My Last Weekend
EDITORIAL
Saving Money, Poisoning Workers
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: April 4, 2013
The workers at Royale Comfort Seating in Taylorsville, N.C., had a simple but grueling job. For 10 hours at a stretch they spray-glued pieces of polyurethane foam into shapes that became the spongy filling of cushions sold to many top furniture brands. Unfortunately, the glue contained a dangerous chemical known as n-propyl bromide, or nPB, and the spray guns left a yellowish fog in the air that coated everything in sight. Exposure to the toxic fumes left some workers so dizzy at the end of the day that they walked as if drunk.
Worse yet, many developed long-term ailments. One worker can no longer stand or sit for more than 20 minutes without feeling excruciating pain in her spine and legs. Another lost control of his hands and could not put on clothes without help.
Medical experts and even companies that once made nPB had long warned that the chemical can cause neurological damage when inhaled at low doses for long periods. So how could it happen that Royale Comfort’s workers, whose plight was described in painful detail by Ian Urbina in The Times last Sunday, were exposed to it? There is plenty of blame to go around — a company trying to save a buck, timid regulators and weak laws.
The main responsibility lies with the employer, which repeatedly invoked the specter of competition from Chinese manufacturers as an excuse not to spend money to protect its employees. When state inspectors told company officials to ventilate fumes to the outside, they bought pedestal fans instead and often turned them off. When inspectors demanded respirators that would have cost $18, managers handed out 90-cent dust masks that could not block the vapors.
The regulatory failure belonged mainly to state occupational health officials who were deputized by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to do inspections and rectify problems. Some two dozen other states have such
Saving Money, Poisoning Workers
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: April 4, 2013
The workers at Royale Comfort Seating in Taylorsville, N.C., had a simple but grueling job. For 10 hours at a stretch they spray-glued pieces of polyurethane foam into shapes that became the spongy filling of cushions sold to many top furniture brands. Unfortunately, the glue contained a dangerous chemical known as n-propyl bromide, or nPB, and the spray guns left a yellowish fog in the air that coated everything in sight. Exposure to the toxic fumes left some workers so dizzy at the end of the day that they walked as if drunk.
Worse yet, many developed long-term ailments. One worker can no longer stand or sit for more than 20 minutes without feeling excruciating pain in her spine and legs. Another lost control of his hands and could not put on clothes without help.
Medical experts and even companies that once made nPB had long warned that the chemical can cause neurological damage when inhaled at low doses for long periods. So how could it happen that Royale Comfort’s workers, whose plight was described in painful detail by Ian Urbina in The Times last Sunday, were exposed to it? There is plenty of blame to go around — a company trying to save a buck, timid regulators and weak laws.
The main responsibility lies with the employer, which repeatedly invoked the specter of competition from Chinese manufacturers as an excuse not to spend money to protect its employees. When state inspectors told company officials to ventilate fumes to the outside, they bought pedestal fans instead and often turned them off. When inspectors demanded respirators that would have cost $18, managers handed out 90-cent dust masks that could not block the vapors.
The regulatory failure belonged mainly to state occupational health officials who were deputized by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to do inspections and rectify problems. Some two dozen other states have such