Ava Miller and hundreds of others in the Calumet Region who lost loved ones to workplace dangers in the past four decades measure their pain in the emotional voids left behind.

At least 316 workers died, and another 343 injured workers carry the scars of those dangers through lost limbs, disfigurement or other injuries.

State and federal safety inspectors recorded the dangers throughout all industries during more than 15,000 inspections of region workplaces from 1972 through 2008. Those inspections yielded at least 14,844 violations deemed serious enough by inspectors that they posed a risk of injury or death to workers.

A Times computer-assisted investigation of 37 years of federal and Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration workplace safety inspections shows the perils that existed for region workers laboring in more than 500 industrial categories in Lake and Porter counties and seven south suburban Illinois cities.

The Times review revealed that the steel industry -- long known for its inherent workplace dangers -- recorded the highest number of serious safety violations in the region as determined by state and federal OSHA inspectors.

But the probe also showed a high number of safety violations in areas not always associated with industrial danger -- including local government and public schools.

Private and public sector employers say strides in improving workplace safety have been made in recent years. But those changes came too late for the dead and injured.

As our area's work force celebrates Labor Day weekend, The Times probe shows the workplace dangers measured through analysis of serious OSHA safety violations, hundreds of which were deemed by inspectors as contributing to worker fatalities and other catastrophes.

Blast furnaces and steel mills

Ava Miller recognized the dangers of her son's job and asked him to look for work elsewhere.

But Mario Ortiz was committed to his Beta Steel family. The 25-year-old wanted to make things better for his co-workers, Ortiz's stepfather, Bill Miller, recalled.

Ortiz was one of three workers who died March 27, 1996, following an explosion of a high-pressure water tank at Beta Steel in Portage. The accident also injured 12 other workers. Only a week before the tragedy, Ortiz had come home covered in black from putting out a grease fire at the mill, his family recalls.

Indiana OSHA safety inspectors reported three serious violations at the plant following the explosion, including failing to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards and failing to identify defects in the tank. The Indiana state fire marshal also cited Beta Steel for 14 violations of state law.

The Beta Steel case was just one of hundreds of examples of workplace dangers present in the steel industry over nearly four decades.

"Everybody in the mill environment knows it's a dangerous job," said Bill Miller, who works at U.S. Steel. "We're in danger daily, too. You have to recognize your safety faults and correct them. They didn't do that at Beta Steel."

Beta Steel was purchased by the NLMK Group in 2008 and is now known as NLMK Indiana.

NLMK Human Resources and Labor Relations Director Joseph Gazarkiewicz said the 1996 incident prompted safety changes at the Portage plant.

"The 1996 explosion and the loss of three Beta Steel employees is an event in Beta's history that has not been forgotten," Gazarkiewicz said in a written statement to The Times. "Since 1996, many drastic changes have taken place to assure the safety of each and every employee and to prevent injuries and the loss of life."

Throughout the region's steel industry, state and federal OSHA inspection records show at least 1,303 serious safety violations occurred in the blast furnaces and steel mills category over the 37 years, making it the industrial group with the most serious violations overall. OSHA defines serious violations as those that create the greatest risk of injury or death for workers.

At least 104 people died in the 37-year period while laboring within the region's steel industry, accounting for about one-third of all region workplace deaths that prompted Indiana OSHA safety inspections.

Safety inspectors determined a total of 222 serious workplace safety violations had occurred prior to incidents in which steelworkers or contractors died.

But one region union official believes far more potentially life-threatening violations occur within the steel industry than what Indiana OSHA has recorded.

United Steelworkers Local 1014 President Jerry Littles said a move by companies to more severely punish workers for safety infractions likely has meant fewer reported safety violations. Littles represents workers at U.S. Steel Gary Works.

"Those numbers are tainted by some violations going unreported," Littles said. "We do work hard trying to improve safety conditions, but when more and more blame is placed on the employees, they become reluctant to turn in accidents."

Despite garnering 391 serious OSHA violations at its Gary Works facility within 37 years -- the most of any single region company -- U.S. Steel remains committed to the safety of its workers, a company representative said.

"We are committed to our operations when it comes to safety," an e-mail to The Times from the company states. "That commitment includes annual and periodic training of our represented, non-represented employees and our management team."

Local government

Though blast furnaces and steel mills lead the industrial pack in terms of serious safety violations in the region, OSHA records show government agencies -- particularly municipal cities and towns -- come in at a close second.

The general government industrial category garnered 981 serious violations in the 37 years of federal and state OSHA inspection records analyzed by The Times.

And while the steel industry recorded more serious violations than general government agencies, government offices recorded a higher percentage of serious violations.

Of all region blast furnace and steel mill violations over 37 years, about 51 percent were deemed serious by safety inspectors. General government violations were deemed serious in nature nearly 73 percent of the time.

Two fatalities occurred in local government workplaces that were linked to serious OSHA violations during that time period. Both involved Hammond firefighters whose deaths -- one in 1982 and the other in 1992 -- led to Indiana OSHA inspections that in turn yielded serious workplace safety violations.

Among the general government violators were city and town governments, public works offices and police and fire departments.

And the industrial category encompassing elementary and secondary schools in the region yielded 408 serious violations within the same time period, or about 66 percent of all violations that safety inspectors reported in that category.

Other violations

Some of the other top serious violators by industry included companies performing carpentry, masonry, utilities, plumbing, roofing and special contractor work, according to OSHA data.

Those industries combined for 3,138 serious violations and 45 worker fatalities over the time period.

Charles "Chuck" Roth, of Steger, became one of the statistics in 1994 when he died of head trauma after falling from a ladder while working on a project for Chicago Heights-based Kab Masonry and Plumbing. Roth, known by his family as a handyman who could fix anything, left behind a wife and several stepchildren.

The company was cited for a serious violation for not having a proper safety training program for employees, OSHA records show.

But not all workplace dangers were found in those industrial groups.

Naomi Brimer said her husband, Terry, commented when he took a job at the BP refinery in Whiting that he would be working in the safest area of the plant.

The petroleum refining industry in the region committed 144 serious violations over 37 years, OSHA data show, placing that industry at 22nd overall in terms of serious citations.

Terry Brimer, 44, of Hammond, worked in BP's wastewater treatment facility on the lakeshore, which he thought would be safe, Naomi Brimer said.

Terry Brimer died from head trauma on Jan. 1, 2004, after leaning against a rusty rail that then gave way on on elevated walkway, OSHA records show. Brimer fell 10 feet, far enough to inflict the fatal head injury in spite of the safety helmet he wore.

Indiana OSHA cited the refinery for a serious violation following Brimer's death for failing to have a railing that could withstand 200 pounds of pressure applied from any direction.

Since Brimer's death, BP has reduced the number of accidents and injuries at the Whiting plant through safer policies and practices, BP spokesman Brad Etlin stated in an e-mail to The Times.

"The tragic loss of a co-worker on Jan. 1, 2004, remains fresh in the minds of refinery leadership and employees," Etlin wrote. "Following the incident, Whiting Refinery implemented a massive multimillion-dollar program that is focused on ensuring the integrity of walking and working surfaces, not only at the wastewater treatment plant -- where the fatality occurred -- but across our entire 1,400-acre facility."

 

Improving safety trends?

Despite the workplace hazards and lives lost during the past four decades, OSHA data suggests region workplaces may be improving in the realm of safety.

Between 1999 and 2008, serious workplace safety violations fell about 60 percent in the Calumet Region, slightly less than Indiana's overall decline of 68 percent, OSHA records show.

The Calumet Region's decline in serious safety violations in part correlated with a nearly 40 percent drop in local OSHA safety inspections during that 10-year period.

Steelworker union official Littles said safer practices likely have contributed to improving safety statistics in his industry.

He cited special monitors that steelworkers wear alerting them to dangerous levels of carbon monoxide and special safety cables on elevated cranes as examples of areas in which his industry's safety practices have improved.

Jeff Carter, deputy commissioner of the Indiana Department of Labor and head of Indiana OSHA, said his agency also has noted an improvement in steel industry safety in recent years.

"A lot of that has come from more cooperation between labor and management," Carter said. "We don't see as much head to head between those groups on the topic of safety as we have in the past.

"Society in general has less tolerance for unsafe cars, unsafe toys and also unsafe workplaces."

But Littles lamented that safer work practices and policies often come about through death and injury rather than proactive prevention.

"Every one of those (safety improvements) is written in somebody's blood," Littles said.