Liuna MidAtlantic

TO LEARN MORE OR TO READ THE REPORT CLICK HERE.
TO VIEW VIDEO TESTIMONY CLICK HERE.
ASBESTOS FACT SHEET CLICK HERE.

NEWS COVERAGE LINKS:
Asbestos Report Finds Poor Conditions for Workers
Asbestos Exposure (CNS Maryland)
Grave Problematica en Sector De La Construccion
Baltimore-Washington Asbestos Contractors Flout Safety Standards, Union Report Says
NIST Contractor Accused of Putting Worker Health at Risk
Hispanic Workers in Asbestos Industry Face Language Hurdles, Disease Dangers
Asbestos Abatement Toxic in Mid-Atlantic Region

WASHINGTON D.C. – The Laborers’ Mid-Atlantic Regional Organizing Coalition (MAROC), their partners, and elected officials from Virginia, Maryland and DC presented a shocking report today, November 16, 2011 at the National Press Club, exposing the unsafe and illegal practices of the area’s asbestos abatement industry, some at federal project sites.

The report, “Toxic Exposure: An Undercover Report on Lawless Practices and Worker Abuse in the Asbestos Abatement Industry,” was the culmination of a yearlong undercover investigation into the practices of the asbestos abatement industry in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan area. It was conducted by college student Ernest Ojito. Ojito spent a year as an employee for various asbestos abatement companies, and found an industry that routinely violates federal safety and health standards, putting workers and local federal workplaces at serious risk of illness and death.

Among the findings are repeated examples of abatement work conducted without the proper licensing of employees, illegal disposal of materials, inadequate worker protection against exposure, and other grossly negligent safety violations.

“In May of this year, I was sent to the U.S. Capitol Power Plant to do lead abatement, for which I was not licensed, and while there, the supervisor instructed me to dispose of lead paint down the water drain,” said Ernest Ojito, who was exposed while on the job. He continued, “The local Latino community is tired of the asbestos and lead abatement industry ignoring local worker safety in order to line its pockets.”

Laborers’ MAROC representative Steve Lanning emphasized how broadly the violations occurred, and urged strong action to protect workers from potentially life-threatening exposure.   “The reprehensible conduct by these contractors calls out for swift and immediate action to rein in an industry that operates outside the law,” said Lanning.

Joining Laborers’ MAROC Director Steve Lanning and Mr. Ojito to discuss these findings were representatives from all three local jurisdictions, including:

From Virginia:             Senators Adam Ebbin (D), and Barbara Favola (D)
From Maryland:          Senators Jamie Raskin (D), Victor Ramirez (D), and Delegate Tom Hucker (D)
From DC:                     Council Members Tommy Wells (D), and Phil Mendelson (D)

The regional representatives at the event vowed to further investigate these abuses and sponsor legislation to tighten enforcement if necessary.

Also present were Laborers’ MAROC partners: the Sierra Club DC and VA chapters, Tenants and Workers United (TWU), and National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and additional asbestos abatement workers.

Article by Jeremy P. Jacobs, E&E reporter
Courtesy of Greenwire

Workers are frequently exposed to high levels of asbestos and lead — two highly toxic substances — at construction sites because contractors disregard safety regulations, according to an undercover union investigation released today.

The Laborers’ Mid-Atlantic Regional Organizing Coalition (MAROC) report, Toxic Exposure, features firsthand accounts of several workers from Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland.

Their testimony reveals many instances of contractors ignoring federal and local safety regulations for lead and asbestos abatement, often at construction sites in federal buildings. And workers, who often do not speak English, are frequently unaware they are handling hazardous substances.

“The asbestos and lead abatement industry is a hidden and ugly secret that needs to be brought out into the open,” said Steve Lanning, a Laborers’ MAROC representative.

The report, “Toxic Exposure: An Undercover Report on Lawless Practices and Worker Abuse in the Asbestos Abatement Industry,” is the result of a yearlong investigation. It levels especially serious charges against general contractors.

“Contractors acted with impunity, which exposed employees and the general public to levels of lead and asbestos,” Lanning said.

The report also takes aim at lead and asbestos certification centers. Workers and contractors are required under Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations to pass a test on best practices for handling the toxic substances.

Lanning charged that the testing centers were “fraudulent,” and to make up for them workers were given the answers to the OSHA test. That, he said, provided “glaringly inadequate training.”

The report focuses on the work of Ernest Ojito, a college student who was exposed to lead and asbestos abatement while working several jobs in the mid-Atlantic region.

Ojito recalled that while working on a project at the U.S. Capitol Power Plant, he removed lead-based paint. He was then instructed to pour contaminated water from the job down the drain — an illegal maneuver that risks contaminating the city’s water supply.

On another demolition job in the area, he said he drove home and noticed white flecks stuck into his arm. They turned out to be asbestos, which he did not know was present at the site.

“This industry has been an eye-opener for me,” Ojito said. “Workers are in danger daily. A lot don’t even know the danger they are in.”

The report cites Potomac Abatement; Abateco of Prince George’s, Md.; Southern Environmental Services (SES); L&M Construction; Asbestos Specialists Inc.; Bristol Environmental; Team ACP; and WMS Solutions for cutting corners on safety rules.

Efforts to reach several of those companies were unsuccessful in time for publication. Others said they were unfamiliar with the report.

But Brian Turmail, executive director of the Associated General Contractors of America, which includes Bristol Environmental among its members, said contractors have taken strides to improve safety issues.

“The commercial construction industry has worked aggressively to improve workplace safety and has successfully cut the number of construction fatalities in half during the past five years even as total construction activity has declined by only about 20 percent,” Turmail said. “Our members have built strong, successful, collaborative partnerships with OSHA, state agencies, and where they are involved, construction trades to deliver this remarkable improvement in safety.”

He added that “despite these accomplishments, our members welcome every opportunity to improve their safety operations and provide construction workers with the training and equipment they need to follow safety standards” and vowed to review the report closely.

The report has caught the eye of local officials. Several members of the Washington, D.C., City Council and the Maryland and Virginia state legislatures attended the media event unveiling the report today.

D.C. City Councilman Phil Mendelson (D) said the report reminded him of Upton Sinclair’s famous novelThe Jungle, which documented unfair labor practices in the Chicago meat packing industry in the early part of the 20th century.

“It doesn’t look like things have changed too much in 100 years,” Mendelson said. “This investigation points to the need for more investigation.”

The report makes several recommendations. Lanning emphasized that it was not an indictment of U.S. EPA and OSHA regulators but that more oversight and enforcement is needed for contractor practices.

“It is an indictment of the lack of federal dollars” funneled to those agencies, Lanning said.

Lanning said Maryland and Virginia only have three inspectors each to investigate lead and asbestos abatement. When the union asked those inspectors what they need to do their jobs better, they responded “cell phones,” Lanning said, highlighting how underfunded they are.

“What is outrageous is we are talking about a major regulated industry,” Lanning said. “Yet, none of these contractors seem to be concerned.”

Lanning also said that the penalties for violations need to be stiffer. The report suggests setting maximum fines at $25,000 and establishing minimum fine of $2,000 per violation.

The report also calls for making the asbestos and lead licensing exams independently administered.

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This report, TOXIC EXPOSURE, is the culmination of a yearlong undercover investigation into the practices of the asbestos abatement industry in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. Ernest Ojito, a college student, worked undercover for a year as an employee of half a dozen contractors that provide asbestos abatement services. What he found was an industry that routinely violates the law and poisons its employees, and a regulatory regime that utterly fails to protect these workers at the most basic level.

During Ojitoʼs year as an asbestos worker, his employersʼ unsafe and illegal practices repeatedly put his life at risk. These practices include the following:

Workers Are Regularly Exposed to Airborne Asbestos. On multiple jobs, the illegal
practices of employers placed Ojito in workplaces where clouds of airborne asbestos floated
throughout the jobsite.

Gross Safety Violations Are a Regular Occurrence. In the asbestos abatement industry,
contractors are indifferent to workersʼ wellbeing. On one jobsite, contractors forced workers to
cut into walls with live wiring inside, while refusing even to take the simple, sensible step of
turning off the electricity first, all to save a few dollars.

Contractors Ignore Licensing and Training Requirements. Asbestos contractors such
sent Ojito to asbestos and lead abatement jobs before he was licensed (which is illegal), and
instructed him to work with asbestos and lead without any prior training (which is illegal), and
without the legally required safety measures.

Illegal Lead Pollution. Contractors such as Asbestos Specialists, Inc., instructed Ojito to
dispose of lead paint by pouring it down the drain (which is illegal).

Graduation Factories Churn Out Unprepared Workers. Private training centers do not
actually train asbestos workers. Rather, training centers, such as Global Environmental
Solutions, Inc. (Fairfax, VA) and Princeton Industrial Training Institute (Bethesda and
Baltimore, MD), simply give the workers the answers to the exam (which also is illegal) so they
will pass the test.

Employers Fleece Workers Through Petty Graft. To add insult to injury, the companies
subject workers to petty graft, such as requiring workers to pay a fee to managers in order to
receive a paycheck or by routinely shorting them by an hour or two week after week.

Ojitoʼs experience is not unusual. During his year undercover, Ojito enlisted nearly a dozen of his co-workers to come forward about the horrific conditions in the industry. Like Ojito, these workers routinely work in environments where deadly, airborne asbestos has poisoned the breathable air due to the employersʼ indifference to public health, employee welfare, and the law.

This report is a compilation of testimonials by workers in the asbestos abatement industry. These testimonials demonstrate that a significant portion of the asbestos abatement industry operates completely outside the law. The stories presented here show that workers are routinely dispatched to jobsites without licenses and without training. On the job site, many companies operate with open disregard for the safety standards that are designed to protect workers from inhaling asbestos and protect the public from exposure to asbestos fibers.

Although asbestos workers already are poorly compensated, the testimonials tell how companies routinely cheat workers by shorting their hours, failing to pay legally required wages, failing to pay overtime, charging fees in order to receive paychecks, or charging the workers for the cost of safety equipment or licenses necessary to perform the work. The testimonials also challenge the integrity of the asbestos abatement training programs in Virginia and Maryland, which are necessary for workers to obtain required licenses. Training centers operate with little regard for actual education.

Instead, workers report that the training centers provided the answers to examinations to ensure they passed, regardless of whether they actually learned how to abate asbestos safely. Together, these stories vividly depict an industry in need of serious reform.

TO LEARN MORE OR TO READ THE REPORT CLICK HERE.
TO VIEW VIDEO TESTIMONY CLICK HERE.
ASBESTOS FACT SHEET CLICK HERE.

NEWS COVERAGE LINKS:
Asbestos Report Finds Poor Conditions for Workers
Asbestos Exposure (CNS Maryland)
Grave Problematic en Sector De La Construccion
Baltimore-Washington Asbestos Contractors Flout Safety Standards, Union Report Says
NIST Contractor Accused of Putting Worker Health at Risk
Hispanic Workers in Asbestos Industry Face Language Hurdles, Disease Dangers
Asbestos Abatement Toxic in Mid-Atlantic Region