We Got It Wrong: State Will Not Investigate American Apparel Worker's Death
It turns out a report in La Opinion about a likely state investigation into last week's death of a worker at American Apparel -- a story we pointed to a blog post that has since been taken down -- is erroneous:
americanapparel.net
A spokeswoman with the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) tells LA Weekly that a local office of Cal/OSHA likely told the paper in error that the company had not reported the death on time and was therefore likely to be investigated. A Cal/OSHA spokeswoman also appeared to indicate to La Opinion that American Apparel had not reported the death to the agency. In fact, Cal/OSHA spokeswoman Krisann Chasarik, the state office found the filing and it was indeed on-time.
The company "did report it within the proper time frame," she said. "We are not planning on investigating."
American Apparel chief Dov Charney told the Weekly Tuesday that our report was wrong:
"We reported it to Cal/OSHA in a timely fashion," he said. "We've done everything we could to cooperate with authorities."
A legal representative of the firm backed up that assertion, saying the death of Dan Lydon Sindo in a bathroom at the fashion firm's downtown headquarters was reported to Cal/OSHA within two hours.
Charney said the company has a clinic on the premises and had a doctor on-site who responded but could not revive the man. Chasarik said the worker apparently died of a heart attack.
"We are very saddened by this death," Charney said. "The many employees who worked with him directly are grieving the loss."
LA Weekly regrets the error.
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