"We did inherit a number of potential hazards when we purchased these plants," says Waste Management spokeswoman Susan Clark. She claims that WMX spent million to upgrade safety conditions since the three deaths. But OSHA fines continue and betray the doublespeak and lies of WMX.
ITT also reports that OSHA has fined WMX nearly $800,000 in California since January 1996 "for scores of serious safety violations at several of its facilities."
"In July, the company won an $80 million city contract to haul all household trash from the Bronx to a landfill in Virginia. City officials who granted WasteManagement its contract never bothered to investigate the firm's horrible safety record. ...
"Waste Management is a darling of the politicians and Wall Street financiers even the firm has a rap sheet nearly as long as the mobsters it replaced. Since 1980, the company has faced repeated federal and local criminal indictments for price fixing and bribery. Convictions of Waste Management subsidiaries and executives have occurred in Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Illinois and California. During the same period, the firm has paid more than $52 million in fines and settlements of lawsuits arising from its environmental practices, a record that Greenpeace has called the worst in the business," the ITT report continued.
In conclusion, ITT writes, "On Varick Avenue in Brooklyn, a corporate giant replaces the mob, and the number of dead and maimed workers multiplies. The feds slap the giant's writs while the city rewards it with millions - and the price of trash removal drops."
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