**Testimony of**

**A.C. SPAN**

**Before**

**The House Committee on Education and Labor**

**For the Hearing on June 19, 2008**

**Regarding**

**"Hidden Tragedy: Underreporting of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses"**

Thank you Chairman Miller, Representative McKeon, and Members of the
Committee for holding this hearing and for the opportunity to testify.
My name is A.C. Span and it is indeed an honor to be here in Washington
for my first time and to testify today at this important hearing. Less
than a year ago, I moved to Arizona and after hearing about what a great
place it was to work, applied and accepted a job at Bashas' Distribution
Center in Chandler, Arizona. It was clear to me almost instantly that
there are serious safety and health problems at that Center and I am
here today to tell you about my experience working for Bashas'.

Prior to moving to Arizona, I lived in Chicago, Illinois and worked as a
house builder. I was a proud member of Teamster Local 222. Then last
summer, I moved with my wife to Phoenix, Arizona. Given the good things
I had heard about the Arizona based grocery store chain - Bashas', and
how hard it was to get a job with them, I was pleased when I was offered
a job as a baler in the Distribution Center. I couldn't wait to be "part
of the Bashas' family." I had only been on the job for six months before
I was terminated for advocating for improved workplace safety and for
forming a union, which I will talk about later. I now work for the
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which is
a grassroots organization of low- and moderate-income people.

I started work as a baler on August 8^th^ of last year. I joined
approximately 800 workers at the warehouse distribution center. The
Distribution Center distributes food and merchandise to more than 166
grocery stores primarily located throughout Arizona. Although I had been
well trained to be a house builder, I did not receive any formal
training to prepare me for the work I would do at the Center. I believe
I was partially hired because of my experience building houses. Yet, as
a baler, I was responsible for loading and unloading trucks going to and
coming from the stores, sorting pallets, cleaning the ice cream totes
and flattening and shredding cardboard boxes. This was much different
work with much different skills than building houses. This work involved
operating heavy equipment, lifting, pulling and pushing crates and
cleaning totes with chemicals and disinfectants.

Before I go into some specific details of injuries at the Center and
what is and isn't reported, it is important to give you some background
about the company. There are seven key factors -

First, new employees do not have any medical insurance until their sixth
month anniversary.

Second, new employees get very limited training when they start work. I
noticed early on that the lack of training and required speeds to do the
work created a very unsafe work environment. I, along with my coworkers
in the balers department, work on and with heavy equipment without any
real training. Most are given only about 10 minutes of driving practice
on the forklifts and pallet jacks through cones in a clear and
uncluttered area, not at all like real the real work area at the Center,
which has trash and pallets all over. The forklifts and pallet jacks can
weigh 5-10 tons each. When I worked there, much of this equipment was in
bad condition with brakes that didn't work properly. There were dock
plates that were bent or damaged and many of the storage racks were
loose and swayed. Plus, the ladders around the balers were often broken
and unsafe. The combination of all these problems, most of which still
exist, created an environment where workers could and would get injured.
Without proper training, maintenance, repair and protective equipment
and clothing, accidents and injuries are just waiting to happen.

In addition, typically the warehouse floors are covered with nails,
broken straps, broken wood and broken bottles, which cause the floors to
be slippery and dangerous. There are protruding nails from broken
pallets and dust everywhere. Most workers wear sneakers which do not
protect us from injuries. We also do not have any eye protection, ear
plugs, gloves, etc. to prevent injuries from any of these common
hazards.

In another part of the Center, "Order Selectors,\" drive forklifts to
collect orders for stores. They are given strict time limits to finish
an order and are expected to finish one complete order within the time
limit. They are penalized with points if they do not finish the order in
time. The selectors fly down the aisles jumping on and off the lifts
getting the orders together. I saw a man lose his toe when a machine ran
over his foot. People get run over all the time because of the haste in
filling orders. Workers frequently get hurts because of the speed and
the badly maintained forklifts. However, Bashas' routinely blames the
workers for causing their injuries.

Third, Bashas' has a point system that penalizes workers for absences
and tardiness by giving them points. While workers are not supposed to
get points for time lost for industrial injury, there are many examples
of workers who take time off for work related injuries and then get
points. Workers who get 16 points in a year are terminated. Typically
you are given two points per missed day. Workers who don't maintain 100%
of the expected standard for selecting orders get points. So, it is easy
for the points to add up. In my case, receiving points for taking time
off for a work related injury could have been a potential violation of
the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Fourth, if an employee's injury is severe enough that he or she cannot
return to the regular job, the worker is put on "light duty." Although
that sounds reasonable, the company actually drops your pay to minimum
wage when you are on light duty. So, if you normally make \$19-20 an
hour, your pay is cut by more than a one third to minimum wage. Few
workers can afford that kind of pay cut, especially when they are also
faced with medical bills. This kind of cut is punishment for getting
injured on the job.

Fifth, Bashas' has a policy that workers who get injured or report an
injury have to be drug tested.

Sixth, workers are directed to go to the company doctor and not their
own personal doctor. The Bashas' doctors may send you back to work, even
if you are not physically ready to go back to work and regardless of
your medical condition. The Bashas' doctor also determines if you need
to go on light duty and when you can come off of it.

Finally, the company holds monthly raffles. If your department has not
had any injuries reported for the month, the entire department is
eligible for the raffle. If one person reports an injury, the entire
department is ineligible. The prizes include coupons for dinner, Ipods,
gameboys, etc. Everyone loves winning and there is great peer pressure
to keep injuries quiet so you can participate in the raffle.

All these things create an atmosphere where workers do not want to
report injuries. I have actually seen workers limping around rather than
report an injury. Reporting illnesses or injuries can cause you to be
unpopular with your co-workers, get disciplinary points, have your
salary reduced and ultimately lose your job. Why take the chance? Most
workers don't want to and end up staying silent about injuries.

My injury occurred about three months into the job. One of my jobs was
to unload trucks filled with empty palettes and product returned from
stores. The trucks are usually quickly loaded with contents shifting
during the drive to the Center. This truck had been sitting on the lot
for awhile. When I lifted the back door of the trailer, a large pile of
dust came out and went into my eye since I did not have safety glasses.
My supervisor, who was standing next to me, advised me to go and wash
off my face and eye. I then returned to work. When I woke up the
following day, my eye was glued together and the size of a baseball.
Since I was already scheduled to have two days off, I went straight to
my doctor. I preferred to go to my doctor since I have diabetes and high
blood pressure and want to make sure that those conditions are taken
into consideration for any treatment. After being examined, my doctor
told me I had a contagious eye infection and took me off work for an
additional two days. He gave me medication for my eye and a letter
saying I should allow my eye to heal and not operate heavy equipment.
Because I had no medical insurance through Bashas', my visit was an
out-of-pocket expense for me.

Three days later I returned to work still putting medication in my eye.
I had called the company about five hours before I was supposed to
return to let them know that I had been injured. I was told to bring in
documentation but when I arrived with the letter, the plant manager
commented that my "eye was still messed up." He started to make noise
about how I had not reported my injury but my supervisor who had been
there when I got injured told him he was a witness. This annoyed the
manager. I think he had wanted to make it clear that this had not been a
work injury but with the support of the supervisor, that was not
possible.

The manager then told me he would need to take points off for my missed
days. I said that this was a work related injury and that I had a
doctor's note so I shouldn't get points. I was told that it was the
company's rule to deduct points and that I would get two points for the
days off. I told him again I didn't think any points should be taken off
and he said that "two points ain't going to hurt you." Workers should
not be penalized for taking time off to recover from a work injury. I
returned to work to clean out ice cream totes, stack pallets with a
forklift and run to the freezer -- with my eye still swollen. My injury
was never covered under worker's compensation**.**

Besides my own injury, working at Bashas' gave me a first hand look at
workers in the Distribution Center and I have seen workers with broken
fingers and toes. One of my co-workers had a toe cut off and passed out
on the floor. We watched managers debate whether they should actually
call 911. I have seen countless workers injured by getting hit by
equipment. I have seen workers with broken limbs and with toes cut off.
I have watched them struggle between reporting the injury and just
working with it. I saw one worker actually tape his coworker's broken
finger so he could return to work. I have seen the great efforts of my
co-workers to hide injuries rather than report them. I have seen workers
come to work with the flu rather than face taking time off and getting
points.

This is horrible no matter where it occurs but I'd like to remind you
that this is happening in a food facility. We are moving and lifting
food that is heading to grocery stores and then being purchased by
consumers. Not reporting these injuries and illnesses and working
despite them, is bad for the worker and bad for the consumer.

Shortly after I started working at Bashas', I saw the serious problems
at the Center. Along with a couple dozen of my coworkers in the baling
department, we started talking about the problems and decided the best
way to improve workplace safety would be to form a union. We did not let
the company's anti-union attitude -- an attitude that resulted in 85
allegations of workers' rights violations -- deter us and we began to
act like a union to address our safety concerns. We drafted a petition
that highlighted the unsafe conditions and how fearful workers were to
report injuries. We approached management three times requesting
specific hazards be corrected as well as for a joint safety committee to
be formed. We proposed that the committee be made up of management
representatives and hourly workers to address on a regular and formal
basis safety and health concerns that arose in the warehouse.

We tried three times to meet as a group with a Bashas' management team
but the door was always closed in our face. Bashas' would only agree to
meet one-on-one and not as a group. With no luck with the company, we
eventually contacted the Arizona Division of the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration and filed a complaint. Seventeen workers signed
onto the complaint. An additional 70 workers signed the original
petition. Like the company, OSHA never contacted any of the workers who
filed the complaint. They did examine the warehouse, found some
violations and cited the company. They mainly focused on the ventilation
system in the battery room.

I think it is important to tell you my impressions about when OSHA came
for inspections. What was really interesting is that the company always
seemed to know when OSHA was coming in for inspections. Things were
quickly repaired, fixed, cleaned -- hours before the OSHA
representatives arrived. Once we were all told not to get on any
forklift while they were there inspecting. We were told not to do
anything until they left. So we spent the day sweeping and cleaning. No
production was done that day. It made me wonder what OSHA was thinking
when they didn't see anyone actually working during the inspection but
the company was never questioned.

We also tried to designate workers who could represent us for the OSHA
inspections. We picked workers who worked in the Distribution Center,
making sure we had workers who could tell the OSHA inspectors our side
of the story and what was really happening at the Center. We put their
names on the complaint form but OSHA ignored the request to speak to
these workers. Instead, when OSHA made the inspections, they only talked
to workers on a list provided by the company. In the end, while OSHA
solved a few things, they did not fix everything and the company was
never fined.

Within two weeks of OSHA issuing the citations, the company announced
that they planned to make major changes in the baling department by
outsourcing the jobs. In the end, 29 of us lost our jobs as balers. Some
were transferred to other jobs but most of us lost our jobs at Bashas'
-- simply for standing up for our rights. On the day I was fired, I was
simply told that the company did not need me anymore and that there were
no other jobs available to me at Bashas'.

We were called troublemakers and told we had bad attitudes. They were
cleaning house of those workers who were outspoken. The message was
clear -- don't report, don't talk, just keep your mouth shut or else.
Our goal all along was to make the workplace safer -- both in terms of
safety and health -- but also to make the workers feel safe reporting
problems and injuries. We were just trying to exercise our
constitutional rights. All workers should have safe working conditions.

I was raised by my parents to speak my mind. If I am wrong, I'll admit
it. But, it is my God given right as well as my constitutional right to
protect myself and stand up when I see a problem. It is also my right to
work in a safe environment. That was not the case at Bashas' and I stood
up for myself and my co-workers. Even though I am not there anymore, I
know there are still problems. Yes, the company fixed the ventilation
system in the battery room, but there has been no increased training;
the point system still exists, workers are still paid minimum wage on
light duty, and workers are still rushed to get orders completed. These
are things that need to change -- not only to make the work safer but to
provide workers with a safe environment to come forward and report
injuries. Bashas' may think this Center is "state of the art," but I
know what happens to the workers inside.

I believe major changes need to be made by Bashas' to correct the
serious safety and health problems that hurt workers everyday. My former
employer needs to do more to protect workers and allow them to report
injuries without repercussions. I think it is time for the government to
examine the problem with under-reporting and I am glad you are holding
this hearing today.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify and tell you my story.
Bashas' says it is dedicated to serving Arizona families but I know
first hand that this commitment does not include their workers or the
workers' families. It is time that the company and the government do
what they can to truly serve and protect all Arizona families. I urge
you to use the power of your offices to help the workers by protecting
our safety and health at work. Again, thank you for your time and I
would be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.