U.S. Department of Labor | Dec. 14, 2016
Ajin USA, Alliance Total Solutions and Joynus Staffing Corp. cited for
27 safety violations
CUSSETA,
Ala. – When she wasn’t employed as a temporary worker at a Cusseta
manufacturer that stamps metal parts for Hyundai and Kia vehicles, Regina Allen
Elsea was making final plans for her wedding and looking forward to a new life
with her future husband.
On June 18, 2016, those dreams ended when the 20-year-old Elsea was
crushed to death in a robotic machine. That day, the assembly line stopped and she
and three of her co-workers entered a robotic station to clear a sensor fault.
The robot restarted abruptly, crushing the young woman inside the machine. Her
death occurred two weeks before her wedding day.
An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has led the
agency to issue citations for 23 willful, serious and other-than-serious violations,
including 19 egregious instance-by-instance willful violations, to Joon LLC,
doing business as Ajin USA of Cusseta. OSHA also cited two staffing agencies – Alliance
HR Inc., doing business as Alliance Total Solutions LLC and Joynus Staffing
Corp. – for two serious safety violations each. Collectively, the three
companies face $2,565,621 in penalties for the federal safety and health
violations.
“This senseless tragedy could have been prevented if Regina Elsea’s
employers had followed proper safety precautions,” said Dr. David Michaels, assistant secretary of
labor for Occupational Safety and Health. “In addition, it is unfortunate that
Hyundai and Kia, who set strict specifications
on the parts they purchase from their suppliers, appear to be less concerned
with the safety of the workers who manufacture those parts.”
In 2015, Dr. Michaels traveled to Korea and met
with Hyundai and Kia’s top managers, warning them of hazardous conditions at
their suppliers, explaining to them that the automobile firms’ production
policies were endangering workers at the suppliers’ factories.
“Kia and Hyundai’s on-demand production targets
are so high that workers at their suppliers are often required to work six and
sometimes seven days a week to meet the targets,” said Dr. Michaels. “It
appears that – to reduce its own costs in meeting these targets – this supplier
cut corners on safety, at the expense of workers’ lives and limbs.”
OSHA issued willful
citations to Ajin USA for:
–
Failing to utilize energy control procedures to prevent
machinery from starting up
during maintenance and servicing.
–
Exposing
workers to caught-in, struck-by and crushing hazards by allowing them to enter
a robotic cell without shutting down and securing hazardous stored energy according
to safety procedures.
–
Failing
to provide safety locks to isolate hazardous energy.
–
Exposing
employees to crushing and amputation hazards due to improper machine guarding.
OSHA issued two
serious citations to Ajin USA for exposing
workers to laceration hazards by allowing them to work with parts having sharp
edges while improperly wearing or not wearing protective sleeves and not installing effective shields or
curtains on welding machines to protect the operator and others from flying
sparks.
The agency also
issued two serious citations to Alliance and Joynus for failing to utilize
specific safety procedures to control potentially hazardous stored energy
during maintenance and servicing and not providing or ensuring employees
had locks to properly shutdown machinery.
Alliance and Joynus, both based in Opelika, provide approximately 250
temporary employees to Ajin USA. Elsea was hired to work at Ajin through
Alliance Total Solutions.
“This was a
preventable incident – Ajin USA only had to ensure that proper safety measures
were followed to de-energize the robot before the workers entered the station,”
said Kurt Petermeyer, OSHA’s regional administrator in Atlanta. “Incidents like
this one are not isolated and that is why OSHA has developed and implemented
its Regional
Emphasis Program on Safety Hazards in the Auto Parts Industry.”
The agency has
also placed Ajin USA in its Severe Violators Enforcement Program. The program focuses on recalcitrant
employers that endanger workers by committing willful, repeat or
failure-to-abate violations. Under the program, OSHA may inspect any of the
employer’s facilities if it has reasonable grounds to believe there are similar
violations.
The citations
for the three companies can be viewed at: http://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/Joon_Ajin_1156866.pdf
https://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/Alliance_1165706.pdf
https://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/Joynus_1165707.pdf
Based in Korea, Ajin USA, is a global auto parts supplier with plants in
South Korea, China, Vietnam and the U.S. It employs approximately 700 workers
at the Cusseta facility.
Alliance Total Solutions is a staffing agency with branches in Alabama,
Georgia and Tennessee with over 4,000 employees. Joynus Staffing Corp. has
offices in Georgia and employs over 600 workers.
The companies
have 15 business days from receipt of its citations and proposed penalties to
contest the findings before the independent Occupational
Safety and Health Review Commission.
To ask
questions; obtain compliance assistance; file a complaint or report
amputations, eye loss, workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations
posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA's toll-free
hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency’s Mobile Area Office at
251-441-6131.
# # #
Media Contact:
Michael
D’Aquino, 678-237-0630, daquino.michael@dol.gov
Release Number: 16-2214-ATL
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