Kaiser Hit With $5,610 In Fines Three State Citations Center On Degloving Accident

Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp. has been cited for three serious safety violations related to the degloving of a worker who was filling in during the strike.

The Washington Department of Labor and Industries on July 2 fined the company $5,610 for failing to properly train an employee, enclose rolling equipment and properly construct equipment rotating near workers.

The company has 15 days to appeal.

Inspectors visited the Spokane plant Jan. 4, four days after Philip C. Autio, 39, had both hands caught in equipment he was cleaning on the coater line at the Trentwood rolling mill. Autio suffered degloving injuries - the stripping of skin and flesh - and the amputation of some of his fingers. He killed himself June 18 in California, apparently distraught over his injuries.

After a nearly six-month investigation, state inspectors found three violations and registered the company’s safety history as “poor.” That designation is given when a company “has just not shown a good or average faith effort in the past to provide a safe workplace,” said Steve Valandra, spokesman for Labor and Industries.

Inspectors said that in the three years prior to the accident, there had been more than 1,700 workers’ compensation claims filed against Kaiser Aluminum statewide, 27 serious and nine general safety violations, and two people killed. Crane operator Judy Newton died in January 1996 after being hit by a truck carrying scrap metal at Trentwood, and James VanDoren died in October 1997 when he was struck by the bucket arm of his Bobcat loader at Mead.

On Tuesday, Kaiser spokeswoman Susan Ashe said the company had not received the state’s notice of citation issued Friday and couldn’t comment until safety officials at Trentwood had seen the document. In the past, the company has said it has been committed to comprehensive safety and training. In February, it noted that 1998 year-end recordable injuries were consistent with year-end experiences over the last six years.

The company is now in the ninth month of a labor dispute with 3,000 United Steelworkers in three states, about 2,100 of them in Spokane. The company rejected the union’s offer to return to work in January, locking the workers out.

The coater line is a massive and complex area at the Trentwood mill more than two stories tall and a city block long. It makes the coated aluminum for pop and beer can lids. The vinyl coating keeps soda and beer from eating through the aluminum.

The single giant machine takes 60-inch-wide coils of aluminum and runs them through a nearly 3,000-foot process, which cleans the metal, coats it with vinyl, cures, trims and waxes it. The metal is then inspected and re-coiled. The coater line is designed to run continuously and has two of the most technical jobs in the entire plant: the coater operator and rosemount operator.

According to state reports, inspectors say Kaiser:

Did not ensure training on how to properly clean and inspect the rolls on the coating machine that would preclude any employee from placing any body part in a hazardous area. The report says a foreman showed Autio how to separate the rolls approximately 1 inch while inspecting and cleaning them. Inspectors found this leaves a “nip point” that could injure an employee who came into contact with it. There is no guarding present nor were any procedural or mechanical changes made since the accident. Penalty: $1,870.

Did not ensure that the inclined shafting driving the pickup, metering and application rolls for the bottom roll assembly of the coating machine was enclosed with stationary casing. The shafts are adjacent and within three feet of the work platform and employees can be exposed to the rotating shafts during the half minute the cleaning takes place, the report says. Penalty: $1,870.

Did not ensure that couplings at the drive shaft ends were constructed so as to not have revolving surfaces that could cause serious injuries. Penalty: $1,870.

Autio had been a Kaiser employee six years in Pleasanton, Calif., when he was assigned to Spokane after the United Steelworkers struck Sept. 30. According to inspection reports, he had been working as a coater operator for about two months when the accident occurred. He was treated at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he remained under medical care until March 2.

Autio had returned to Pleasanton and was recuperating when he hanged himself in a public park near Oakland, Calif., June 18. Detectives who investigated concluded that injuries from his industrial accident played a major role in his suicide.

Autio was interviewed by Washington state officials before his death, as were other employees at the Trentwood plant.

An investigation worksheet on the accident concludes there were environmental and human factors involved, including Autio misjudging a hazardous situation.

The accident could have been prevented by the employee fully opening or spreading the metering and application rolls to eliminate the nip/catch point, inspectors wrote.

This sidebar appeared with the story: NEXT Kaiser has 15 days to appeal the decision.