Long Beach Shipyard Rated Unsatisfactory in Safety

The Long Beach Naval Shipyard was given a rare unsatisfactory safety rating this year when inspectors found that its 5,900 workers faced more hazardous conditions than those at any of the nation’s seven other government-owned yards, according to Navy safety records.

In a safety review in January, the naval inspector general’s staff discovered hundreds of equipment and administrative violations. Inspectors cited shipyard managers for defects ranging from a lack of safety guards on industrial machines to failure to monitor spray painters for exposure to toxic lead.

Rules that require workers to wear noise mufflers and eye shields went unenforced, according to inspection reports. In fact, inspectors said they observed such a disregard for hearing and eye protection that they stopped counting violations after the second day of their nine-day visit.

All told, 518 workplace violations and 16 deficiencies in administrative policies and procedures were outlined in a March report, which was obtained by The Times under the federal Freedom of Information Act. In addition, 13 of the workplace violations and six of the program shortcomings remained uncorrected from a 1986 inspection.

Shipyard spokesman Gilbert Bond disputed the inspector general’s conclusion and said shipyard officials have filed an appeal, asking that the rating be withdrawn.

Various Injuries

The shipyard safety records show that at least one worker lost a finger, another lost a leg and dozens more suffered high-voltage electric shocks, hearing loss or eye burns in accidents since fiscal 1985.

The facility spent $17 million on workers’ compensation last year when the rate of occupational injuries was the highest in three years, the only period for which such figures were available. The workers’ compensation payments were the highest of any government shipyard, even though Long Beach has the fewest workers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

“They are going to kill somebody sooner or later,” said Joe Walsh, safety chairman of the shipyard’s International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 2293. “I’ve worked in three shipyards, and this is the worst I’ve seen.”

Walsh called safety conditions at the yard “an absolute disgrace.”

Frank Griffin, acting president of the yard’s association of labor unions, the Metal Trades Council, said workers have never been told how the yard rated in the January inspection. He said he has never seen a copy of the inspector general’s report.

Shipyard spokesman Bond acknowledged that there have been dangerous conditions at the facility but defended it as a safe place to work.

Bond said that the yard spends considerable amounts on safety measures--more than $2 million last year alone--and that about 46% of the workplace violations and 30% of the program deficiencies cited by the inspector general have already been corrected.

Asbestos Dust

Bond said the high workers’ compensation costs, which stem from on-the-job injuries, are inflated by settlements awarded years ago to laborers who were disabled after exposure to asbestos dust.

The shipyard spokesman blamed the recent rating on overly tough inspectors rather than a significant decline in safety.

“I can look at anything and get an unsatisfactory rating, depending on how hard I want to look,” he said.

The yard received satisfactory marks after inspections in 1979, 1983 and 1986.

The inspector general, Rear Adm. M. E. Chang, said in a statement that the checklist used by his team was the same one used in the yard’s previous inspection. But Long Beach, he said, was one of the first shipyards to fall under a recently instituted inspection policy that gives shipyards a 30-day notice, instead of the previous six- to 12-month advance word. Shipyard inspections are generally conducted every two or three years.

For whatever reason, the substandard performance of the Long Beach yard reflects a general decline in safety ratings during the 1980s at Navy-run shipyards, according to inspection records.

Between October, 1985, and October, 1987, four of the eight yards drew “marginally satisfactory” marks after each had been rated “satisfactory” in two previous inspections.

In April, the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Hawaii followed Long Beach in receiving an unsatisfactory rating. Before this year, no shipyard had received such a rating since the Norfolk, Va., facility in 1980.

Sprawling Complex

The military-operated, civilian-manned Long Beach shipyard is a sprawling complex of moorings and hangar-like buildings that separate the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach at Terminal Island. It has served the Navy for more than four decades and in recent years has won some high-profile jobs, including the refitting of the historic battleships New Jersey and Missouri.

Since the January inspection, the Long Beach yard’s work force has declined from 5,900 to 5,100 as various repair jobs have been completed. The yard still ranks as Long Beach’s second-largest employer behind giant defense contractor McDonnell Douglas Corp., which employs about 23,000.

While some naval yard workers climb scaffolding to repair towering warships, others use massive industrial machines to cut and shape steel. Sparks fly from welders’ torches, and the air is filled with the whine of engines and the pounding of hammers.

Improperly masked welders can suffer eye burns, and riggers who are not careful can fall from a ship’s mast. Workers must be alert to avoid catching fingers or limbs in the blade of a giant band saw or the jaws of a powerful metal puncher.

Because of the potential danger of the machines, some of which stand 8 feet tall and weigh thousands of pounds, the Navy requires that they be equipped with guards designed to protect operators from injury. But equipment at the Long Beach yard has failed to meet that standard for years, records indicate.

Lacked Guards

The inspector general’s report disclosed that 14 of the yard’s largest industrial machines lacked proper operator-protection guards. One had also been cited in the yard’s 1986 inspection and remained uncorrected.

The finding was based on only a spot check of work areas, a Navy spokeswoman explained recently.

“They are not going to turn over every rock in the shipyard,” Lt. Janet Mescus said. “OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) does that.”

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has jurisdiction over both private and government-operated shipyards. But the agency has not conducted a “wall-to-wall” inspection of the Long Beach yard for at least three years, records show. A limited OSHA inspection last year found that in one building alone there were more than 250 unguarded machines, from the biggest shear to a Singer sewing machine.

Shipyard managers acknowledged to the agency that the yard contained more than 1,000 unguarded machines, said Dr. Leslie W. Michael, an OSHA area director in Long Beach. Michael said he did not have enough inspectors to conduct a “wall-to-wall” review, so he ordered the shipyard’s safety staff to identify and correct all hazards.

OSHA has imposed hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines on private shipyards for the same kinds of safety violations. But as a federal facility, the shipyard faces no penalty as a result of criticism from either the inspector general or OSHA.

Continuing Problem

Michael said managers reported recently that they had finished installing guards on all the yard’s machines. But shipyard spokesman Bond said the yard has a continuing problem with workers who remove the guards so they can operate the machines more easily.

One employee familiar with the machinery and the safety problems blamed management and workers alike.

“They have (done) things unsafely for so long that it’s almost impossible for them to change,” said the employee, who asked not be named for fear of retribution from his supervisors.

A former shipyard official and two union leaders said safety guards might have prevented an accident last September when a welder crushed two fingers in a sheet metal rolling machine, which resembles the wringer on an old-fashioned washer. The welder subsequently had to have the tip of his index finger amputated.

Jack Podojil, a former OSHA inspector who became the training and audit program manager in the shipyard’s safety office, said the machine had been identified before and after the accident as one that lacked guards. Walsh of the electrical workers’ union and Don Nelson, former business agent for the shipyard’s Asbestos Workers, Local 20, and now an OSHA inspector, said they examined the machine after the accident and also noted that it lacked guards.

Lack of Training

Bond, however, said that the machine was properly guarded and that the accident was due only to the welder’s lack of training on the machine.

One of the administrative problems cited by the Navy inspectors was the lack of monitoring of spray-painting. According to the safety reports, employees in several buildings at the shipyard were not checked for their exposure to dangerous fumes from the spraying of lead-based paint, even though inspectors in 1984 found that exposure levels there were about eight times higher than permitted.

In addition, rules requiring workers to shower after spray-painting went unenforced, the reports said.

Podojil said one of the most blatant safety hazards he saw while at the shipyard involved a metal-bending “press brake,” which operates much like a horizontal guillotine. The machine was equipped with a line of electric-eye beams designed to automatically shut off the mechanism if a worker ventured too close. But for some reason a mirror had been taped over the beams to disable them, he said.

Podojil said he brought the problem to the attention of the yard’s safety chief and, a few months later, complained to OSHA. But he said the mirror remained in place for about six months before he resigned last November to take another job.

“It was just disgusting to me (that) no matter how many times I brought it to management’s attention, nothing would get corrected,” said Podojil, who now works as a safety engineer at Garrett AiResearch in Torrance. “It almost drove me nuts.”

The inspector general also reported finding that:

- More than half of the cases involving lost workdays due to occupational injury were neither investigated by supervisors nor reported to the Navy Safety Center in Norfolk, where statistics are kept.

- Managers failed to ensure that the yard was routinely examined for safety. More than half of its work areas escaped annual walk-through surveys by a qualified industrial hygienist. The shipyard was cited for the same violation in each of its past three inspections, dating to 1979.

- Many workers “demonstrated a below-average awareness” of basic safety matters. Many did not know the hazards associated with the chemicals they were using or what kind of protective gear was required. Many employees did not know how to report hazardous conditions. In addition, the necessary reporting forms were not made readily accessible by shipyard managers.

Nevertheless, Bond said, “while portions of the (safety) program may be deficient, an unsatisfactory rating is not and should not be the deciding factor of whether the shipyard is a safe place to work.”

SAFETY VIOLATIONS PER WORKER AT NAVY SHIPYARDS

Reports of the naval inspector general show that when the Long Beach Naval Shipyard was given an “unsatisfactory” safety rating in January, it had the most violations per worker of any of the nation’s eight government-operated shipyards. It also had the highest workers’ compensation costs, according to a Department of Labor study covering a recent six-month period.

Last Admin. Workplace Total Inspected Violations Violations Workers Norfolk, Va. 10/87 12 445 12,569 Puget Sound, Wash. 8/86 10 625 12,127 Portsmouth, N.H. 8/87 6 413 8,129 Pearl Harbor, Hawaii* 3/87 12 399 6,316 Mare Island, Calif. 5/87 12 624 9,679 Charleston, S.C. 10/85 12 635 8,445 Philadelphia 10/86 6 730 8,906 Long Beach 1/88 16 518 5,899

* Has since been reinspected and received an unsatisfactory rating

**Workers’ Violations Safety Comp. Per Worker Rating Payments Norfolk, Va. .035 Marginally Satisfactory $2,976,670 Puget Sound, Wash. .051 Satisfactory $5,653,144 Portsmouth, N.H. .051 Satisfactory $2,960,131 Pearl Harbor, Hawaii* .063 Marginally Satisfactory $2,566,072 Mare Island, Calif. .064 Marginally Satisfactory $8,028,159 Charleston, S.C. .075 Marginally Satisfactory $1,914,014 Philadelphia .082 Satisfactory $7,555,916 Long Beach .088 Unsatisfactory $8,986,006

* Has since been reinspected and received an unsatisfactory rating ** July through December, 1987