and we've added over 125 new environmental health and safety and HR positions.
38:55They told us the company now uses advanced computer programs
38:58to track environmental compliance and injuries.
39:01Every single recordable injury within the company is posted on the website within 24 hours.
39:08And they told us they have spent more than $300 million on improvements.
39:12Money is being spent at a rate as fast as we can manage it.
39:16One of the things they spent money on was hiring new high-powered consultants,
39:21three former government officials who McWane says are among the principal architects of the new McWane.
39:28Hank Havick, a former federal prosecutor who was second in command of the EPA.
39:33Pat Tyson, a former acting head of OSHA.
39:38And a familiar face, John Henshaw, who was formerly responsible for overseeing investigations of McWane.
39:44Mr. Henshaw, when we first met you were the assistant secretary of the Department of Labor.
39:51That's correct.
39:52And you were familiar with McWane.
39:54I was familiar based on the information that the agency had in regard to their compliance situation.
40:00So what was your assessment when they called you up when you got contacted, of the company and what needed to be done?
40:06Certainly I knew they had a considerable amount of issues that needed to be addressed.
40:10They did not have control of their safety and health and environmental issues.
40:14And I thought my conversation was going to be short, but it wasn't.
40:17And it really took to be convinced. Senior management had to tell me.
40:22It had to be Ruffner Page and his direct reports.
40:25Are they really serious about making these improvements?
40:29And they convinced me that's what they intended to do.
40:31And when faced with the news reports, the prosecutions and so forth,
40:36a company in this kind of industry and situation is faced with the choice of either making major commitment to accelerate change and become a leader or go out of business.
40:47There really is no middle ground.
40:48I met with Ruffner Page, the president.
40:50I was convinced that they were committed to do the right thing.
40:53And I think the results speak for themselves.
40:56There's been a dramatic turnaround in this company.
40:58I'm just wondering, people out there would say, well, of course these guys are saying this because they're making all this money.
41:03Right?
41:04I mean, you're on their side.
41:06I think I can speak for John.
41:08I can speak for Hank.
41:09And I can speak for myself.
41:11We're not being bought to say what we're saying here.
41:15To back up their claims, McWane provided boxes of documents that describe a concerted effort to improve worker safety and environmental compliance.
41:24They say they've changed.
41:27Do you believe it?
41:29I think I'm an agnostic on the subject of whether McWane has changed.
41:34I hope they have changed.
41:36I hope they have learned their lesson.
41:38Only time will tell.
41:41To evaluate McWane's claims, we wanted to talk to workers on the plant floor to see if things had changed for them.
41:49So we accepted the invitation to tour McWane's plants.
41:52What we're going to do is we're going to go into the main plant.
41:56We're going to see some of our iron works.
41:59Again, that iron's about, I'd say, 2,600 degrees.
42:05Now he's going to slag off.
42:07He's going to pull the impurities off the top of that iron.
42:11One thing has not changed.
42:13The foundry business is still hot and dangerous.
42:17And there's a nearly constant siren signaling molten metal on the move.
42:24But the McWane way does appear to have changed.
42:28In our original report, unguarded conveyor belts were a major hazard leading to deaths, like Roland Hoskin at Tyler Pipe.
42:38Today, in every plant we went to, conveyor belts were secured.
42:43And there were guardrails around all the platforms and large machinery.
42:50Another change, because of the investment of tens of millions of dollars in environmental equipment,
42:55the air in the plants appeared much cleaner and clearer.
43:03McWane said we could talk to any worker on the plant floor.
43:07But they also gathered several for us in a quiet space in the foundry.
43:12So have things changed since you first came here?
43:15Things have changed drastically here at McWane cast iron pipe.
43:19When I first started, it was nowhere safe around here.
43:24It was, you know, like I say, make pipe, make pipe.
43:28You know, we weren't worried about safety.
43:30If something broke down, everybody just wanted to jump in it right quick and fix it and try to get back going.
43:36But now we're more safety conscientious here.
43:39And McWane workers told us there are now strict requirements to shut down and lock down machines while they're being repaired.
43:47It's the kind of safety practice that in the past could have saved lives.
43:55Five years ago, it wasn't on law. It didn't exist.
43:59You just jump in there and get it done. We got to make a pipe.
44:01Local union treasurer Samuel Thomas has worked at McWane's Birmingham Foundry for 16 years.
44:07He remembers the documentary.
44:09When the story first aired, I said to myself, yeah, get McWane, get them.
44:15Get them, show them up for who they really are.
44:17But out the front line, things began to change.
44:21Samuel Thomas says they now have a more stable workforce.
44:25Five years ago or more, there was a lot of turnover here at the plant.
44:29People were leaving.
44:30Yeah, people was leaving because they couldn't put up with the harassment.
44:36They were being harassed a lot.
44:38You couldn't speak to management?
44:39Oh, no.
44:40Some of them would turn their head before they get to you and keep from doing it.
44:43Really?
44:44Yeah.
44:45Because the McWane way.
44:50That's the way the McWane way was then?
44:53The old McWane way.
44:54And now?
44:55The new McWane way.
44:56Not only will they speak to you there, grab your hand, shake your hand and say,
45:00how you doing today?
45:01They mean a lot.
45:03Independently, Frontline spoke to dozens of other workers here in Birmingham
45:08and at McWane's once troubled foundries across the country.
45:12They all confirmed that McWane has changed.
45:16Even in Tyler, Texas, where so many deaths and injuries had occurred.
45:21Well, it's really improved.
45:24I feel a lot safer working here, to be honest.
45:27I wouldn't say that if I didn't mean it.
45:31You can always get better, but right now, it's a whole lot better than what it was.
45:42McWane insists that some of its 27 plants, like this one in Iowa, have never had serious
45:48problems and, in fact, have been recognized by OSHA for their safety record.
45:56According to outside audits, McWane's injury rates for 2007 will now be below the industry average.
46:05They're not perfect.
46:06And they're going to make mistakes.
46:08But they're committed to doing the right thing.
46:12And they're on the path to being the industry leader.
46:16And I think many people would say they're already well, well on their way to being there.
46:20Their environmental performance has improved and their record has improved dramatically.
46:25And they actually encourage and reward people to find things, you know, early and take action to correct them.
46:31Even one of McWane's severest critics, the man who sued them in Birmingham for environmental violations, says they have cleaned up their act.
46:41Well, they're not dumping all their excess stuff in the creek at midnight anymore.
46:46They went from being a real crappy organization where they were very, you know, low level of compliance.
46:53And now, you know, they're paying attention to safety.
46:56They're paying attention to environmental law.
46:58They have spent a hell of a lot of money.
47:00They also got sued civilly.
47:02So they had to pay a pretty high price for, you know, running barefoot there with ignoring the regulations for years.
47:09So I give them a, you know, at this point, I guess I give them a nine or something like that.
47:14But Bart Slauson says that without the prosecutions, publicity and lawsuits, the company would not have changed.
47:22Finally, now that they got caught and they got all this negative attention here and all over the United States and the civil suits,
47:29I think they finally realized that, yeah, we got to join the 20th century.
47:33We got to operate like a regular, you know, citizen here in this community.
47:37McWane had held out the possibility that Frontline could interview this man,
47:42company president Ruffner Page.
47:45After intense negotiations, he finally agreed to appear on camera, but not to answer questions,
47:52only to read from a written statement.
47:55In 1999, when Philip McWane, our chairman, and I became responsible for this 80-year-old collection of heavy foundry businesses,
48:03we learned we had work to do, and we started immediately.
48:07Ruffner Page had told us during negotiations that they started the process of correcting the problems,
48:13quote, long before the prosecutors interviewed their first witness.
48:18Changing a culture takes time.
48:21We set out our expectations of workplace behavior and teamwork that we were looking for from our employees.
48:29He also maintained that in the 1990s, the company grew rapidly with plants spread across North America,
48:36and that, quote, McWane in Birmingham really did not have a handle on all the problems.
48:41Some of our managers decided not to follow this vision of teamwork and retired, resigned, or were terminated.
48:52They say, well, these were just a bunch of bad supervisors, but this isn't the company as a whole.
48:59Well, I don't see how you can say this is just a bunch of bad managers.
49:04You don't have the kind of violations that we saw at multiple facilities within a company and not have a cultural problem within the company,
49:13not have a culture where it's okay to break the law.
49:16Ruffner Page would not comment on any of their criminal cases,
49:20including convictions related to the deaths that had happened while he and Philip McWane were running the company.
49:26As in the past, Philip McWane would not talk to us.
49:33But in 2005, he did go into federal court in Birmingham and made a statement apologizing for the company's conduct at McWane Cast Iron Pipe.
49:48For some of the people who used to work at McWane foundries across the United States,
49:53the coming of the new McWane was too late.
49:57Marcos Lopez, who broke his back at work, is still partially disabled.
50:03Ira Cofer says he was forced to retire from Tyler Pipe last year.
50:09I lost what I should have had the rest of my life.
50:16It hadn't been for, you know, them working people like they were working.
50:21I don't think I lost them at all.
50:24Guadalupe Garcia, the man who was crushed by a truck in late 2002 and barely survived,
50:32is getting along as best he can.
50:35Mr. Garcia told us that he could not talk to us because of the terms of the settlement of a lawsuit he had brought against McWane.
50:45As for former plant manager Robert Rester, who blew the whistle,
50:49he struck a deal with prosecutors and then testified against McWane in Birmingham.
50:54Before I became a whistleblower, I was making as much as $130,000 a year a few years ago working for McWane Incorporated,
51:02the company I've worked for for 24 years.
51:05And now I'm a garbage man making $20,000, $25,000 a year and starting all over again.
51:13I lost it all, everything I had, horses, Harley, guns, the house and land where I used to live.
51:22I don't regret it.
51:23I mean, of course, sometimes I look at what I lost and what I could have now,
51:27but I still feel like I did the right thing.
51:30Rester says he is disappointed that despite all the convictions,
51:34to date, only one McWane executive has served any time in jail.
51:39I just wonder sometimes why, when I supposedly did something good,
51:44that it cost me everything that I've worked for all my life,
51:48but yet the ones that did all the bad stuff are still getting big paychecks
51:53and driving fancy cars and, you know, the bad ones.
51:58And I'm supposedly a good one that helped a lot of people, but yet I lost it all.
52:02I don't understand that.
52:04You never charged Ruffner Page, the CEO, or Philip McWane, the owner.
52:09He owns the whole company.
52:10In terms of individuals and corporate officials within McWane,
52:14we went as high within the organization as the evidence allowed us to go.
52:19For us to have brought charges against anybody higher up in McWane,
52:23we would have needed cooperation that we never got from the plant managers
52:28at the various McWane facilities.
52:31The final chapter in the story of the old McWane is not yet over.
52:36This spring, the company faces sentencing in the Atlantic States case,
52:40where they were convicted of 52 felonies
52:43after the longest environmental crime trial in U.S. history.
52:46In the Birmingham case,
52:50almost all of the charges against McWane and its employees
52:53resulted in convictions.
52:55These convictions were reversed on appeal,
52:58with the court ordering a new trial for the company and two of its executives.
53:04All of the McWane prosecutions have given the Department of Justice a new model,
53:09a way around, in some cases, the weakness of the OSHA law.
53:14But the OSHA law itself still has not changed.
53:18It should be a felony violation if you willfully commit a worker safety violation
53:25that results in a worker death.
53:26I don't think there's any question that that should be a felony.
53:29Do you think we'd be talking about a new McWane today
53:32if all we could have done in the various McWane prosecutions
53:36was hit them with misdemeanor sanctions?
53:39We wouldn't be hearing about a new McWane today.
53:41There's always companies that don't think it's important to comply with the law.
53:48And for those companies, you need a strong enforcement scheme
53:51to bring them in line and to make sure that crime doesn't pay.
53:56Next time, once Mormons were hated, persecuted, exiled.
54:16Today, they're 12 million strong.
54:19Follow their astonishing journey from the margins to the mainstream
54:23and discover the truth about America's most controversial faith.
54:28The Mormons, a Frontline American Experience special presentation.
54:34To order Frontline's A Dangerous Business Revisited on DVD,
54:39call PBS Home Video at 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
54:53The Mormons of the
54:58The Mormons, a Frontline American Experience special
55:04The Mormons in a Quantique
55:09The Mormons at a Environment Intergencies would be consolidated,
55:11the Mormons in a Quantique Squadron.
55:13The Mormons in a Quantique Theater
55:15The Mormons in a Night In اور
55:16The Mormons in an Portline American Experience
55:18The Mormons in a Quantique Theater
55:19And the Mormons in a Selective Teacher