'They killed my son.' One father fights for safety in the workplace.

Friday, October 22, 1993, began like a hundred Fridays before it. It was the last day of my workweek, I was in a job I loved, and I had a great family. I even had a special treat that day: lunch with my wife. But this Friday was the day that ruined my life. At 1:30 P.M., I got the call that every parent dreads: a cold, hard voice said, "Mr. Hayes, your son Pat has been killed." These words still echo in my mind a thousand times a day.

It became a day of firsts: the first time I would identify my child's body; the first time I would search for the words to tell our other children what had happened; the first time I would pick out a casket. This task was so hard, but the hardest part of all came on Monday, when we had to close the casket forever. I held on as long as I could with five or six men pulling against me, but it was inevitable. I had to close the top and send my son's body away forever. No more touching; no more hugging; no more kissing. He was gone.

What makes it all even more unbearable is the needless nature of his death. Pat was killed on the job because the company he worked for didn't bother to provide a safe workplace, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) didn't have the will or the resources to insist that the company do so.

Pat was nineteen years old. He went to work that morning looking forward to a weekend of doing what he loved most, hunting, but this was not to be. He worked for the Showell Farms Chicken Processing Plant in De Funiak Springs, Florida, for $5 an hour. His supervisors told him to go into the corn silo and start scraping the kernels off the side of the bin, while an augur at the bottom sucked the corn down. This dangerous procedure, called "walking the corn," is against the law. Company officials knew it was life-threatening; still they sent their employees in on a daily basis without proper training or safety equipment. According to one company official, "Showell Farms operates under the rollof-the-dice philosophy; we won't change our ways until something bad happens."

Well, something bad happened to my son Pat. He was smothered under sixty tons of corn kernels. He died at 10:05 A.M., but because the company didn't have an emergency-action plan, as required by law, it took rescue workers five-and-a-half hours to recover his body. His face was so contorted in pain, you could see two tear streaks down his cheeks.

Showell Farms was no stranger to OSHA. Over the preceding eighteen years, OSHA had conducted twenty inspections at plants owned by this company, issuing a total of more than 100 citations, including willful and serious violations. But these citations did not make the company clean up its act.

After Pat died, OSHA investigated Showell Farms once again. The investigating officer determined that the company had willfully violated OSHA standards and determined that Pat's death could have been prevented. The officer issued a report, finding six willful violations and proposing a penalty of $530,000. But then higher-ups at OSHA caved in. The area director reduced the six willful violations to a lesser ranking of "serious," and lowered the total fine to only $30,000.

To say the least, my family and I were devastated by these changes. Showell Farms was delighted. "The company broke its neck to get down there and pay the fine," one OSHA official said. I have since found out that OSHA had been helping the company for years; nearly all of the past penalties had also been reduced.

An internal OSHA audit revealed that Pat's death did, in fact, involve a willful violation of safety standards, and that the OSHA area director was wrong to reduce the violation and the fine. A high-ranking OSHA official later told us, "OSHA was afraid of the company. That's why they didn't pursue the case."

OSHA's handling of the investigation into Pat's death was hardly unique. The agency reduces 99 percent of fines over $50,000, and collects only thirty-three cents for every dollar it levies in fines. I can only conclude that OSHA is in the pocket of big business. It's high time the American worker woke up and started taking this agency back.

Unfortunately, Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress want to put OSHA even deeper in the pockets of big business. They've introduced legislation that would slash the agency's budget by one-third and curtail its already limited powers.

This is a matter of life and death not just for my family but for thousands of other families across this country. About 10,000 Americans die on the job every year; 70 percent of these work-related deaths could be prevented if companies would do the right thing by their employees, and if OSHA had the power and the will to enforce safe working conditions.

We need to make health and safety protections stronger, not weaker. We don't need to cut OSHA; we need to improve OSHA so that safety laws are properly enforced. That's the only way businesses will understand that they cannot get away with breaking the law and risking people's lives.

My son is gone forever, but members of Congress can still save lives. They can stop cutting inspections and enforcement. They can stop making health and safety standards weaker. And they can start protecting working people like Patrick Hayes.

In workplaces all over the country, Pat's death is being replayed day after day. And if Congress has its wish, many more parents will be getting the dreaded phone call that I got that Friday afternoon two years ago.

It doesn't have to be that way. With some good old horse sense, we could transform OSHA into everything it was mandated to be.

Patrick, this is a father's promise, beloved son: you will always be in our hearts and minds, and we will fight to make things better in your honor. You did not die in vain, son. In your death, others will live.

Editor's Note: On October 24, 1995, Ron Hayes and his wife, Dot, received a formal apology in person from Joseph Dear, director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for OSHA's mishandling of the investigation into the death of their son Pat. Labor Secretary Robert Reich also dropped by the extraordinary meeting in Washington and expressed his condolences, according to The New York Times.

Ron Hayes was the manager of an X-ray lab when his son Pat was killed. Hayes quit his job to form, with his wife, a nonprofit organization that assists families that lose a member in a workplace accident. FIGHT--families in Grief Holding Together--offers emotional support, as well as technical advice on how to deal with OSHA and other government agencies. To contact FIGHT write: 559 Marsim Drive., Fairhope, AL 36533.