The Center for Public Integrity

Worries about fires, explosions and chemical releases prompted the federal agency in charge of workplace safety on Wednesday to expand a special inspection program focusing on the nation’s chemical plants. Regulators believe the industry is particularly vulnerable to such hazards, meriting the closer attention.

Yet some plants will continue to be shielded from the special inspections, despite past worker deaths, because of their status as “model workplaces.”

“Far too many workers are injured and killed in preventable incidents at chemical facilities around the country,” said David Michaels, the head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, in announcing the broadening of the pilot program, which began in 2009.

Michaels said inspectors would “cover chemical facilities nationwide to ensure that all required measures are taken to protect workers.”

But the agency opted to exempt sites that participate in its Voluntary Protection Programs, known as VPP. As iWatch News has reported, more than 80 workers have died since 2000 at these sites OSHA has deemed “model workplaces” – from power plants to paper mills and shipyards. 

Companies, however, have rarely faced serious consequences, even when inspectors identified safety violations related to the fatal accident.

The exemption from regular inspections, including those conducted under special emphasis programs, has particular resonance for companies in the chemical manufacturing industry, which is both the target of the new initiative and the largest industry sector in VPP. 

A major U.S. refinery workers’ union says it will make prevention of catastrophic accidents the centerpiece of upcoming contract talks with oil companies. The union abandoned demands for additional safety measures in their last negotiation.

The United Steelworkers, which represents 30,000 workers at petrochemical facilities nationwide, crafted its bargaining position in response to the sorts of disasters and near-misses profiled in the Fueling Fears series by the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News.

The series has found that the nation’s aging refineries are plagued by recurring equipment failures and sometimes-fatal fires, explosions and chemical releases that in many cases could have been prevented.

Specifically, the union is focusing on “process safety management” – steps that refineries can take to reduce the risk of catastrophic accidents, including tough self-inspections of equipment and repairing or replacing it when necessary.

“We’ve got time bombs out there, and we want to have a discussion with [oil companies] about it,” United Steelworkers International Vice President Gary Beevers, lead negotiator for the union, said last week. “We’ve got problems in these old refineries and we need changes…Partnering with this industry to make these refineries safer is my number one goal.”