25 Hygienists Quit Agency Deukmejian Wants to Junk

About a third of the state hygienists who watch for chemical hazards in the workplace have quit their jobs at the state’s job safety agency as a result of Gov. George Deukmejian’s vow to abolish the department on July 1.

One of the hygienists was being sought Thursday on criminal charges that he repeatedly threatened to kill the governor and injure other top state officials because of the roles they are playing in the agency’s prospective demise.

The governor’s January announcement that he would abolish the job safety program, known as Cal/OSHA, as a cost-cutting move and turn over its work to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has precipitated a passionate outcry from organized labor, doctors and Cal/OSHA employees. They have all asserted that the state program protects workers better than the federal agency.

The resignations of 25 of the 78 industrial hygienists has spurred concern over Cal/OSHA’s ability to do its job, although the immediate impact of their departures is in dispute.

Cal/OSHA management officials asserted Thursday that all serious complaints about health hazards in the workplace are still being answered. But some lower-level workers, who spoke on condition that they not to be named, said that in heavily industrialized parts of the state such as Los Angeles, where there will shortly be one health inspector rather than the normal 10, health complaints are not being answered promptly.

‘Don’t Have People’

“If you don’t have people, how can you (answer them)?” said one official.

Robert Stranberg, chief of the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health, said in an interview Thursday that “serious complaints are by and large being handled in conformance with the Labor Code.”

But he added, “We’ve got some things starting to pile up a little bit higher than they normally would.”

He said he anticipates that departures will continue.

Bob Garcia, the regional manager for Los Angeles, said he has no backlog of serious cases. But, he said, “There’s going to come a point where we’re going to reach a critical mass, when you can’t keep your work up, when perhaps 50% of the industrial hygiene staff is gone, and that’s going to be the point where the mandated work is not being done. I don’t know when that’s going to be.”

Almost all of Cal/OSHA’s 130 safety engineers, whose skills are not as marketable as those of the hygienists, are sticking with the agency, whose survival is the subject of a legislative fight. The engineers handle workplace problems ranging from crane collapses to unguarded saws.

The Democratic-controlled Assembly in April restored Cal/OSHA’s funds to the state budget and the state Senate is expected to follow suit. However, the governor is expected to use his line-item veto to eliminate the funds, and it is doubtful that there are sufficient votes to override the veto.

Threatening Letters

Meanwhile, an all-points bulletin was issued for John Kaihong Kam, 31, of Monterey Park, who was described by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner as the disgruntled Cal/OSHA employee who sent 85 threatening letters to Deukmejian and other officials between Jan. 18 and mid-April.

Reiner said the letters, ungrammatical and filled with obscenities, threatened the lives of the officials unless they allowed Cal/OSHA to remain intact.

Kam worked at Cal/OSHA’s Vernon office.

Reiner refused to read the letters at a press conference, but authorities said Kam’s fingerprint was found on the envelope of one of them.

None contained Kam’s name. Rather, they were signed with a series of fictitious names or committees.

State police, who protect the governor, searched Kam’s house twice recently. Hours after the first search, Kam called his Cal/OSHA office and said he was quitting.

When authorities arrived to search his home a second time on Wednesday, they found a note taped to a personal computer saying “he’d be out of town for a while, relocating,” according to Reiner.

In the second search, authorities confiscated a .22-caliber rifle, a bulletproof vest, and bullets for the rifle and for a .25-caliber pistol. No pistol was recovered.

Kam is charged with six counts: threatening the life of Deukmejian twice; threatening to injure him once, and threatening to injure Stranberg, state Department of Industrial Relations head Ronald Rinaldi and Assemblyman Bill Bradley (R-San Marcos).

A spokesman for the state police said Thursday that the investigation is continuing but declined to elaborate.

Group Being Depleted

A separate group of industrial hygienists in Cal/OSHA’s consultation service, which helps state businesses voluntarily come into compliance with safety rules, is also being depleted, according to an agency source. An industrial hygienist in that unit said it had lost both of its Sacramento hygienists.

The federal official who is supervising preparations for federal OSHA to take over from the state agency on July 1 said that he was aware that a number of Cal/OSHA’s industrial hygienists had left the agency, and said that if necessary he will bring in extra people to help before July 1.

James Lake, however, said state officials have not asked for such assistance.

Lake said that federal OSHA plans to hire some Cal/OSHA workers and will begin training them on May 11.

One Cal/OSHA industrial hygienist said that the state agency’s problems could intensify during the training period because some of the agency’s most experienced people will be at the training sessions at an Oakland hotel.

Times staff writer Paul Feldman also contributed to this story.