Medical Waste Firm Fires 3 Over Tb Incident Manager, 2 Supervisors Let Go After 3 Workers Contract Tuberculosis

The plant manager and both shift supervisors have been fired from a medical waste disposal operation where workers say they were exposed to tuberculosis bacteria.

Manager Jim Pakar and supervisors Sean Callahan and Karl Keys were put on paid administrative leave by Stericycle Inc. Nov. 19 and dismissed two days later.

“The company feels that that action was necessary to ensure that the company’s operating policies are followed out there,” said Joe Jimenez, a public relations consultant for Stericycle.

Callahan and Keys would not comment until they spoke with their lawyers. Pakar did not return a phone call.

There was also no comment from Stericycle’s top operations official, vice president Tony Tomasello, who arrived at the plant Monday from company headquarters in Deerfield, Ill.

The firings occured as investigators from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health were starting to review plant operations.

The inspectors reviewed operations and interviewed workers last week. They will return for a more detailed probe using specialized instruments, said Dr. Tom Bell, Lewis County health officer.

The state Department of Labor and Industries has completed an investigation into plant operations but has yet to issue a report.

Three Stericycle workers who contracted tuberculosis this year remain out of work, and 13 workers have tested positive for exposure to the disease.

Health officials have to determine whether employees became infected at work.

Carol Rose, an infected worker, said she was disappointed her bosses were fired.

“They have asked corporate for money and things to fix the place up, and they always got put on hold,” Rose said Monday. “It really isn’t any of these guys’ fault because they had to make up with what they had.”

In a report published Saturday, workers told The Chronicle in Centralia that steam sometimes poured from a waste shredder when filters became clogged. They said they sometimes removed filters to keep the “negative air” system functioning and reversed direction on a 200-horsepower motor to free jammed material in a shredder.