The former head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is calling on the U.S. Navy to stop doing business with dangerous shipbuilders following an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.
“It is unconscionable that Navy contractors that kill workers are performing peacetime work for the government,” said David Michaels, who stepped down from OSHA in early January and is now a professor at George Washington University.
Michaels’ sharp criticism of the Navy came in response to the recent Reveal investigation, which found that the Navy and Coast Guard’s seven major private shipbuilders have received more than $100 billion in public money despite serious safety lapses that have endangered, injured and killed workers.
The shipbuilders have little incentive to focus on worker safety, Reveal found.
“If the Navy said to these shipbuilders, ‘We won’t give you contracts unless you truly ensure the safety of your workers,’ they would certainly comply,” Michaels said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, called the stories of shipyard workers who suffered devastating injuries and death horrifying.
“Federal contractors who can’t keep their workers safe on the job shouldn’t get another dollar of taxpayer funding. Period,” she said in a Facebook post about the story, which also was published in Politico Magazine.
Take the case of VT Halter Marine Inc. In November 2009, an explosion at one of the company’s shipyards in Mississippi killed two workers and injured five others. OSHA fined the company, saying it knowingly sent workers into danger without the required safety equipment. But VT Halter paid a modest penalty compared with the windfall it received: In the seven years after the explosion, the Navy awarded the company more than $345 million in contracts.
At Austal USA’s Mobile, Alabama, shipyard, workers have been gored for years by a handheld power tool that’s been equipped – against the manufacturer’s warnings – with a saw blade. The company was fined $4,125 for using the modified tool, which led to workers losing fingers and suffering deep gashes on their necks and faces. It has contested the penalty. Meanwhile, the company has received at least $6.2 billion in Navy contracts since 2009. And workers say Austal continues to use the tool.
The Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command, known as NAVSEA, which oversees ship construction, did not return an email requesting comment. A spokesman for the agency told Reveal in an earlier statement that NAVSEA officials “are not the overlords of private shipyards when it comes to workplace safety.”
The Shipbuilders Council of America, which represents companies that run more than 120 shipyards, said the shipbuilding industry is vigilant about safety.
“SCA members are committed to ensuring the safety of our shipyard employees,” Matthew Paxton, the council’s president, said in a written statement. “We recognize shipyards are complex work environments which is why our members are constantly working to ensure the safety of employees as demonstrated by the industry’s reduction in total recordable incident rates.”
Previously, President Barack Obama had laid the groundwork to address the problem by requiring federal contractors to disclose workplace safety violations from the last three years. However, a judge blocked the requirement, and the House of Representatives recently voted to overturn it.
The Senate is expected to vote on a similar measure in the coming weeks.
Lafe Solomon, who oversaw the implementation of Obama’s executive action at the Department of Labor before retiring Jan. 20, said erasing the restrictions could cost lives.
“Your story illustrates the wisdom and the benefits of the executive order,” said Solomon, who served as the senior labor compliance adviser. “Billions of taxpayer dollars are going to these companies that are not providing a safe workplace.”
Contact Jennifer Gollan at jgollan@revealnews.org. Follow her on Twitter: @jennifergollan.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Republish Our Content
Thanks for your interest in republishing a story from Reveal. As a nonprofit newsroom, we want to share our work with as many people as possible. You are free to embed our audio and video content and republish any written story for free under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license and will indemnify our content as long as you strictly follow these guidelines:
-
Do not change the story. Do not edit our material, except only to reflect changes in time and location. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)
-
Please credit us early in the coverage. Our reporter(s) must be bylined. We prefer the following format: By Will Evans, Reveal.
-
If republishing our stories, please also include this language at the end of the story: “This story was produced by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization. Learn more at revealnews.org and subscribe to the Reveal podcast, produced with PRX, at revealnews.org/podcast.”
-
Include all links from the story, and please link to us at https://www.revealnews.org.
PHOTOS
-
You can republish Reveal photos only if you run them in or alongside the stories with which they originally appeared and do not change them.
-
If you want to run a photo apart from that story, please request specific permission to license by contacting Digital Engagement Producer Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org. Reveal often uses photos we purchase from Getty and The Associated Press; those are not available for republication.
DATA
-
If you want to republish Reveal graphics or data, please contact Data Editor Soo Oh, soh@revealnews.org.
IN GENERAL
-
We do not compensate anyone who republishes our work. You also cannot sell our material separately or syndicate it.
-
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, please contact Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org.
-
If you plan to republish our content, you must notify us republish@revealnews.org or email Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org.
-
If we send you a request to remove our content from your website, you must agree to do so immediately.
-
Please note, we will not provide indemnification if you are located or publishing outside the United States, but you may contact us to obtain a license and indemnification on a case-by-case basis.
If you have any other questions, please contact us at republish@revealnews.org.