Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 2, 1992 TAG: 9202030170
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
ARSENAL REPORT
QUESTIONS have lingered since the deaths last October of two Radford Army Ammunition Plant workers. After there'd been a spill of 50 to 150 gallons of liquid ether they were transferring from a rail car to a storage tank, why did Mary Duncan and Ivery Boysaw try to clean it up by themselves with brooms and dustpans?To do so, they had to enter a restricted area, thus violating safety rules of the plant operator, Hercules Inc. Either they did not realize that the fumes could overcome and kill them - or they knew and braved the danger.
From an Army report just issued, it appears they did know - and were afraid that if they notified others of the spill, they might lose their jobs. In fact, said the report, Duncan had been involved in an earlier spill and had been warned that "further failures could result in dismissal." The Army report declared: "The workers' perception of management's response to chemical spills creates an atmosphere of fear of disciplinary actions which may include job loss."
In other words, whoever issued the kind of warning Duncan got may not have considered its corollary: that someone sufficiently worried about being fired might put his or her life in peril to cover or clean up a mishap.
Companies like Hercules that make dangerous products try to anticipate problems and head them off. Surely, safety was a prime consideration when managers created incentives to avoid accidents. So, was this a tragic irony? Was the safety incentive so strong - up to and including job preservation - that it became an incentive not to report a serious accident?
No plant is ever fail-safe, and the Army report does not implicate Hercules in negligence. Still, the company should review its training and supervision methods. If Duncan had been involved in an earlier spill to the point that her job was on the line, maybe she should have been transferred to less dangerous work.
To allow a situation where an employee might have to choose between risking one's life or losing one's job looks a lot like a safety violation.