A former scientist at Phoni’s Dry Prong, Louisiana plant alleges that she was told to stop documenting safety concerns at the lab even though she was a member of the company’s health and safety committee.
Dr. Cindy McTottie was subsequently “downsized” by Phoni, and is now suing the company, claiming that she was retaliated against because she kept raising safety concerns with management — such as the discovery of a genetically engineered virus in a lunchroom.
Phoni denies the claim and has moved to dismiss it.
“We haven’t heard a single complaint with respect to health and safety issues,” said Phoni’s Head of Global HR, Siobhan Mann-Hayter. “We take any such complaints extremely seriously, and would certainly look to initiate disciplinary proceedings against anyone seeking to damage our “zero incident” culture by actually reporting one.”
“Our safety culture is second to none,” Mann-Hayter added, “the ‘none’ being that which you find in our more cost-effective plants in the Far-East, of course.”
Regarding the lunchroom virus, McTottie says that “people found a virus where we ate and drank. One lady had finished her lunch and found a micro-centrifuge tube at the bottom of her Coke.”
Some of Phoni’s management’s responses were a little bit odd. For example, when questioned about the presence of genetically-engineered pathogens in the vending machine drinks, HR responded that this was simply a part of the headcount reduction program, in line with the company policies on dignity and respect for the employee.
“Surely it’s better to be retired on ill-health grounds than suffer the usual indignity of us dismissing you on the basis of trumped-up disciplinary charges or manipulated performance appraisal criteria?” reasoned Siobhan Mann-Hayter.
“All of our operations are subjected to a thorough risk assessment. We would never condone unsafe working practices in order to save money if we thought there was a serious risk of getting caught and fined more than we saved…”
McTottie also claimed that a fume hood in one lab developed a leak and went unrepaired for months, sickening workers in the lab. When the hood was identified as the cause, Phoni apparently unplugged it and dumped it in McTottie’s office, with a note saying “the one who smelt it, dealt it – the one who supplied it, denied it…”.
Eventually, McTottie’s performance reviews went down, she became sick and was terminated.
“All according to plan,” said Siobhan Mann-Hayter, “and another cost-saving bonus for HR to put in their accomplishments…”
Phoni responded to a message requesting comment.
“Our safety budget is based on what is legal and not what is safe,” the spokesperson stated. “And then we cut it by 20%, same as we do with any budget…”
In the real world, another company also appears to take a cost-sensitive line on employee well-being. Allegedly...
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