[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 73 (Monday, May 5, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E816]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          WORKERS MEMORIAL DAY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 5, 2008

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, April 28, 2008, was Workers Memorial Day. 
The day is dedicated to remembering those who have lost their lives or 
have been injured as a result of unsafe health and safety conditions. 
However, it is also a day for us to recommit to the fight for safer 
working conditions for all who go to work every day.
  On April 23, 2008, the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, which I 
chair, held a hearing on strengthening OSHA enforcement at companies 
with multistate facilities. Specifically, we examined the tragedies 
that have occurred at the Cintas industrial plants across the country 
and focused on the heartbreaking and preventable death of Eleazar 
Torres-Gomez, a 46-year-old washroom employee in Cintas's Tulsa, 
Oklahoma plant. His son, Emmanuel Torres, testified at the hearing 
about his father and his senseless death.
  OSHA has fined Cintas $2.78 million for the tragedy in Tulsa, the 
largest OSHA fine ever assessed in the service sector. And Cintas has 
also been cited by OSHA for hazards at a handful of their other 
facilities in Columbus, Ohio, Central Islip, New York, and Mobile, 
Alabama.
  However, as Randy Rabinowitz, one of our witnesses, testified, OSHA 
fails to address these hazards on a ``company-wide'' basis. In 
addition, she said that: ``these large companies have the 
organizational resources to make health and safety improvements.'' 
Sadly, many companies choose not to make such improvements.
  What we discovered at the hearing is that Cintas as a company has 
failed to address deadly hazards that it was aware of, and OSHA has 
failed to adequately enforce safe working conditions beyond the 
facility level until after a terrible tragedy occurs.
  The subcommittee will be following up our hearing with actions to 
ensure that no other families have to go through what the Torres-Gomez 
family did. We must end these tragic and preventable accidents.

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