Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 22, 1990                   TAG: 9007220147
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

STUDY INDICATES WORKERS AT RISK

"The federal establishment cares much more about water polluters than work place killers," said Joseph Kinney, executive director of the National Safe Workplace Institute, which conducted the study.

Since 1970, the Labor and Justice departments have put only one employer behind bars for safety violations that caused the death of a worker, the report said.

But during a four-year period, the federal government has won environmental jail terms totaling 271 years, said the Chicago group, a private organization that calls itself a government accountability institute.

"There has been an outrageous neglect of worker safety issues by the federal government," said Kinney, who helped found the institute three years ago after his brother was killed in an on-the-job accident.

Spokesmen for both the Labor and Justice departments noted that courts, not the federal government, control what kind of sentences are given to defendants once they are convicted.

Justice Department spokesman Doug Tillett said that since the Occupational Safety and Health Administration law was passed in 1970, his agency has received referrals of about 40 cases from the Labor Department for criminal prosecution. The Justice Department has handled about one-third of those cases, he said.

Johanna Schneider, a spokeswoman for Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole, noted that Dole pushed for and obtained an additional 177 inspectors for OSHA during her first year at the department. She also has backed stiffer penalties for employers who violate OSHA laws, Schneider said.

In the past, OSHA has come under fire for issuing large fines against employers but then settling for small sums. The agency has defended the process, saying OSHA's purpose is to ensure that employers comply with laws, rather than collect large amounts of money for the government.

Kinney said that in OSHA's 20-year history, only one employer has been incarcerated, and that was the owner of a South Dakota plumbing company who received a 45-day jail term for violations involving a 1988 trench cave-in that killed two workers.