By JAMES BANDLER and KRIS MAHER
April 23, 2008; Page B1

Tulsa, Okla.

Last year, Eleazar Torres-Gomez fell from a conveyor belt into an industrial dryer at a Cintas Corp. laundry here and was killed before anyone realized what happened. The accident prompted the federal government to propose the largest safety-related penalty ever against a service-sector company.

New details about the case -- from internal company memos, Cintas surveillance videotapes and people close to the federal investigation -- indicate that the dangerous practices that led to Mr. Torres-Gomez's death occurred frequently in Tulsa and at other plants operated by Cintas, the biggest uniform supplier in North America.

A person familiar with the probe said U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials believe Cintas workers climbing on moving conveyors and jumping atop stuck laundry were "standard work practices at a number of facilities."

Cintas spokeswoman Heather Trainer denied that it's standard practice. "In fact, every employee at the Tulsa facility, including the receptionists, was trained to never get on an energized conveyor at any time," she said.

On Wednesday, the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections will hold a hearing on how well OSHA is policing employers like Cintas that have multiple facilities across the country. Although other companies will be mentioned, Cintas is expected to be exhibit A, according to people familiar with the hearing. The Democratic controlled committee is investigating allegations that Cintas didn't protect workers at all of its facilities from previously known hazards.

An OSHA spokeswoman said the agency couldn't comment on pending cases.

The federal government fined Cintas $2.8 million for the Tulsa accident. Cintas has appealed the fine. Shortly after the accident, Cintas CEO Scott Farmer said Mr. Torres-Gomez wasn't following proper procedures, "which would have prevented this tragic accident."

In its investigation, OSHA found that employees weren't trained in how to shut off equipment properly. A surveillance videotape at the Tulsa plant showed workers engaging in activities similar to what led to Mr. Torres-Gomez's death over several weeks prior to the accident, say people familiar with OSHA's investigation. A government memo, sent by Richard E. Fairfax, director of enforcement for OSHA, states that over the previous two weeks, other employees had used the same method of dislodging jams some 34 times.

"Employees climbed on and walked up the moving shuttle conveyer, and kicked at, jumped on, and tried to knee the jammed clothing into the dryer opening," Mr. Fairfax wrote. "The recording also showed two employees inserting one of their legs into the chutes of the operating washing machines and jumping up and down to clear jams of laundry in the chute."

Company surveillance video showed Mr. Torres-Gomez trying to clear the jam from the ground level. When that didn't work, he got on the conveyor shuttle and began jumping up and down to push a clump of jeans through. He fell into the dryer. The automatic door shut, and a pilot light ignited. More than 20 minutes later a co-worker, hearing a loud thudding noise, found Mr. Torres-Gomez dead, lying on a pile of jeans, according to a police report.

A Cintas spokeswoman said in a statement that the company couldn't comment on "the factual circumstances" of the accident, because it is currently negotiating a national settlement with the Labor Department and faces pending litigation. "The accident was tragic and shook us all," she said.

Cintas -- whose stock ended Tuesday at $28.87 on the Nasdaq, down 14.13% year to date -- posted sales of $3.71 billion and a profit of $334.5 million in fiscal 2007.

Commercial laundries operated by Cintas wash uniforms for hotels, airlines and restaurants, among others, as well as industrial shop towels and rugs. In automated plants, robotic conveyor systems called shuttles transfer hundreds of pounds of laundry from massive washers to dryers.

In a confidential safety bulletin in 2004 that hasn't been previously disclosed, Cintas's director of safety noted that laundry jams were "fairly common on automated wash floors" and presented a serious safety risk to workers. The memo refers to an incident at a Cintas plant in Ohio in which a worker trying to dislodge a jam at the top of a shuttle was forced into a rotating dryer. The worker wasn't seriously injured because a second worker was present and immediately shut off power.

In the memo, Richard Gerlach, Cintas's director of safety, told managers to implement several basic safety procedures before trying to dislodge jams, including shutting off power to the shuttle and to dryers and having an observer present to prevent a mishap. These procedures weren't followed prior to the Tulsa accident.

Cintas said that there were other procedures in place that would have shut off the conveyor, but they weren't followed. The company said Mr. Gerlach wouldn't be available to comment. The company also said that it is in compliance with OSHA regulations, which accept shuttles with so-called presence-sensing guarding, which shuts off a shuttle if it encounters a person as it moves along a track. The shuttle in the Tulsa plant had that, but it didn't prevent workers from climbing on the machine while it was operating, according to people familiar with OSHA's investigation.

People close to the OSHA probe in Tulsa say plant managers knew that workers were standing on moving conveyer shuttles in order to dislodge jams. Surveillance video, they say, shows the dangerous practice sometimes occurred multiple times in a single shift. Workers told OSHA investigators they were "under a lot of pressure to keep everything going." The company said that while the company sets reasonable goals for employees, pressure didn't play any role in Mr. Torres-Gomez's death.

In its investigation into the Tulsa accident, OSHA cited Cintas for 42 "willful" violations -- the most serious kind of violation because it denotes "intentional disregard" or "plain indifference" to employee safety. Since 2002, there have been at least 70 inspections of Cintas plants, more than half of which resulted in citations, according to Mr. Fairfax's memo, which was prepared late last year.

Some industry officials say Cintas has had more inspections than most other laundry companies because it has been the target of a long-running organizing campaign by Unite Here. Eric Frumin, director of occupational safety and health for Unite Here, acknowledged that the union helped workers file complaints, but said that Cintas's safety problems were real, and that without these complaints, OSHA would never have scrutinized the industry. "What is the message when absent complaints or death, OSHA isn't going to show up?" Mr. Frumin said.

After a worker nearly lost his arm when it became caught in a washer at a Cintas plant in Yakima, Wash., last year, the state Department of Labor and Industries fined Cintas $13,600, citing it for a number of safety violations, including instances of workers standing on moving shuttles. Michael White, 52, who worked in the wash room at the Yakima plant for close to 30 years before quitting in November 2006, said Cintas scrapped some safety measures when it took over the plant about seven years ago. The previous employer scheduled two workers in the wash room, where shuttle systems automatically take laundry from washers and load it into dryers, Mr. White said, but Cintas decided only one person was needed to watch over the machinery. Cintas also took away safety switches that could be worn by employees and be used to shut off machinery in case of an emergency. The prior owner had required any employee entering the wash room to wear the devices, he said.

Richard Smith, who retired after he sold the Yakima plant to Cintas in 2000, confirmed Mr. White's description of procedures when he owned the facility, and Bourtai Hargrove, an assistant state attorney general who investigated the case, said witnesses at the plant confirmed Mr. White's assertion about the safety switches.

Cintas said it doesn't find any basis for Mr. White's allegations, which are "contrary to the company's entire safety and health culture."

Write to James Bandler at james.bandler@wsj.com and Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com