Employer doesn’t respond to employee complaint and allegedly retaliates against whistleblower

Feds order Biglerville pallet-plant operator to pay $105K to woman who was fired: Employee had reported mold problems in the workplace

A woman who was working at an Adams County plant and claimed she was fired for reporting mold at her workplace has gotten help from federal officials.

A court order calls on officials from IFCO Services to pay the fired worker $105,000, the U.S. Labor Department has announced.

For more than two months, the pallet company employee had “repeatedly told her employer about health concerns related to mold exposure” at an IFCO plant in Biglerville, a department news release said.

And despite “confirming that the mold existed, (IFCO Services) did not remove the fungus and instead fired the woman less than three weeks after she complained again about her health concerns,” it said.

The Labor Department now has secured a consent judgment requiring IFCO to pay the employee $105,000 to settle her discrimination claim, as well as a related worker’s compensation claim.

The judgment resolves all issues in a department lawsuit that had been filed in March, the news release said.

“IFCO’s refusal to take immediate action to eliminate what was confirmed to be a serious mold hazard left its employees at risk of developing a chronic health condition,” said Richard Mendelson, federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration regional administrator in Philadelphia.

“They also retaliated against the employee who alerted the company and OSHA to the hazard. No worker should have to fear retaliation when they identify a workplace safety and health concern,” Mendelson added.

IFCO failed to reinstate the employee, as well as compensate her for lost wages and other damages suffered as a result of the improper termination, the federal agency said.

Officials at the Biglerville plant referred a reporter's phone call Monday to a national corporate office in Orlando. A message left there for a company spokesperson was not immediately returned. IFCO is based in Houston.

The employee informed the company in April 2014 about suspected mold growing behind filing cabinets in an office at the plant, the news release continued.

It added the following details:

After more than a week, when the company took no action to correct the issue, the employee contacted OSHA about the mold and a potential electrical hazard, and OSHA notified the company about the complaint.

Following the OSHA complaint, IFCO hired an environmental health contractor to sample the mold. The contractor notified IFCO that there was significant active mold growth on the wall behind a filing cabinet and warned that remediation was required as quickly as possible.

For two months, the employee made repeated complaints to IFCO management about her continued exposure to the mold hazard and the company’s delay in removing all affected employees from the contaminated work area.

On July 1, 2014, less than three weeks after requesting again to be removed from the office, she was fired.

The employee filed a complaint with OSHA alleging her termination by IFCO was retaliation for reporting the mold hazard, and the agency found that the company violated the anti-discrimination provision of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

The Labor Department does not release names of employees involved in whistle-blower complaints, it said.

Source: Central Penn Business Journal