xcel 602 Osha violations

I worked at a coal fired power plant that used hydrozene to treat boiler water. It was used in open tanks with no vent hoods in an enclosed boiler . This was done from 1982 till 2005 . The reason it was done this way was because the power company I worked for had the own engineering group that designed these plants .they like to boast that they could build them for half the national cost . One of the ways they did this was not following OSHA guidelines on safety. These tanks sat about 30 feet from the elevator shaft on the bottom floor .The vent for the elevator shat was also on this floor. The fumes in the elevator were so bad they kept spray air freshners in the elevator car to mask them ,and till about 1988 they allowed smoking on these elevators .After they had a smoking station just outside the entrance to the car on the bottom floor . Several of the workers that worked with this hydorzen and or worked arund this area had heart attacks . One at the plant the doctor said he thought it was from stress but he did not know about the hydrozen .The heart problems were so bad at this plant that the company bought a  defibilator . The hydrozene levels were checked when the plant was built around the tanks and in several levels oof the plant but this changes with the seasons such as in teh late fall and winter when the boiler vents are shut . I dont think it was checked in the penthouse where the fumes acumilated before they were vented by  the vent fan that was on a thermostat . When I asked to see the MSDS sheets on this hydrozen  my foreman told me they were locked up in the engineers office . Two of the employees that worked around this area came down with the same kind of cancer within a year of each other . One of them later died . He also had nerve complications . I called OSHA out  on the battery rooms which were not vented to the outside , but instead were vented to the turbine floor by cutting a hole in the roof of the battery rooms . The lady from OSHA who investigated this found nothing wrong with this !.I was at the Lubbock  OSHA office when a power plant worker called in about several employees who were working on boiler tubes became sick and had to be put in the hospital . The OSHA inspector forgot to get his name so they didnt send anyone out to investigate . I later complained about this online to OSHA . A month later they sent someone out after they gave the company notice they were coming out . I believe this is another reason I had so much trouble with the Lubbock office not protecting employees who had turned the company in for OSHA violations . One lady was fired for this and OSHA refused to protect her because she had not reported it to them when we had since I was the union stuart. I went with her to the OSHA office not long after she was fired and talked to the then head of OSHA  for the state of Texas. He told us he would take care of it he didn't guess he just didn't know how  or didn't care. I was told after I was laid off by OSHA that since it was for work related illness OSHA didn't have to enforce the whistle blowers law .

xcel 602 Osha violations

I worked at a coal fired power plant that used hydrozene to treat boiler water. It was used in open tanks with no vent hoods in an enclosed boiler . This was done from 1982 till 2005 . The reason it was done this way was because the power company I worked for had the own engineering group that designed these plants .they like to boast that they could build them for half the national cost . One of the ways they did this was not following OSHA guidelines on safety. These tanks sat about 30 feet from the elevator shaft on the bottom floor .The vent for the elevator shat was also on this floor. The fumes in the elevator were so bad they kept spray air freshners in the elevator car to mask them ,and till about 1988 they allowed smoking on these elevators .After they had a smoking station just outside the entrance to the car on the bottom floor . Several of the workers that worked with this hydorzen and or worked arund this area had heart attacks . One at the plant the doctor said he thought it was from stress but he did not know about the hydrozen .The heart problems were so bad at this plant that the company bought a  defibilator . The hydrozene levels were checked when the plant was built around the tanks and in several levels oof the plant but this changes with the seasons such as in teh late fall and winter when the boiler vents are shut . I dont think it was checked in the penthouse where the fumes acumilated before they were vented by  the vent fan that was on a thermostat . When I asked to see the MSDS sheets on this hydrozen  my foreman told me they were locked up in the engineers office . Two of the employees that worked around this area came down with the same kind of cancer within a year of each other . One of them later died . He also had nerve complications . I called OSHA out  on the battery rooms which were not vented to the outside , but instead were vented to the turbine floor by cutting a hole in the roof of the battery rooms . The lady from OSHA who investigated this found nothing wrong with this !.I was at the Lubbock  OSHA office when a power plant worker called in about several employees who were working on boiler tubes became sick and had to be put in the hospital . The OSHA inspector forgot to get his name so they didnt send anyone out to investigate . I later complained about this online to OSHA . A month later they sent someone out after they gave the company notice they were coming out . I believe this is another reason I had so much trouble with the Lubbock office not protecting employees who had turned the company in for OSHA violations . One lady was fired for this and OSHA refused to protect her because she had not reported it to them when we had since I was the union stuart. I went with her to the OSHA office not long after she was fired and talked to the then head of OSHA  for the state of Texas. He told us he would take care of it he didn't guess he just didn't know how  or didn't care. I was told after I was laid off by OSHA that since it was for work related illness OSHA didn't have to enforce the whistle blowers law .

xcel retirement fraud

From 1988 till 2005 I set in on contract negotiations  with the power company that is now xcel energy.This retirement fund in 1988 was 50% over funded . In other word it had 50% more money in the retirment fund than it needed to ensure that the employees would receive there full retirement.. In 1997 Southwestern Public Service (the company I worked for ) merged with Colorado Public Service .The CEO of Colorado Public Service Decided to seperate the SPS (Southwestern Public Service ) retirement fund into one for managment and one for the union. I beleive at this time he created a slush fun and took the 50% over funding  and put it in the slush fund he used this to give them ( the merger commitee which was all the companies upper managment CEOs presidents , vice-presidents and atorneys bonuses . He also used it to pay for sevrince packages for all the management ( 32 weeks) that were laid off . This is illegal since congress had passed a law in the early 1990's  which says that all retirement funds are frozen for 5 years and any early with drawl has a 33% tax on it .In 2000 this company merged with Northern States Power to form Xcel  Energy.This put the date on with draw of the fund off till 2005.In the 2002  contract the union asked the company how much money it had in this fund the union was told it was over 450 million. In 2005  the union was told there was 333 million in the retirement fund and it was !00 percent funded . I was the only one on the committee that knew about the over funding because we had changed business agent and the international rep. would not let the new union rep set in on prenegotiations with the old rep.  We also elect our negotiating committe each year and I was the only one to return from the old committe .. The union hall was broken into just before contract negotiations and all the desktop computers were stolen and all the laptops . these contained all the notes on prior contract negotiations . I berleive this was not a considence these event transpired as the did .I also filed reports in 2006 with the IRS and National Labor Relations board but they only checked back to 2000 not to 1997. ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````1