Toledo Jeep workers and others who tried to track the vehicle assembly plant's safety record on a federal web site set up for that purpose didn't have much success up until recently.

That is because of an unusual error, blamed by the U.S. Labor Department on computer software glitches, in which inspections and safety complaints at the DaimlerChrysler AG plant were incorrectly listed under the name of the factory's outside security guard service, Wackenhut Corp., of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

The problem was with a U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration web site, which is supposed to allow users to look up a firm's safety record with the click of a mouse. It came to light last fall after The Blade made inquiries at OSHA's Toledo office about why the agency's web site showed a four-year period which there were no inspections at Toledo's largest industrial employer despite a long record of safety problems.

OSHA officials discovered the error while researching the issue, and re-filed the reports.

Before corrections were made, The Blade found seven misfiled OSHA reports. They included citations in 1997 and 1999 for unsafe machinery and improper maintenance of golf carts.

"It is disturbing to me," said Arnis Andersons, who heads OSHA's Toledo office.

OSHA relies on the electronic data for internal use. Officials elsewhere researching the safety record of the parent company would not have found the problems in Toledo before the records were corrected, said Michael Corners, director of OSHA's Chicago region.

The software problem affected not only records at the Toledo factory but other employers as well.

The mistake is believed to have occurred when a clerical worker attempted to fix a computer filing error about an inspection at Wakenhut Corp. that showed up under Toledo Jeep. The correction also changed several reports properly filed under Toledo Jeep to Wackenhut, an OSHA systems analyst said. It is not clear when the problem happened, the analyst said.

Toledo Blade

-- Anonymous, February 11, 2001