Change To Win Testifies Before Congress on Dangerous Patterns of Abuse by Large Corporate...

Change To Win Testifies Before Congress on Dangerous Patterns of Abuse by
Large Corporate Employers

Safety Expert and Poultry Worker to Address Failures of Large Corporations to
Protect Health and Safety of Workers In the Workplace

WASHINGTON, March 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Change to Win Health and
Safety coordinator Eric Frumin and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)
member Doris Morrow will testify as witnesses at a Senate hearing tomorrow to
address the dangerous pattern of large corporations ignoring or avoiding their
obligations to insure a safe workplace. The testimony will focus on serious
violations at BP, McWane Corp., Cintas Corp., House of Raeford, Smithfield
Foods, AgriProcessors, Waste Management Inc., and Avalon Bay.

"Employers bear the primary responsibility for protecting workers, but too
often, companies would rather squeeze out extra profit than save employees'
lives," said Frumin. "The price paid by fallen workers, their families and
their communities is unacceptable, and without stronger laws and enforcement,
the tragic human cost of hazardous jobs continues to climb."

As evidence shows, large corporations make calculated decisions to cut corners
and disregard the risk of injury or illness to their workers in order to
maximize profits. As a result, every day, sixteen workers die on the job, 134
die from work-related illnesses, and thousands more sustain workplace
injuries.

Tyson poultry worker and UFCW Local 227 member Doris Morrow, who has worked at
the Tyson poultry plant in Kentucky for nearly 12 years, will testify about
the health and safety problems she has witnessed first hand at her workplace.
Tyson is one of the largest poultry processing companies in the United States.

"There are serious safety and health problems that must be addressed to
protect workers across the country," said Morrow. "I have seen first hand the
injuries of my coworkers from respiratory problems like bronchitis and
pneumonia due to the cold temperatures in the plants, to back and muscular
problems, sore hands, carpal tunnel and other Musculoskeletal Disorders that
workers face. Yet, many of the workers in plants are afraid to complain about
the work conditions because they are fearful they will lose their jobs. It is
time to demand that the government and companies protect workers and prevent
these injuries."

The hearing will also address the failures of the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) to investigate and remedy corporate-wide health
and safety violations as a result of ineffective enforcement tools and
inadequate resources. At present staffing levels, it would take OSHA 133 years
to inspect every workplace under its jurisdiction. It has also been hampered
by political appointees who are indifferent or hostile to the agency's
mission, and hamstrung by limits on its legal authority and available
enforcement tools.

"Under the current regulatory structure, corporations make the profits while
workers pay the price with their lives. Congress needs to pass the Protecting
America's Workers Act to increase penalties for egregious violations and
enhance OSHA's capacity to conduct corporate-wide investigations and impose
corporate-wide sanctions," said Frumin. "America's working families know all
too well what will happen if we don't strengthen OSHA - more workers will die
because of exposure to well-documented hazards and slipshod site management,
more workers will suffer crippling injuries from high production pressures and
poor ergonomics and more companies will go unpunished even when knowingly
putting workers in harm's way. The time to act is now."

The Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee hearing "Serious OSHA
Violations: Strategies for Breaking Dangerous Problems" will be held Tuesday,
April 1, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time at the Dirksen Senate Office
Building, Room 430.

About Change to Win
Change to Win is a partnership of seven unions and six million members founded
in 2005 to organize workers of the new American economy. Change to Win
committed to restoring the American Dream so that all workers have a paycheck
that can support a family, affordable health care, a secure and dignified
retirement, and the opportunity for the next generation to be better off. The
seven affiliated unions are: Service Employees International Union, UNITE
HERE, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, International
Brotherhood of Teamsters, Laborers' International Union of North America,
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and United Farm
Workers of America.

SOURCE Change to Win

Greg Denier or Noreen Nielsen, both of Change to Win, +1-202-721-0660