2004 Hillman Prize-winning investigation leads to jail terms for workplace and environmental violations | Hillman Foundation

2004 Hillman Prize-winning investigation leads to jail terms for workplace and environmental violations

In 2003, New York Times reporters David Barstow and Lowell Bergman wrote a series of stories examining the safety and environmental records of McWane Inc., one of the world’s leading manufacturers of cast-iron pipes. They chronicled the dangerous work conditions, violation of environmental regulations, and obstruction of federal workplace investigations that were commonplace at McWane plants around the country. Now, six years later, McWane is paying for the very crimes brought to light by their investigative reporting.

In April 2006, a United States District Court jury found McWane guilty of dozens of workplace and environmental violations at its Atlantic States Cast Iron Pipe Company located in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. In April 2009, the judge fined them $8 million and sent four of the company’s senior managers to jail for terms ranging from 6 to 70 months. The court also assigned a monitor to make sure that the company complies with environmental and employee health and safety regulations.

This coincided with a big attempt by McWane to rebuild its reputation. The company has also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on improvements, hired new safety and environmental managers and says it has plans to replace 90 percent of its top management.

The sentencing marked the end of a multistate federal criminal investigation that began in 2003 and was largely provoked by the Times “Dangerous Workplaces” series, which was the result of a joint investigative effort with Frontline and the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. In these articles, they uncovered the ruthless ways in which McWane focused almost exclusively on production and profits, often at the expense of their employees and the environment. At Atlantic States, management allowed for the disposal of discharged oil and other contaminants into the Delaware River and the burning of materials like waste paint and tires, despite the fact that these acts were prohibited by law. They later falsified emissions tests.

McWane also ignored most safety precautions, and workers were often sickened, burned and killed by these egregious violations. As the Times reported, the company had more than 400 safety violations and 450 environmental violations between 1995-2003, with nine reported deaths during this time.

In March 2000, a worker named Alfred E. Coxe was run over by a forklift at Atlantic States; while Coxe was being airlifted to the hospital, supervisors were called in to destroy evidence of what happened. When a colleague of Coxe’s was interviewed by detectives, he said the forklift’s brakes had failed, something that had happened before and that management was aware of. Nonetheless, the forklift McWane later provided for government inspectors – one which came from the maintenance area and not from the quickly cleaned up accident site – worked fine. The 31-count indictment included multiple instances of managers lying to OSHA inspectors during the investigations of this death and other incidents. The jail terms were imposed most heavily for these violations of federal criminal law – though not for violating the OSHA law which still lacks felony charges for criminal violations.

In addition to their reporting on the company, the Times reporters also shined a light on the inadequacies of federal regulation of job safety violations. Of the nine deaths on the job between 1995-2003, only one made it to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, the result of which was a single misdemeanor plea. Executives outside of New Jersey got away unscathed.

Though, as Barstow wrote in his April 24, 2009 article on the subject, this recent case can be seen as a turning point.

“The prosecutions of McWane represented one of the most significant federal crackdowns against workplace safety and environmental crimes of the last decade.”

David Barstow and Lowell Bergman were awarded the Hillman Prize in 2004.