Rising Profits, Rising Injuries: The Safety Crisis at Koch Industries' Georgia-Pacific

[TexasTowelie]

In March of 2014, Jim Hannan joined a group of executives at Georgia-Pacific to discuss a burgeoning crisis.

Hannan was CEO of Georgia-Pacific, reporting to Charles Koch, the CEO of Koch Industries, which had bought the paper and pulp company in 2005. Hannan, a longtime Koch employee, had been doing a stellar job by some standards — the maker of Brawny paper towels and Quilted Northern toilet paper was paying down debt and delivering higher profits. But there was a hitch: The workplace was becoming more dangerous.

In 2013, two Georgia-Pacific employees had been killed on the job. Injuries had continued to rise, and Hannan was upset. During the meeting, Hannan berated his leadership team. “The last six months is unacceptable,” he said, according to notes taken by someone who observed the meeting.

Hannan suggested that the future of the company was on the line.

“If we can’t keep safe, why invest?” Hannan asked.

Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/rising-profits-rising-injuries-the-safety-crisis-at-koch-industries-georgia-pacific

[3Hotdogs]

1. Koch Industries was the subject of a P.B .S. documentary on safety. Probably Frontline.

That was about 10 years ago. After the doc. aired, they made a major effort to improve safety.

[japple]

2. What a perfect time to start your boycott of Georgia Pacific paper products.

Dixie, Vanity Fair, Brawny, Quilted Northern, Angel Soft, Sparkle plus all of these others: https://www.gp.com/product-overview/consumer-products

[Locrian]

3. idiots...

They seriously can't figure out what is going wrong? F-cking idiots in charge. Its arrogance from the top down on what it actually takes to do the job and the limits of employees.

I see this OVER and OVER in industry. And they *genuinely* believe they are interested in safety but that they "don't have to pay the price" in actual practice and can continue to push and metricize everything.

When you track and enforce metrics like this you *take the human element* out of safety. And that is a recipe for stupid.

One “work standard” paper, as employees call them, dictated how employees should conduct themselves when taking on “non-routine” work outside their typical operating procedure. It was more than 20 pages long. Another work standard, dictating how employees should shut down machines to repair them, was about 25 pages long. One employee estimated that the total number of work standards reports were 1,000 pages combined.

“They really preach the gospel that we want everyone to be safe, but in the end, it’s all about productivity,” McKinney said.

Rather than slow down the factories or increase the workforce, internal company memos show that executives focused on changing employees’ “hearts and minds” and getting them to more tightly embrace the teachings of MBM.

Koch used the data to push employees to work harder. For years, Koch ranked each driver into three tiers: “green” for the top performers, “yellow” for the middle and “red” for the laggards. The results were publicly posted. If a driver ranked in the red zone for too long, he or she could be fired. Drivers sped up to keep their rankings high, according to multiple employees interviewed over several years. They were also expected to adhere to Koch’s detailed safety policy

“People aren’t wanting to slow down. They want to stay productive,” McKinney said. “When you work someone like that, they’re going to be tired and make mistakes.”

[KY_EnviroGuy]

6. K&R. Agree 100%.

I've worked in several G-P plants prior to Koch and their safety training and standards were about the same as others. But, it does not matter how good your training is, if employees or contractors are pushed to exhaustion they become careless and lose their ability to be cognizant of hazards. Been there/done that.

Safety practices require constant vigilance and careful observation at all times, and that requires time just like the work. Koch has made it clear that they will prove the procedures (to the extreme) but they will not sacrifice the time.

KY...........

[Locrian]

7. there's a study

that shows that if you think that "safety" books etc and process catch everything, and you just have to "follow the book" there is MORE accidents than if you rely on people actually thinking.

Nurses are a good point - they catch drug interactions that the system misses. So the HUMAN element is a forgotten key element in preventing some of the accidents etc that are not on the (often 10000 page) books.

[Roy Rolling]

4. ICE to the Rescue

Time for a purge of all those “bad employees who totally fooled them” into hiring them as undocumented workers.

Bonus! Call in a raid before the checks are issued and they save money, too! Plus, Companies don’t go to jail if they turn employees over to ICE—they employees they hired.

There should be a way to claw back the ill-gotten gains of using near-slave labor, and put company owners in jail with undocumented immigrants.

The same jail cell would be nice.

[Aviation Pro]

5. This sounds like a man who puts people first

Good for him.

[Locrian]

8. maybe -

it does sound like he's genuinely concerned....

But I would need more info. I've seen and dealt with a lot of "concerned" CEO types.

A lot of them think they can metricize behavior and ignore the human element because they (the CEOs) "know better" and can avoid risk by creating huge documents or processes. They've never actually worked like their workers to know the real world. Sure some may have "dabbled" at it but not for a long period of time etc.

They want safety, but also want to drive workers as hard as possible and don't see the conflict sometimes.

[dalton99a]

9. Kick