This program looks at the long history of criminal violations of airline safety rules by FedEx management and collusion with FAA officials and OSHA officials who have done extensive damage control for the criminal activity of this corporation. Brian Gruzalski, an LAX FedEx mechanic talks about the safety culture at Fed-Ex and how he and other mechanics sought to protect the workers and public and were physically threatened, bullied, slandered and terminated.
On October 23, 2018 a Los Angeles Federal jury ruled that the company had retaliated against the OSHA whistleblowers for reporting on serious OSHA and FAA health and safety violations. A Los Angeles Superior Court jury sent a powerful message in support of whistleblowers by awarding over $8 million to three employees who complained about unsafe airplane repairs and suffered retaliation: an airplane mechanic (Brian Gruzalski), the mechanic's supervisor (Stanley Langevin) and their manager (Mark Collins), according to the suit.
During the trial, the jury learned that the employer, Federal Express Corporation, decided to reduce the time spent repairing its old airplanes by about one-third to increase profits. To meet the reduced repair time, FedEx management pressured the airplane mechanics to rush the repairs, the evidence showed. FedEx installed stadium-sized count-down clocks that counted down the seconds and offered management bonuses for getting the airplanes out faster. This caused FedEx's airplane mechanics to sign off on unsafe repairs and repairs that were not done, the evidence confirmed.
Also interviewed is Federal OSHA whistleblower investigator and lawyer Darrell Whitman who investigated the illegal activity and was himself bullied and illegally terminated by top officials of OSHA and the Department of Labor including DOL secretary Tom Perez.
For more information:
Airline mechanics feel pressured to overlook potential safety problems: "Accident waiting to happen”
–2015—olivia-wilde
Production of Labor Video Project
www.laborvideo.org
