Read about its philosophy

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PBS Reports "A Dangerous Business"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/workplace/

Read about its philosophy, its record, and the people killed in its plants. Plus, examine company and government documents -- and more of McWane's response to FRONTLINE, The New York Times and the CBC's reporting.


		The McWane corporation's aggressive management style -- what it calls "disciplined management practices" -- has helped the company to achieve tremendous profits through increasing worker productivity. Some critics argue, however, that McWane's gains have come at a very high cost: its workers' safety -- and in some cases their lives. But McWane's way of doing business is not the only way, as a comparison with its longtime Birmingham competitor, the American Cast Iron Pipe Co. (ACIPCO), clearly suggests. Here's a look at the two companies, both founded and based in Birmingham, Ala., and their competing visions.



		Here are profiles of seven employees who were injured or killed at McWane plants. With foundries stretching across 10 U.S. states and Canada, over the past seven years McWane Inc. has amassed more safety violations than all of its major competitors combined. More than 4,600 of its workers have been hurt on the job since 1995, and nine have been killed.



		On Jan. 3, 2003, the director of OSHA's enforcement program sent McWane this letter in response to McWane's proposal to partner with OSHA to improve its worker safety program. He writes, "Most employers OSHA partners with have demonstrated a strong prior commitment towards worker health and safety; your history with the Agency does not yet demonstrate this level of commitment. More specifically, given the relatively recent history at the Tyler Pipe facility, we cannot at this time conclude that such is evident throughout McWane facilities."



		In 1995, McWane subsidiary Ransom Industries bought Tyler Pipe Co. in Tyler, Texas. Federal officials say that since its purchase by McWane, Tyler Pipe has stood out as a repetitive violator of safety rules. In this report, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, federal inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), detail conditions at the plant, including scarred and disfigured workers, puddles of molten metal on the floor, and poorly lit work areas.



		In this confidential 1996 memo to the New York State attorney general's office, McWane's attorneys state that the company would not accept any criminal responsibility for the 1995 death of an employee at its Kennedy Valve plant in Elmira, N.Y. Playing political hardball, they warn that criminal charges "could result in the closure of Kennedy Valve that would cost the Elmira area more than 320 jobs."

> McWane's Response

Although McWane would not agree to a face-to-face interview for this story, the company sent a number of e-mails and letters during the course of FRONTLINE, The New York Times, and the CBC's reporting. Here is an extended excerpt from a letter sent by McWane Inc. President G. Ruffner Page on Oct. 17, 2002, that articulates the company's defense of its corporate safety and environmental policies.

> The New York Times: Dangerous Business

Read their three-part series entitled "Dangerous Business." The Web site also includes an extended multimedia feature with an interactive graphic on how cast-iron pipe is made; charts that detail McWane's safety record in comparison to its major competitors; and "behind the scenes" audio from reporters Lowell Bergman and David Barstow. [FREE New York Times Registration Required]

> CBC News: A Toxic Company

Through takeovers and mergers since 1989, McWane has won control of the lion's share of the Canadian market for cast-iron pipes and related products. On the CBC's Web site, read more about McWane's presence in Canada -- including documents related to the company's 1995 guilty plea for conspiring to unduly lessen competition in the supply and sale of ductile iron pipe -- and more of the company's response to the joint reporting of FRONTLINE, The New York Times, and the CBC.

Over the past 20 years, the prevailing wisdom in Washington has been that regulation strangles business. Under heavy lobbying by industry, the power of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been challenged, making it easier for some companies to dismiss the agency's efforts to enforce workplace safety laws. "The fact is they consider OSHA a mosquito," former OSHA administrator Charles Jeffress tells FRONTLINE. "They'd rather pay the fines than bring their plants into compliance." Here's a closer look at OSHA and the politics of workplace safety, including interviews with Jeffress and OSHA's current administrator, John Henshaw, and a Web-exclusive analysis by Prof. David Weil of Boston University and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.


		John Henshaw has been assistant secretary of labor for occupational health and safety since August 2001. In this interview, he maintains that OSHA regulations are strong and points for evidence to the "significant" reduction of workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities over the past 30 years. He also says that he believes OSHA enforcement actions should be targeted at "bad actors" -- those companies with the highest injury rates and worst violation records. This is an edited transcript of his interview with FRONTLINE, conducted on Sept. 30, 2002.



		Charles Jeffress served as assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health during the late 1990s. In this interview, Jeffress argues that federal workplace safety laws are weak, pointing out that "to willfully violate the law and kill someone is a misdemeanor under the OSHA Act." He also explains how the theory behind the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act was to be preventive and assess penalties for existing hazards. However, he warns that in practice the OSHA law "has inadequate teeth" for the federal government to rein in a rogue company. This is an edited transcript of his interview with FRONTLINE, conducted on Sept. 30, 2002.



		OSHA has long been at the center of ideological battles over the power and reach of the federal government. In this Web-exclusive essay for FRONTLINE, Prof. David Weil of Boston University and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government looks at the political context in which OSHA has historically operated and the political realities it now faces. He then offers his analysis of where OSHA has been most (and least) effective in the past and what it will take to make OSHA more effective -- and our workplaces safer -- in the future.



		Since the creation of OSHA 32 years ago, there have been more than 200,000 workplace-related deaths. However, OSHA has referred only 151 cases to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. Federal prosecutors have declined to pursue two-thirds of these cases, and only eight of them have resulted in prison sentences for company officials. Here's a look at those eight cases.

So what does all this news get?

Since the Frontline report on the McWane corporation first aired, there have been several significant developments:

The Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency launched a criminal investigation of McWane plants in January 2003 -- the same month The New York Times and FRONTLINE reported on McWane in a series of newspaper articles and in the documentary "A Dangerous Business."
Current and former McWane employees tell The New York Times that they have been contacted by criminal investigators from the Justice Department and the EPA. Law enforcement officials also described the probe, with one senior investigator saying the investigation is "very significant, substantial and nationwide." McWane President G. Ruffner Page told the Times that no state or federal investigators had contacted the company. "If we are contacted, however, we will give them our full cooperation, as is our policy and practice," he maintained in a statement. "Furthermore, we are confident that any such investigation would reveal the significant progress we have made in recent years on safety, health and environmental compliance." A Justice Department spokesman, when asked by the Times, refused to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) continues to conduct special inspections of five McWane foundries. In April 2003, the agency fined the company $196,000 for 13 serious violations, four repeat violations and one minor infraction that it found in an October 2002 inspection of Tyler Pipe following Guadalupe Garcia's accident.
In March 2003, OSHA announced a new "enhanced enforcement policy" on workplace safety, designed to strengthen its ability to act against companies who receive "high gravity" citations. OSHA administrator John Henshaw told The New York Times that the changes in OSHA policy were prompted by the Times and FRONTLINE's joint investigation of McWane. Intended to strengthen existing regulations, the policy changes include on-site follow-up inspections of all workplaces that receive a "high gravity" citation and programmed inspections that record the "overall corporate entity" that owns an individual workplace. OSHA also said that it would implement provisions in settlement agreements requiring companies to: hire consultants to examine the safety procedures in the affected building; apply the agreement throughout the company; and report all serious injuries and illnesses requiring outside medical treatment to OSHA.
McWane says it is devoting more resources to efforts to improve worker safety and upgrade environmental protection equipment. In April 2003, McWane and the United Steelworkers of America announced an agreement to work together to improve workplace safety at McWane plants. In a joint statement, the company and the union said they would improve the "skills, functions and authority of our joint safety and health committees" and encourage "all employees to report workplace hazards, suggest how to correct them and to report all occupational injuries, illnesses, accidents and near misses." The two sides agreed to "eliminate any impediments" to reporting such instances. Workers interviewed by The New York Times say that they have seen an improvement in working conditions since January and that managers are beginning to place compliance with safety and environmental regulations above production concerns.