ML20134F939
| ML20134F939 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Comanche Peak  |
| Issue date: | 06/28/1985 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20134F937 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8508220045 | |
| Download: ML20134F939 (109) | |
Text
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. . l ORIGINAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSICN In the ::atter of :
COMANCHE PEAK INTIMIDATION PANEL
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Cocket No . Ib ~
60 - kkb"b Location: Eethesda, Maryland Date: Friday, June 26, 1985 Pages: 1- 109 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES Court Reporters 1625 I St., N.W.
Suite 921 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 8508b2OO45850814 PDR ADOCK 05000445 T ppg l
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1 UNIYED STA1ES C3 Amew.CW i
1 NUCLEAR REGULATORY LCMMIb6 ION ,
.3 4 COM4NCMd PEAK INTIMIDATION PANdL 5
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. , 6 Fricay, June u8, 193 L
7 7920 Norfolk Avenue 6
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Room P-110 9 Betnesda, Marylane 10 11 ine wanel met, pursuant to notice, at 's : 30 e . u. , in 12 orcer to near oral argument from the parties in the 13 aoove-entitled matter.
14 15 PAN 6 MEMS:65 ksdSENT:
I 16 17 J I .M GAGLIAADO, Chairman 18 JHNd AXELRAD, Member .
l 19 DARWIN HUNTER, Member 20 JIM LIdBdRMAN, Memoer i
El BRUCE hAPLAN, Acvisor
{ 22 LARRY CHANDLER Acvisor 23 CHUCK RICE, Acvisor.
24 26 e
e 1 APPEARANCES:
2 3 NICMOth6 b. RdYNowDs, ESQ.
i 4 BRUCd DOWNdY, ESO.
5 MC NEIL WATKINS, Esq.
^ 6 Bishop, Lacerman, Cook, Purcell & Reynolcs 7 1200 17th Street, N. W.
8 Wasnington, D. C. 20036 9 On benalf of tne Hpplicant 10 ROBERT A. WOOLDRIDbE, ESG.
11 worsham, Aorsythe, Sampels & Wooldracge id 2500 2001 bryan Tower 13 Dallas, lexas 75401 1* On behalf of tne Applicant 15 16 ANTMONY Z. ROISMAN, ESG.
17 Trial Lawyers for Puclic Justice, P. C.
18 butte bil, 2000 P Street, N. W.
, 19 Washington, D. C. 20036 -
20 On benalf of Intervenor, Citizens Association tor a
21 Souno Energy 22 Ms. BILLIE GARDE 23 Government Accountamility project i 24 1555 Connecticut Avenue, N. W.
25- Wasnington, D. C. 20036
s 1 P 4 0CddJ 1 .4 36 E MR. GAG 61ANDO: First of al l, l' c lade to s r.t rod uce -
3 rnyse l f to any of you who con' t w r.o w roe. I an Jir. Gag 1;arce 4 with the NRC, anc I am tne Cnairrnan of the Comanene peax 5 Intimication panel.
6 I have with rne here at the taDie today the otner 7 members of the Intimication panel, Jim Lieberman from ELO, e
8 Jane Hxelrac wno is from our ISE office, anc Darwin Hunter w,e 9 is from Hegion IV.
10 We also nave witn us panel acvisor, Bruce Kaplan, 11 from EGSG, and we will me joinec later ey Mr. Cnuce Race wnc.
12 is also an acvisor to tne panel. Mr. Kaplan anc Mr. Rice nave 13 caen part of a stucy tean snat has been looking into tne 14 i nt irn i cat ion issues also.
15 ,
We have with us today representatives from the 16 lntervenors' group and from the utility, and maybe you wouic 17 Introduce yourselves so that the lacy knows =he we nave 18 present here.
19 MR. ROISMAN: I am Anthony Z. Rossman and 1 20 represent the Intervenor, CASE. with me is Ms. B1111e Garde, 21 also involvec in tnis case, but tocay she is appearing here 17, 22 the capacity of head of the Government Accountability 23 Project's Citizens Clinic Prograrn.
{ 24 MR. REYNOLDS: I arn Nicnolas Reynolcs, cour.sel for 25 Application, I' m from Wastia ngton, D. C. aitn me today are my
1 partners, McNeil Watkins ano bruce Downey, a v:0 a '. s o , Roble-2 Woolcracge from Dallas, Texas.
3 mR. GAGLIARDO: And I might also point cut
- hat we 4 nave Larry Chancier with us here who has been advisor to tna 5 panel and works with ELD and our counselor.
6 The purpose of this meeting is to enable tne 7 Intimidation Danel and the stucy team as we are approaching 6 the completion of our review of tne a nt ir.11 cat t er issues at 9 Comanche peax, to enable us to hear final stater erts and 10 arguments f rom tne Intervenors' group and from ne Applicants' 11 group witn regard to the intimidation issues.
12 lne Panel has not yet reachec a cecision wit, regarc 13 to tne i nt i m-I dat i on issues, and this is not an acjuticatory 14 process. Before snas hearing began -- well, this is not a 15 hearing, but before this meeting began, I was approached and 16 aswec if the Applicants' group could go on first as opposed to 17 the initial schedule tnat we nad out forth, asning the 18 Intervenors' group to go on first, followed by the Applicant. i 19 I would like to go as we had schedulec and ask t r.e 20 Intervenors' group to go on first and give their statement, 21 after whicn we will have the Applicants give their statement.
22 I f, after the Applicants give their statement, the 23 Int ervenors' group would 11Re to have a closing statement, we 1
( 24 can allow a few minutes for closing ctatement and reouttal.
I i
25 The staff of the Intimidation panel does not intend
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5 1 to ciscuss the status of our review or any preliminary 2 fancings that we have come up with at this t i tie. inis is an -
3 opportunity for the Intervenors and the Apolicants to give 4 your position on the intimidation issues at Comanche Peak.
5 Again, we will ask the Intervenors to start with 6 their statement. You will have one hour to give your 7 statement. The Applicants will then be given an hour, and if 8 the Intervenors want to follow, we will allow that.
9 The staff may be asking questions during the 10 presentation Just as points of clari fication or understantir.r 3 11 the material s nat ' s been presented.
12 Does anyone else from tne panel have anything tney 13 want to offer as introductory?
14 Okay. With that, I' d like to ask the intervenors' 15 group if they woulc open with their statement.
16 MR. ROISMANt Mr. Gagliardo, we are not willing to 17 accept the panel's conclusion that unlike every other matte-18 in this case, that the Intervenor should proceed first. WE
. 19 are not aware of any, or we certainly didn' t get any, acvav.ce 20 notice of any intent ion to change the schacule. Every meeting 21 that we' ve attenced witn the staff, the Applicants have gone 22 first, unless the meeting was exclusively with us and then the 23 Applicant had a small comment at the end.
f 24 If you remember, originally we tnought this tanel 25 was going to meet the workers, not meet us. We were sir: ply
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6 1 going to be there to allow you to hear from t9e werkers
-c tnemselves. -
3 inat was enanged ano eventually changec to wnat 1 4 believe you have cescribed at other times as in the nature of 5 a summation or oral argument.
- 6 This is an issue on wnten the Applicant carries the 7 Durcen of proof. The Applicant always goes first, and they 8 should go first here. Le do not feel that it's appropriate 9 tor us to go first. It is tneir curcen, not ours. !t tney 10 carry nothing, we need say nothing in or er for them not to 11 have prevailec cn the issue.
12 So they shoulc proceed to give you their position 13 anc tell you w,y tney tnink the plant atmospnere was such that 14 they coulc get Appencix B worked on properly; then we' ll teli 15 you why we tnink they haven' t carried their burden and we' ll 16 also tell you about affirmative evidence that exists tnat 17 shows tnat tney actively ciscouraged that etmowpnere.
16 But it Just coesn' t seem appropriate. We cicn' t
. 19 come here prepared to make a presentation as thouga we carry
- 20 the Durcen of proof on this. We came prepared to co what we 21 would normally co. If we were in any other context we woulc 22 have the Applicant go first and we believe they should go 23 first this morning.
t 24 MM. GAGLIARDO: but as I inoicated in tne opening 25 statements, this is not an acJucicatory process. We are Just v
-7 1 here to get a closing statement from you all. You know, we E are nearing the completion of our review now and we want to
- J hear final statements froat yoJ with regard to the 17.t a m idat ion 4 1ssues. And we had asked the same of the Applicants. And I 5 believe that wt.en I talkec with you about this initiaAly I cac 6 indicate that you all would be first and the Applicant woult 7 follow witn their presentation.
6 MS. GARDE: Mr. Gagliarco, the evolution of this 9 meeting seas gone througn a number of stages. It certainly 10 never started as tne equivalent of closing arguments. I 11 cealeve that that was interjected mainly from ELD.
12 It initially started as, you know, os. sed en our 13 concern that you nad never talked to the workers. Ycu ave 14 cnanged it into sometning else. When you cnanged it int; 15 something else, the rules changed, and when I called you two 16 days ago to verify that the meeting, in fact, was going on and 17 this was what was going to be happening, you cidn' t incicate 18 to me in any way, shape or form that since it had changed to a
- 19 closing argument that the presentation was still going to be, 20 in some way, different than a regular hearing process.
21 When you started adopting that format, I assumed --
22 and you never contradicted me -- that it was going to follow 23 the closing argument format. Those were your words, not ours.
t 24 MR. REYNOLDS Mr. Gagliardo, may I be heard?
25 MR. GAGLIARDO: Yes.
6 1 MR. HEYNOLDS: Each time I spoke witn you or E Mr. Wooldridge spone witn you about the order of presentation -
3 for this meeting it was quite clear from your words tr.at you 4 intencea that the Applicants go second and that the 5 Intervenors would go first.
6 I believe that your characterization of this session 7 as a meeting is valid and that the argument that the 8 Intervenor is advancing as to who should go first because of 3 ourcens of proof is specious, 10 But if you will give me five reinutes to collect my 11 tnoughts, I will go first and we can put an er;d to this la cascussion.
13 MR. GAGLIARDO: Okay. We' ll go off the record f ov' 14 five minutes for you to prepare for your opening corcments.
15 CRecess.3 16 MR. GAatIARDO: We are back on the recorc.
17 Since you have volunteered to make the opening 18 statement, we will give you an hour to make whatever statement 19 you want with regard to these issues, and then if you wish l
20 after the Intervenor group has made their statement, we will 21 allow you 10 or 15 minutes rebuttle statement.
22 MR. REYNOLDS: We appreciate that. ,
23 We also appreciate the opportunity to appear before i
24 you this morning to give you our views and perspectives on the 25 state of the record in Docket 2 and to suggest to you what we
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9 1 believe to ce the important elements o# that recorc leading to 2
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tne formation of a position by t%1s panel on the question of 3 Intimidation.
4 I thing it is important first to cefine what the 5 issue is. As framed by the Boarc, the issue is whether there 6 existec or exists today a pervasive climate of intimidation at 7 the Comanche peak site of quality control inspectors such that 8 the inspectors performed their Jobs in a manner inconsistent 9 with procecures and inconsistent witn safety.
10 In snort, the question 1st is there or has there 11 been a pattern of intimication at Comanche peak?
12 It is important as a starting point to cefine 13 intimication. We encorse tne definition that the EE&G team of 14 experts presented in its report, and that was that 15 intimication is the rendering of someone timid because o' *aan 16 or apprehension such that that person does not co has cr Mer 17 JoD properly.
18 Our view is tnat intimication comprises three
- 19 elements. First is the conduct cf the alleged intimicator; 20 second, the feeling of the recipient of the alleged 21 intimidation; ano thire, a necessary change in Dehavior of the 22 recipient.
23 We believe that the intent of the alleged j 24 intimidator is an important element in your considerations.
25 We also believe most important is that the panel must
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O 1 establisn some ODJective standard to assare that any perceived 2 tnreat or intimication is re*asonacie in the eyes of tne -
3 coholder, as opposed to the egg shell inspector who is 4 intimidated by events whlen are routine to normal people.
5 MR. LIEBERMAN: Could I ask a question 7 With the
% 6 ogg shell analogy, if your company, or your client's company 7 nires a person to serve as quality assurance worker, and for 8 whatever reason, this person has a thin s41n, and a supervisor 9 uses strong language or takes some action that causes tnat e
10 person not to co tnat person's Joe, wn11e a more reasonaalo 11 person might not nave been impacted by that, doesn' t the same 12 result occurs tnat improper cuality assurance practices may 13 result?
14 MR. HEYNOLDS: The important element, to answer that 15 question, is the ntent of the supervisor.'I would say that if 16 the supervisor knows of the than skin and nevertheless is 17 narsn with the individual suen that the individual may be 18 adversely affected in the performance of his or her Job, that
. 19 that would be blameworthy.
- 20 On the other hand, if the supervisor as not aware of 21 the quirk in personality that the person may suffer from, !
22 don' t tnink it's the kind of pattern of intimidation that this 23 panel is seeking to find, and I don' t think it's the kinc of l
( 24 management conduct that is inconsistent with NRC regulations l
25 or, indeed, inconsistent witn the i nt er,t of management to i a_
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11 1 construct a quality plant.
2 So 1 tnink the answer, in snort, is tne antent of -
3 the supervisor and the knowledge of the supervisor as to the 4 qualities or the weaknesses in the personality of the.
5 inspector.
- 6 MR. LIEBERMAN: Okay.
7 MR. REYNOLDS: We have evaluated the evicence that 6 is available to tnis panel, anc it is quite suostantial, and 9 we believe tnas there are certain primary Duilding clocks that 10 you must use, or certainly snould use, in our view, in order 11 to construct a fair and ocJective position on the cuestic*i 12 before you.
13 The ouilcing bloc <s are the facts of recerc, anc we 14 see three kincs of evicence that are presented to yot. The 15 first is the setting in whicn construction occurs at Comanche 1
16 peak. We will call tnat context evloence.
17 The secono is tne cirect measurements of glooal 18 worker satisfaction or dissatisfaction. That is available in
. 19 the recora.
- 20 Tne thirc is the effect of the testimony on the 21 small number of allegers who appeared as witnesses.
22 To place the evidence of record in context, I first 23 suggest that we have here a construction project of a t 24 substantial magnitude that has been ongoing for ever ten 25 years. There have been thousands, if not tens of thousands of
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12 1 workers, who at one time or another have worked at the 2 Comanene Peak site. Tnere have been millions of contacts 3 between inspectors anc craft, inspectors and supervisors, 4 employees and employers. Tnis presents millions of 5 opportunities for conflicts of personality, disputes of 6 interpretation to arise.
7 Against that backdrop, what does the record show?
8 Relatively few allegations of intimidation. A very, very_
i 9 small nummer. EG&G saic ten allegers. We calculate between 10 7
10 anc 20 allegations of incidents. EG8G saic that very few 11 management were accuneo. EG&G saic five.
12 In the context of this universe, the ind;vidual 13 allegations in the record can be fairly evaluatec. Assuming 14 for the sake of argument and only for the sake of argument 15 tnat every allegation in the record is valid, we submit that
'16 the record is undoubtecly insufficient for the panel to 17 conclude that there has been a pervasive atmospnere of 18 intimidation at the site.
- 19 In fact, EGSG assumed the validity of every 20 allegation and concluded unequivocally that no such climate 21 exists at Comanche peak. Taken at face value, the record 22 shows not only the absence of a pervasive climate, but it also 23 shows affirmative actions by management to detect worker 24 satisfaction, to address the root causes of the l 1
25 dissatisfaction, and to prevent intimidation from occurring. i
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13 1 Yhere are three principal direct measurements, in
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2 our view, of the glooal perspective of the climate at Comanche-3 peax over the last several years. They are the 1979 4 management survey, the 1983 management survey, and the OI i
5 reports.
6 The place to start is with the 1979 survey. In 1979 7 site GC management had indications of low morale among the GC 8 inspectors. It's important to note here that this was 1979, i 9 prior to the commencement of the Licensing Board hearings 10 involving tne operating license application. This is a clear 11 look at the attituce of management anc the respor.stveness of la management wnen incications of low rnorale or worker i 13 dissatisfaction were brought to its attention.
14 There was no outside stimulus that could even be 15 suggested here that the survey was done for other than the 16 interests of managernent to get a hancle on the concerns of its l
17 employees.
18 What cic management co? It structured a survey to i
- 19 cetermine whether there were indications of low morale and, if 20 so, whether they were valid, and if valid, what the root c
21 causes of the low morale were. Anonymity in the survey was 22 carefully protected.
23 The survey was a general investigation into the t 24 concerns of GC inspectors, GA/GC personnel on site. The most 25 prevalent concerns expressed as a result of the survey were
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14 1 low wages anc confusing procedures. Management promptly took 2
action to raise wages and pianagement rewrote the proceduren 3 that were causing the confusion.
4 The EG&G team of experts concluded, an effect, that 5 the 1979 survey was reasonaoly calculated to reveal instances 6 of a climate of intim1 cation if tnat situation was of concern 7 to GA/QC personnel on site.
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8 We feel very fortunate that the EGSG team of experts 9 was aole to apply its expertise in management and behavioral 10 sciences in tne review and enalysis of tnis survey because it 11 is the only profess 1onal analysis in the recora of tnis case 12 and availaole to this panel. We believe it is the best 13 evicence on the meaning of the 1979 survey.
14 Tne results, in sum, of snat survey were that only a 15 very small percentage of the inspectors surveyed --
and tnere-16 were about 150 surveyed --cescribec or complained about 17 intim1cating incioences. Further, over 95 percent of tnose 18 surveyed indicatec that they understooc their Jou, they nad
. 19 the-authority necessary to perform their Job, they hac 20 adequate support from supervision to perform their Joo, anc e
21 that they enjoyed their work.
22 The meaning of these results is unmistakable. Tnere 23 was no pervasive climate of intimidation at Comanche peas in
( 24 the late 1970s. Indeed, the overwnelming majority of 25 inspectors on the site at tnat time expressed affirmatively
25 1 that they enjoyeo their Jobs.
2 Tne 1979 survey is the best evloence of recora on 3 the question of the climate, the work cilmate at Comanche peas.
4 during the late 1970s, and that survey indicates convincingly 5 that intimidation was not a factor during that time frame. But 6 it also incicates something equally important. It indicates 7 that when management receivec signs that there was cisrest anc 8 low morale among workers, they took actions to get to the 9 bottom of the prootem anc to rectify the problem.
10 Tne next Du11 ding bicek to which we turn is tne 1983 11 questionnaire survey, another very important source of data on 12 the climate at Comanche Peak in the 1980s. It was initiated 13 by the then site non-ASME GC supervisor when he thought it 14 appropriate to cetermine how inspectors felt abcut their 15 J o bs,. The response rates were very high.
16 tGSG reviewec the survey a.ac found that it provicec 17 wice coverage of GC personnel and was aole to generate 18 responses that were fairly reflective of the work environment 19 at that time. EG&G praised the responses as candic. The 20 complaints involved primarily wages, hours, working L
21 conditions, red tape and the like; 67 percent of the responses 22 involved those types of complaints.
23 Suggestions of intimidation comprised d.2 percent of
( 24 the responses.
25 EG&G concluded objectively that the 1983 survey i
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16 1 incicatec, and I quote, "little or no evidence of intimidation 1 as anytning but a relatively rare, coincidental occurrence.
3 That is page 36 of the EG&G report.
4 In combining the 1979 and 1983 surveys, wnat do we 5 have? We have a broad sample of data from GC personnel tagen 6 on site four years apart which renders the only possible 7 conclusion that we believe can fairly be made from the 6 evicence, and tnat is tnat at neither time was there a 9 widespread or pervastve climate of intimication among GC 10 inspectors.
11 Another inescapable conclusion is that mana geaient le was responsive to concerns raised to management by inspectors, 13 was concerned about morale problems, concerned about employee 14 complaints, and took aggressive action to learn more atout 15 tnem anc to rectify them.
16 It was fair for management to concluce at those 4
17 times tnat tnere was no pervasive atmosphere of intimidation 18 based upon those survey results. As EG&G concluded, at no 19 time is -it procable that a climate of intimidation existeo at
- Comanche peak.
20 21 I turn now to tne tnard important building block on 22 the direct measurements reflecting on global issues of 23 intimication at Comanene peax, and that is the GI i 24 investigation report 83-013, whien was conducted in July of 25 1983 into whetner the termination of a GC inspector for what i
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17 1 was then thought to oe unlawful reasons nac any adverse or 2 intimicating effect en tne balance of inspectors at the site. ~
3 More eroacly, OI also inquired in general into 4 whetner the inspectors had ever caen intimicated or nad ever 5 suffered attempts by management or craft to intimidate. So DI 6 did not confine its questions to whether the termination of 7 the inspector unduly influencec; they asked the broader 8 questions, as well.
9 The results of the OI investigation were that 76 10 inspectors were interviewed; that none hac failed to report 11 ceficiencies; tnat 75 of the 76 stated that there wer e never la any attempts to intimidate them; and that all 76 stateo tnat 13 they were not influenced by the termination of the inspector 14 to co less than a full and competent Jon as an inspector.
15 inere is no basis upon wnich to conclude that the OI 16 interviews anc the responses to those interviews were less 17 than fully objective and cancic. They were perforrec by NRC 18 employees. The inspectors interviewed were entitled to 19 confidentiality if they wanted it.
- 20 The results of the OI investigation are strikingly t
21 similar to the results of the 19P3 survey concucted in the 22 same time frame and the 1973 survey which was conducted four 23 years before. Tne consistency of these results confirms coth l 24 the valicity of the 1979 and 1983 surveys and confirms the 25 conclusion reacned by EGSG that there is no climate of l
1 18 1 intimication anc was not climate of intimidation at Comanche d Peaa.
3 So in summary, we would urge tne panel to focus 4 carefully on these three important pioces of evidence. They 5 comprise interviews of over 360 insperctors on site over a 6 four-year period, and the results indicate that a very small 7 numoer of people complained about intamication.
8 The incirect measurements of climate are primarily 9 the allegations of the individual allegers presentec in tne 10 record of tnis case. In summary, and in candor, this 11 testimony may reveal an instance or two that clearly coulc 12 have been handlec cetter by managers at the site -- tne 13 T-snart incident comes to mino, and I will adcress that 14 furtner -- out it certainly does not establis, the existence 15 of a pervasive climate of antimidation. Inceed, it coesn't 16 even establism intimication at all.
17 ints testimony coes not fairly support any inference 18 of a problem other than the specific concern expressed by the 19 alleger.-
- 20 I will attempt briefly to summarize each allegation 21 of the testimony in the case. It is, as you know, quote 22 voluminous, and I will try to highlight it. If you nave 23 any specific questions as to any of the allegations, please 4 24 feel free to interrupt me.
25 We will start witn Darlene Stiner, a former welder
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19 1 anc QC inspector at the site wno testified regarding seve al
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2 incicents of allegec intimidation. Mrs. Stiner testif tec at 3 great lengtn on tne tecnnical docket, Docket 1 in this case, 4 primarily on welcing issues, and the Board found in its 5 Decemoer 18, 1984 memorandum, at pages 17 and 18, that 6 Mrs. St iner's test imony was inconsistent in many respects anc u
7 lacking in crectollity.
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8 Mrs. Stiner's testimony on Docket 2 was equally 9 lacking in crec10111ty and merit. She contends tnat she was 10 Intimicatec by the voicing of an NCH, snat sne was intimicateo 11 by the cisposition of an NCR, use as is. inceec, she defines I
12 intimication as tne mere voicing of an NCR oy a supervisor 13 unless the insocccor agrees witn the disposition.
14 Mrs. Stiner's testimony was that it was the 15 obligation of supervision, quality engineers or supervisors on 16 tne UC staff, to come to tne inspector anc to explaar eacn 17 casts for cispositioning an NCR.
18 Tnts is not consistent with site procecures. Tnts is
. 19 not required by Appencix B. It i s, indesa, an unrealistic 20 approach to an inspector's Joe.
21 Mrs. Stiner contends that the voiding of an NCR she 2? wrote on a piece of equipment that was non-Q was an act of 23 intimication. She contends that she was intimidatec because l
1 24 sne wrote an NCR on what she thougnt was excessive weave 25 welding. Her testimony is inconsistent on whether she even i
e e
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1 uncerstoco that ilmatec weave welcing was permissible at 2 Comanene Pea 4 3 More importantly, tne record reflects that 4 Mrs. Stiner cid not even write an NCR involving the weld in 5 question, out ratner tnat sne had accepted the weld, and in 6 order to find that evidence, you will have to look in the 7 Docket i record.
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8 Mrs. Stiner contends tnat she was intimidated by 9 relocation of her office. Apparently she felt that the move a
10 itself was intimicating and sne felt tnat the location of her 11 office was intimicating. In fact, her relocation was part of 12 a larger relocation of all inspectors in the group with which 13 she workec, and the location of ner new office was cesigned to 14 accomr..ocate the pnysical limitations tnat accompanied her 15 pregnancy.
16 Sne was concerned that her office was too close to a 17 road and fearec tnat the office would be run over, she sato, 18 accidentally intentionally, my a truck. The present occupant 19 of that office considers it to be a great location, in his 20 worcs.
21 Sne hac several similar allegations of intimidation 22 of a similar stripe that I don' t think we should pause on 23 nere. I celleve a fair summary of Mrs. St iner's test imony is 24 that she lacked crecibility and, in any event, was an overly 25 sensitive person wno apparently was placed in fear by events
21 1 tnat most would consider routine.
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2 menry Stiner as a former welcer at Comanene Deak.
3 MS. AXELRAD: Coulo you comment a little mit on one 4 of her allegations about the ancident on the ous and the 5 publicattan in the " Circuit Breaker," the newspaper, acout ner
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6 testimony at the nearing?
7 MR. REYNOLDS: The incident on the bus is discussec 8 at great length in the record, as I' m sure you know.
9 Basically a summary of that is that when Mrs. Stiner arrivec 10 to take the Dus, whicn is not ownec or occupied by Applicants 11 or cy brown & Root, sne was rejected entry to the bus by the la owner and criver of the aus because he said there was no room 13 --
or cic ne say it was because she was pregnant? I think at 14 was coth.
15 Mr. Stiner, when he learned of this, reacted 16 violently, went to the site, threatened people. It was a bad 17 situation tnat we believe was hanclec bacly my Mr. and 18 Mrs. Stiner, out in any event, we believe that it does not 19 reflect on Applicants or on Brown & Root because they simply 20 were not involved in that episode.
21 MS. AXELRADa weren't tney involved, though, in --
22 maybe you could tell me a little about this, the site 23 newsletter, the " Circuit Breaker," and management or company's
( 24 tnvolvement in whatever information is puolished.
25 MR. HEYN0LDS: Yes. The site newsletter is ca.lec
N Ek 1 tne " Circuit Breaker." It is published by Texas ut111ttes 2 pursuant to its rignts uncer tne First Amer.cment to express -
3 ttself on matters relevant to its tustness. It is castriuutec
- 4 widely in corporate neadquarters and on site as well.
5 Apparently there was a " Circuit Breaker" tnat 6 Mrs. Stiner saw or was toic about that summarized testimony in 7 a Licensing Boaro hearing in 1982, I believe. The " Circuit
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8 Breaker" in question is in the recore, and it reflects a 9 straight factual recitation of wnat transpirec at tne 10 hearings.
11 Mrs. Stiner apparently felt that tne ciere repeat ing 12 of what hac been done anc said at the hearing was an act of -
, 13 intimication, an attempt Oy management to ciscourage otners 14 from coming forward to testify.
15 we believe that the corporate policy on the " Circuit 16 Breaker" puolication and what information is containec in the 17 " Circuit Breaker" is Quite clear in tne recora. We believe it 18 is an honest anc ocjective attempt to aavise employees as to
. 19 matters of interest to employees and nothing more.
20 MR. LIEBERMAN: Mr. Reynolds, is the " Circuit 21 Breaker' puo11sned every day or weekly or monthly?
22 MR. REYNOLDS: I believe, Mr. Liebermar., that it is 23 puolished periodically, frequently, anc I tnink it is as t
. 24 newsworthy events transpire.
25 MR. LIEBERMAN: Do tne articles normalAy include-tne
, _ , , - _ . - - . , . , _ , - . , - ,_.--y-- , -,- , , - - ,w ,t-- - -
i
)
l I
23 l 1 names of workers?
2 MR. REYNOLDS: I believe so. Let me also point out,-
3 Mr. Limoerman, that the newspapers in the Dallas-Ft. Wortn 4 metroplex and the television stat 1ons in that area both had 5 reported in suostantial detail what had transpired at the
~*
6 hearings, including the names of people wno testified, before 7 the " Circuit Breaker" was distributec on site. So there was 8 nothing eartn-shattering or new that was puolisned in that 9 " Circuit breaker.** lt was all previously publisnec in 10 newspapers and ciscussed on television shows.
11 MR. LIEBERMAN I understand that is what .s statec 12 in the recora. I guess tne concern 1 have in looring at tnis 13 incicent is that Ms. Stiner wau still working at the site at a 14 time that this article was puolisneo. She was coing a GA 15 Joe. She needs indepencence to do her Job. Here comes a 16 company pucalsning -- anc it may well be tne truth -- an 17- article concerning her testimony.
18 Workers, no coubt, are concerned about their Joos,
. 19 whetner snis plant will continue to be built, anc it raises a
. 20 question of wnetner the company was taking ste'ps to cecrease 21 her independence and ability to do her job or supporting her 22 in doing her job.
23 I woncer if you have any comraents acout that.
{ 24 MR. REYNGLDS: Yes, I do. First of all, I would say 25 that, as a matter of law, constitutional law, Atomic Energy
24 1 law anc NAC regulation, there is notning inconsistent wit, E puoltsning information for cistributton on site es long es it*
3 1s factual. I woald not even agree that tt is insensitive to 4 publish suen information on site.
5 I think it is a fair way to cistribute information, 6 particularly since it was objectively reported, anc 7 particularly since it had alreacy been widely distriouted 6 througn tne press. management, as a matter of fact, was 9 concernec about Mrs. Stiner's ability to function once she nad 10 testiftec. In fact, Mr. iolson and Mr. Brandt met with 11 Mrs. Stiner anc tolc her that they held nothing agalnst her 12 cecause sne testiftec, tnat they wanted her simply to co ner 13 Job, anc that as long as she cid her Job, there would be no 14 repercussions whatsoever aoout her involvement in the 15 licensing hearingst anc that testimony is in this record.
16 But I tning tnat the " Circuit breaxer" issue is 17 witnout merit. I think that the company was certainly 18 entitled to publish that " Circuit breaker," anc 1 believe if 19 you haven' t reac it, you certainly should because it's an 20 innocuous reporting of the facts that occurred. Ano after 21 all, that Pearing was not confidential, it was not 22 sequesterec. It is a free, public hearing. And as Judge Bloch 23 1s often inclined to say, we want the truth brought out, we
? 24 want a full and frank disclosure, and there is notning 25 inconsistent witn that philosophy in publishing the " Circuit I
25 1 Breaker."
2 MS. HXELRAD: But coes tne company ever use tne '
3 " Circuit Breaker" for getting a message to employees that 4 intimication oy supervision will not be conconec, anc to sort 5 of get the management attitudes out?
6 MR. REYNOLDS: My recollection is that the " Circuit 7 Breaker" is simply a fact reporting device. Messages of 8 corporate policy are communicated in other ways, through 9 posters, througn Inserts in paycheck envelopes, througn direct 10 meetings between corporate management and staff on site anc 11 the like. My recollection is that the " Circuit Breawer" as 12 not usec to communicate corporate poAlcy to the workers.
13 Mr. Stiner alleged that he was terminatec for 14 reporting a ceficiency to a GC inspector. He also allegec 15 that the NRC staff was not responsive to his concerns. The 16 Licensing boarc in its December 1984 memorandum also addressed 17 Mr. St iner's creciullity and consistency and founc it as 18 lacking as Mrs. 6t i ner' s, if not more so.
. 19 Furtner, nis complaints about Staff conduct are 20 simply not relevant to the issue before this panel anc, in any 21 event, are clearly witnout merit, as the recore shows. His 22 complaint about his termination nas already been accressac end 23 disposed of by the Licensing Boarc, whten concluced that ne a 24 was oisenargea for excessive absenteetsm and not for reporting 25 a ceficiency to an inspector.
l c.,--
26 1 William Dunnam, a former GC inspector, contenes that
& he was terminatec for complaining to management acout tne -
J intimication of QC inspectors. Mr. Dunnam filed a Section 210 4 case witn the Department of Lacor on the basis of this 5 allegation, anc the issue before the Department of Labor was 6 whether the termination was lawful.
7 By stipulation, the same issue was joined in the NRC 8 case, and the recoro ceveloped in the Department of Lacor case 9 1s the recoec cefore the NRC. The Department of Lacor 10 Administrative Law Juege found af ter evidentiary nearings tnat 11 Dunnam was terminated for telling his supervisor to "take this 12 Joe and shove it," and not for complaining aoout intimidation.
13 Tne Secretary of Laccr's Orcer serves to 14 collaterally estop tne intervenor from pursuing Dunham's claim 15 cefore the NRC, Just as the Licensing Board in this case 16 collaterally estoppec Applicants from reoutting the claim of 17 wrongful cascharge of anotner inspector, Mr. Atchtson, 18 initially founc by the becretary to be unlawful.
19 Mr. Atchison was a former inspector at Comanche
. 20 Peak. He contends tnat he was ,
cischarged for writing an NCH.
21 He filed a Section 210 claim with the Department of Labor, and 22 the Secretary of Lacor found in June of 1983 that he was 23 terminated unlawfully for writing an NCR.
j 24 In suly of 1963, the Licensing Board neld that 25 Applicants were collaterally estopped from litigating the g __ , -
27 1 merits of Atenison's claim in the NRC forum. The Licensing 2 Boarc thus, in effect, acopted the findings of tne Department -
3 of Lamor on tne termination question.
4 Last Decemoer the United States Court for the F1fta 5 Circuit reversed anc vacated the Secretary's ceciston, f ancing 6 that the concuct for wnsen Atenison claimec he was terminatec 7 1s not protectec uncer Section 210. The Fifth Circuit did not 8 reacn the Question, the challenge to the facts uncerlyinD the 9 Secretary's cecision, wnten challenge was raiseo by Brown &
10 Root in tnat appeal simply because of the manner in which the
- 1 11 Court disposec of the case on a question of law.
12 Ine time f or the petition to the Supreme Court for 13 review ris elapsec, and the Fif tn Circuit's cecision is final. l 14 Because case law uniformly holcs that vacatec 15 cectsions are without collateral estoppel effect, .
, the 16 Secretary's fancings in the Section 210 case are a nullity and 17 are voic. ~tne Boarc found that the parties were bound by the 18 Secretary's cecision, and the parties are likewise bound now 19 by tne Fif tn Circuit's decision holcing that the termination 20 was lawful.
21 MR. LIEbERMAN \
Mr. Reynolds, I can accept that the I 1
1 22 Fifth Circuit held that the termination of Atchison did not, I j
)
23 constitute a violation of Section e10 of the Energy
( 24 Reorganization 4ct because Mr. Atchison cio not come to the 1 25 Commission. I think it is a cifferent question to say wnetner f
0
26 1 or not tnere was ciscrimination at all Decause ne raised a E safety issue. -
3 MR. HEYNULDS: I agree with that, anc 1 be11 eve the 4 answer before snis panel is that there is insufficient l
' I 5 evicence for you to make a Jucgment because the finoings of 1 6 the Secretary of Labor not longer exist as a matter of law.
7 MR. LIEBERMAN: But the information or the recoro l
l 6 Defore the Secretary is there. The reasoning of the Secretary 9 is snere. wnetner we adopt it or not is anotnse question.
10 MN. REYNOLDS: i cisagree because the collateral 11 estoppei cecision of the Licensing boarc in tnis case was 12 casec upon privity cetween brown & Root anc Texas utilities.
13 In tne litigation of sne case, tne ultimate outcome of tne 14 litigation is the Secretary's cecision. It is casec on 16 findings mace by the Secretary on tne easis of nat recorc.
16 he cio not participate in the litigation of that 17 case. we ao not accept the facts tnat are set forth in tnat 18 recore. We Delieve, in fairness and in law, that this agency 19 must create its own record if at is to make a cecision on 20 whether Atchison was intimidated or not.
21 MR. LIEBERMAN: We will have to face tnat in cue 22 course.
23 MH. REYNOLDS: We continue to maintain tnat Atchison i 24 was terminated for incompetence in the performance of his 25 Inspections, not for writing NCRs, wnsen the recore reflects
29 1 ne was actually encouragec to do.
2 ln any event, even af Atchison's terminat ion was not' 3 proper, 01 report 83-013 confirms that it nac no pervasive 4 effect in terms of enilling the atmospnere among GC inspectors 5 or ciscouraging them from coing their Joo properly.
6 Corey Allen is a former QC inspector at the site who 7 identified certain tecnnical problems in the coating program.
i 6 One of tnose was nts ooservation that coatings in the reactor l 9 core cavity hac not been DBA qualified. He raised this issue 1
10 witn nas supervisor, who told nin. to write an NCR. he cic, l 11 anc the NCN was ciscositionec "use as is, " a cisposition witn i
12 wnicn Mr. Allen casagreed.
13 ine TRi nas concluced that the NCH cisposition was 14 sounc. If Allen was ciscouragem ey this episode, certainly no 15 one coulo call it antimication or harassment. The cause can 16 only be assignec to unusual sensitivity in Mr. A l l en' s '
17 personality.
18 He only complained once about harassment. Tnat was l
19 in a memo to his management involving a conflict witn the 20 craft. His supervisor immediately convened a meeting among 21 Allen, the craft, craft supervision and QC supervision, and 22 emphasized that suen conca!:t toward inspectors would not ce 23 toleratec ey QC managements 1 24 Pernaps Mr. Hllen now claims not to have been 25 satisfisc witn the supervisor's act ion, out he cio not so
30 i 1 incicate at the time. ine incicent, as described Dotn by
& Mr. Allen ar.c ey Applicant's witnesses, 15 proof that UC -
3 management took prompt, aggressive action in response to an 4 inc1 cent of allegeo intimication.
5 Mr. Allen test ified he never accepted work he 6 thought was unacceptacle.
7 Robert Hamilton anc Joe Krolak, both former GC 8 inspectors. Tney claim they were terminated for ceang 9 aggressive inspectors. The facts show that they were 10 terminated for refusing to perform their assignec cuties. The 11 controversy centers on wnetner they were asked to perform an 12 unsafe inspection.
13 Tne Licensing boarc has already founc tnat namilton 1* was intimicatec, cut as you likely know, Applicants objected 16 to tnat finding, objectec to tne Board procedure in maxing the 16 fincing cecause the issue was never identified before the 17 Boarc anc App 12 cants had no opsortunity to present evidence 16 cefore the Boarc assueo its finding.
- 19 Applicants made an offer of proof curing the 20 evidentiary depositions in Glen Rose last summer, in which 21 convincing evidence is set forth that Hamilton and Krolak were 22 tarminated for cause. They refused to conduct an inspection l
23 on the polar crane rail Decause they claimed it was unsafe.
j 24 'i h e inspection area met all applicable safety j 4 25 recurrements. It was clean, it was free of grease, it had all
+ v
31 1 necessary safety equipment in place.
2
~
Their supervisor and the site safety officer cotn 3 went up to tne rail, polar crane rail, wnten was the area of 4 inspection, personally and reviewec the area. Tney founc it 5 safe and acceptacle for inspections.
6 Craftsmen had been working in tnat area tnat 7 morning. The supervisor of Hamilton and KrolaK offered them a 8 final opportunity to conduct the inspection after naving 9 personally inspected the area himself. Tney declinec.
10 Tne inspection was performec cy other inspectors the 11 same cay on the night snift.
1d The panel snould consider all sworn testimony anc 13 statements before it on this question. Even thougn the Boarc 14 denied tne offer of proof, the panel should not clin 1 itself 15 to sworn facts before.it whlen show clearly that there was no 16 intimication involved in tnis incicent out that management 17 actec property, responced to concerns of unsafe working 18 concitzons, satisfied itself that they were not valid, and 19 afforcec the inspectors yet another opportunity to do their 20 Joos. Management actec properly in this situation.
21 The T-shirt incident posed the question of whether 22 there was intimication or harassment of a group of electrical 23 inspectors who wore T-shirts bearing the phrase, " Coraanche ;
1 q
{ 24 Pean Nit-Pickers. We' re in tne business of picking nits."
25 What management dic was to place these individuals in a room, j i
l l
. .. j
32 I asked then1 to meet incivicually witn the site ombudsman to
& express any concerns they may nave, anc tnen sena tnem home 3 for the rest of the day, witn pay, to remove tnear sn1rts the 4 next morning.
5 MS. AXELRAD: Weren't those interviews with the site 6 ombudsman scheduled in advance? There is testimony in the 7 record that indicates that those interviews were, in fact, set 8 um in acvance anc it was only a coincidence that they were 9 supposec to De interviewing those people on tnat particul.'
10 day.
11 MR. REYNOLbS: It is correct that an interview nac 12 caen set up previously, out not witn all eight, 1 believe it 13 was, inspectors involved in the T-shirt incident. One of the 14 eight had a prior interview scheduled.
15 MS. AXEtnAD: And cidn't Mr. Greer testify snat he le really, even when he was conducting those interviews, nad not l
17 been tolc by management that he was supposed to De 18 particularly interested in the T-shirt incicent; tnat ne was 19 not even aware of tne T-shirt incident, and tnat he vaguely
~
20 noticed snat one of the people he interviewed was wearing a 21 T-snart but clan' t think anytning of it?
22 MR. REYNOLDS: I think that is correct. But what I
i 23 coes that suggest?
j 24 MS. AXELRAD: Well, you seem to be suggesting that 25 the fact tnat tney were interviewed -- that one of tne things
33 1 unat incicates tnat management was snowing sensttivtty to this E T-s. . t rt incicent was snat they set up tnese interviews witn -
3 tne omoucsman anc tnac tnat is sort of one eierrent of good 4 concuct on tne part of management, and I' m sayin; that it was 5 really coincicental and I' m not sure tnat it --
6 MR. REYNOLDS: I think you may De imolying more tnan 7 wnat I meant to convey wnen I recited the facts.
6 MS. AXELRAD: I guess I wanted to know wnat you were 9 trying to --
10 mn. REYr4u US: i was simply recit ing wnat nappened 11 as a matter of fact. i wasn' t implying that it was proper or 12 tmoroper conduct my management. A will say that in some 13 respects it may be more coJective to send people wno you 14 suspect nave concerns to tne omoudsman without tainting tne Ib omoucsman as to in wnat cirection he shoulc proceec. Let n ini 16 do nis Joo, and if snese incivicuals nave concerns, let them 17 express them.
18 MR. LIEbERMAN: Do you tnink, Mr. Reynolds, that 19 after someone is locked up in a room and tnen the company 20 offers an omoucsman to talk to them, that they are going to 21 feel very comfortacle snaring their concerns witn the 22 company's omoucsman?
E3 MR. REYNOLDS: Well, first of all, I woulo not agree j 24 witn tne enaracterization tnat tney were lockea up. I con' t Eb tning the matter was properly hancied. Applicants nave so
34 1 acmittec. 1 thing the important thing to recognize is tnat h once Hpo A lcant's management conclucea inat the situation nac d caen hancied poorly, it toog action to rectify the situation.
4 MR. LidbERMAN: Wnat action clo it take?
5 MR. REYNOLDS: Well, it certainly didn' t shy away
- ~
6 from the proolem. Site management and the president of tne 7 ccepany met witn tnese inspectors. The president of tne
- o. ,,
8 company niuself confessec error in tne way management nanclec 9 it anc assured eacn inspector that there would De no acverse 10 action oecause Tney nad worn tne:r T-sntrts. The president of 11 thG Covpary Cid t h i s.
12 ~5. AXdLRAD: Is there evicence in the record on
- 13 tna
- 7 Is thera tectimony on that?
I' Ms. MENsJ D5: Yes, Mr. Spence's test imony, 15 Fr. Vega's test imony.
- 5 MS. AXdedAC: Can you point me in ,tnat --
1 ~7 TR. REYNULDS: To a recorc citation?
16 MS. AXdLRAD: Can you give me a recoro citation for 19 tnat?
.- EO MR. REYNGLDS: I would invite you to the appendix to 21 the EG&G report, wnten has an index of all testimony. I con't 22 know tne numoer off-nanc, but Mr. Spence's is listed in there.
1 23 MS. AXELRAD: I reac Mr. Spence's test imony and do
, 24 not reca.1 that particular, but I can eneck my notes.
25 MR. REYNCuDS: I may be in error, out I gnow it is y-< ,- t .-- e q- - - - , , n 4 , , - . - - y- . , ,m7- - , --r- - - - - ---r-- - , --
35 1 in the recorc. Incidentally, two of the eight inspectors c involvec testifiec curing the hearing. Both test 2flec that -
'3 they were rol intimicated by managemant's act ion, anc one even 4 acknowledgea tnat in hinasignt, he tnought that wearing tne 5 T-shirt was unprofessional.
6 MS. AXELRAD Dic the company take any actions to 7 counter any per9aps misperce'ptions tnat might have been set up 6 in the mincs of ot,e= GC inspectors other than tne eight, wno S rzay nave na; iess information about what was going on and 10 caservec tne eigni seople sequestered in a room anc tnear 11 ces<s searc9ed anc things like that?
12 MM. mcVNOwLS: I tning I woulc responc to that with 13 two points. First, P.r . Spence, the prestcent of tne company,
- 4 se
- up raatas;s with groups of inspectors following tnis 15 incider.t and personally met witn them to assure thern tnat the is predice.t vP tne company was beninc them, that ne wanted tnem 17 to be vigorous in their performance, tnat corporate management 18 valueo tnele services anc that quality was the first 19 commitment of corporate management.
- 20 Seconcly, I think you also have to recognize that as 21 a result of a culmination of events highlighted by the T-shirt 22 event, Mr. Tolson, the then site GC supervisor, resigned from 23 nic position. I think it was the next day or shortly i E4 taareafter. 'ne i question of wnetner it was hanclec properly 25 or not was accressed in an audit report by Mr. Vega, which is
36 1 in t~lt PEOorc. v. r . Vega's conclusion was that it was not c ner.clea proser.y.
a it was on :ne casts of that report anc other factors 4 tnat Mr. Spence decicec that it was necessary for him to meet witn these inspectors to assure tnem tnat corporate roanagernent 6 was cenine thern.
7 MS. AXELRAD: What position clo Mr. Tolson move to 6 a*te* ne resignec from tnis particular position? Wasn' t he i
': Just rcove d ? re cion't leave the company.
10 NN. HEYNCLDS: He cic not leave the company. He 11 Novec to t7e roAe of a licensing assistant to tne vice
- 2 sresicer. In enarge o' licensing, and snat reflected wnat was 12 pernaps two vr tnree years of overwork and overcemand on 14 Mr. Tolson's t itre and efforts. He was, in effect, holding 15 cowr. so
- n ;oos for too long, and I thing it was a fair 16 recognition of overwork, overload, and yet also a recognition 17 nat ne was a valuacle resource in the licensing case.
18 MR. LIEBERMAN: The groups that Mr. Spence spoke 19
~
witn, were these groups of GA workers other than or in 20 acdition to the workers involved in the T-shirt incicent?
El MR. HEYNOLDS: Yes.
22 MS. AXELRAD: Again, I would be interested in -- a E3 recorc citation. I woula like to go back and reac -- I con' t
{ 24 recall that stuff. I would like to go back and look at that.
E5 MR. REYNOLDS: we will provide that today before we
i 1
37 1 leave.
E Again, management recognizac its error nere. It took'
, d action to assure snat une error cio not compound anc cia not 4 unctly influence the inspectors either to whom it was cirectec 5 or who may have heard about it later.
6 Sue Neumeyer is a former GC inspector and cocument 7 clerk. 'er allegations are that she was improperly instructec 6 to sign of" on liner plate travelers that lackec proper 3 cocumentation c' inspection activities, and that she brought 10 an elAegec.y ?s'si' led cocument to tne attention cf her 11 mar a temer.t .
Id 45 to toe first point, the evicence indicates that id Ms. Neumeyer C1c not allege that she was intimidatec or that 4 management attempted to antimidate her witn regarc to the 13 liner pAate traveler matter. Thus, her testimor.y on the 16 question cefore tnis panel is irrelevant.
~. 7 mR. ulEBERMAN: Mr. Reynolds, your seconc point that 16 she alleges no intimidation. I thought the recora incicated O
. 19 that she was pressured to do the JoD in accorcance with the
. 20 instructions and the penalty of a loss of a weekend, the first 21 weekenc in a long time -- she had oeen working long hours.
n2 MH. REYN3wDE My recollection of her principal i 23 corcern was tnat she would get in trouble for doing something 24 out of procecure. bne took that concern to her supervisor,
{
25 who instructee her to asterisk the notation that she was
- - - - , -- -. gy - - - - - - - - ,:-c.
26 1 mading on these papars and to refer to a procedure wnten e autnorizec w7at sne was coing.
t d T. R . IcbERPAN: The procedure she was carectec to 4 refer to, was that a current procecure?
5 MR. REYNOLDS: No.
E MR. LIdEERMAN: Wny would management direct her to
+
7 asteris< a procedure snat wasn' t ,a current procedure?
6 MR. REYNCLDS: It was the prococure that was in 9 effect at the time tna; the chits to wnten she was referring l 10 were issuec.
11 Mn. 61EbiRMAN: Hatner than the t icae that sne was 12 actua41y matching the cntts.
12 MR. RdYN0mLS: Tnat's correct. It was tne relevant 1* peccedure at the time the original paperwork was generated.
15 bne continuec after the traveler incicent to work at 16 Coraanche peaa for over a year without incicent.
17 To ce clear, Appalcants have conceded in our 18 testimony that liner plate cocumentation ciscrepancies 19 ex:stec, and the 1RT nas confirmec those ciscrepancies 20 althougn it founc no safety significance to them because the El liner plate itself nas no safety significance. But the 22 discrepancies do not bear on the question before this panel, E3 that of wnether antimidation pervadeo the site.
( 24 MR. LIEBERMAN: Mr. Reynolco, if we assume that the a' procecares tnat sne was caracted to follow were, in fact, m 9
- . _ ._ r -.m
39 1 aron; -- ar.d I' m net saying sney were or they weren' t -- but
~
c if we assume tnat tney were, in fact, wrong anc sne questionec J tnose procecares and she wasn' t given an acequate explanation 4 otner than to co it anc get it cone by a time certain or else, 5 ard then she did it, albeit she --
6 M9. AdYNOwDS: Was protected?
7 MR. LIEEERMANs -- she indicated by an asterisk, is 6 tnac Int imic at ion, in your Judgment?
5 MA. REYNO DS: Let me first say, Mr. Lieberman, that 10 1 t7in< you are reacing more into her testimony tnan is 11 there.
11 mer concern that at was wrong for anyone to sign off 13 for worg cone by another inspector, that was the ceux of her 14 co cern. but let me also say that there is a way in wnica to 15 hand,le peoals in whicn you can accomplisn things without 16 placin; cnen in tear or without unduly upsetting them.
17 There is a celicate balance to be crawn between the 16 neec for supervision to get the Joe done -- and I' m not 19 talking about cost and schedule pressure; I'm talking simply 20 aoout gettin; the Joo cone -- and tne concerns of incivicuals 21 as to how the Jos should be done. And most good managers 22 will attempt, at first, to explain to employees why it snoulo 23 be cone this way, and tnat supervision, management, wants it
( 24 cone this way, in an attempt to perwuace the employee tnat 25 it's okay to co it tnat way.
l 40
- knc i f the employee balks, one would normally i
. E attempt tc tertner exptain. But after explaining for so long,"
3 any reasonacle manager gets to the point where he says, "Well, 4 ; am t,e manager, anc you are the employee. Do the Joo."
5 I con' t think we really have anything more than that E here. It is simply a situation wnere the matter was explainec 7 to the indivicual, the individual was uncomfortable with the l e explaration, it was explained again, st ill no sat isf action, S anc tren she was instructed to do it.
! 10 i con't tning tnat's intimication. I think that's 3 *1 ao attempt to get your employee to do the Joo. And I wasn' t i
j ;d t9ere, so a con't know the Worcs tnat were exchangeo or tne 13 marr.er in wnten the worcs were spoken. But I tning the recorc
- 4 ttirly reflects tnat it is as I have summar12ec.
15 mR. GAGLIARDO: Mr. Reyno1cs, when you were talking
< 16 atout the Darlene Stiner issues, you mace a. statement with 17 regard to management's responsibility, with regard to i
18 communicating to tne employee aoout the voicing of an NCR, and 13 snat you didn' t feel that tnat was a management 20 responsio111ty.
El Are you saying that -- are you saying sometning 22 cifferent here with the Sue Ann Neumeyer case than what you l
13 were saying with tne Darlene Stiner? Or are you saying with
{ 24 Darlene Stiner, management cia provide the explanations to l
E5 her? j i i 1
i
t 41 1 As I recall, your state. ment i s, you didn' t feel that h that was a tunction or a recuirement on management to explain ~
3 wny an NCa was voicec.
4 Ms. RiyNCLDS: No. I tnink we are really talking 5 about two different things. On the one hand, first let me say 6 tnat NCR dispositions were never held back from inspectors.
7 Any inspector can get a copy of any'NCR he or she ever writes,
& and tne cispesition is on there.
l 9 Wnat I saic about Mrs. Stiner is that there is no 10 re;airetant snat the inspector ce satisfiec that the 11 ciscosition is proper. I cicn' t say tnat it wouicn't be an
- 2 ap3ropriate than; for- management to tell the inspector, if the 13 inspector quattions it, the basis for the disposition. There t
14 1s a cart'erence cetween advising anc satisfying.
15 Mh. LIEEERMAN: Snou t cn' t r.1ana gement have a concern 16 af cuality assurance workers are not satisfiec with how NCRs 17 are cispositionec, so tnat they may obtain an attituce that 18 management coesn't care?
19 MR. REYNOLDS: Yes. I thing that management snoulo a
+ 20 be concernec about that, and I think, in general, that is the El type of attituce that pervaded the management at Comanene 1
22 Peak.
c3 Ine r:anof ul of allegations that we have nere, the
(
24 ten o* fifteen incicents describec, reflect situations where i
25 inspectors woulo not or couac not be satisfied.
4 42 1 You can explain to inspectors six times, anc if they u con' t aant to near, sney are r.ot going to hear. Ana l' m not J suggentir.q that in aai instances the inspector is ceac wrong.
4
- 4 It reay nave caen a communication proolem. but at Dottom, you 1
l 5 must procesc with business, and it's the Joo of the quality 6 en g a r.eer and the supervisors to make tne final cecisions. And 7 even if the inspector may cisagree with them, that's not the i *. ..
6 ins;ector's ultimate call.
5 Tnat's not to say tnat the inspector shouldn' t l *
- 10 quection tne cascosition.
11 Md. KAJ AN Are you saying snat it's appropriate -
12 for managemer.t to insist that inspectors sign papers, even i 15 w^rr. tne inspector se11 eves it's wrong to sign tnose papers?
14 'A. REYNCLDS: No, I don' t think that's wnat I' m 15 saying at a'.. . An tact, 1 Delieve there are examples in this 16 recorc ahere people were unwilling to sign documentation, and 17 n.a na g e r.ient saic, "N ou con' t have to co that. Give it to me.
i 18 I' ll do it myself."
19 MR. KAPLAN: Wny didn' t they do that here?
20 MR. REYNOLDS: Vou are asking a very surgical 21 question involving one incident that happened many years ago, i
22 and 1 Just don' t know the answer. I con' t think it's in the 13 record.
i l
- a 24 Md. KAduAN
- Well, this seems to be a case where the 25 employee felt that it was wrong to sign these papers, yet 1
43 l 1 management was insisting tnat they sign them anyway.
e Md. SiYNOLDS: I can' t be any more specific snan I 3 nave. ;'n sorry. I wisn I couac, Dut I con' t tnink there is 4 anytning in tne recorc that bears on your question.
5 MR. kap AN: Thank you.
~~
6 MH. GA3LIARDO: I would note that you have about l
7 five more minutes left. But since we have interrupted you a 6 numter of t imes, I think we can give you a little latitude.
9 sut are you getting close to the enc?
10 v 4. M-vNO DC: Yes, sir.
11 Lanca Barnes was a cocument reviewer in the ASME/04 12 organization. rer testimony consists of a single ancicent 13 involvtrg a caserepancy in entries on a traveler. Her 14 supervisor explainec to ner tnat the atscrepancy that caugnt 15 her astent ion clon' 'c matter, which, as to the technical 16 rr e r a t s, is confirmec not only by Applicant's witnesses, out 17 also by the TRY fancing that the matter, while a recording l
l 18 error, was not 1mportant, cecause the traveler system assurec 19 parts traceae111ty. Tn at ' s in SSER-11 at page 0-125.
l EO barnes testified only that she was cascourageo oy 21 this incicent, and only then, as to reporting discrepancies-in 22 the numbers on the disks that were involved in this incident, 23 Totally aside from the fact that the issue was identified --
I e 24 tnat tne issue sne s cent i f l ed was not a technical problem, ner 25 testimony cannot legitimately contribute to an alleged climate l
. - _= - _. .- - - _ . . ._ . - _ _ _ _
5 44 1 c7 Marassmens or intimication at Cornanche peak.
j 2 Dennis Coulton raises a unique claim. ne accusec 3 NRC employees, who interviewed him about his concerns, of 4 narassing anc int sraicat ing him. As you know, the Boarc 5 cismissed the clairn upon nearing the tape of the interview.
6 Nevertheless, the situation raisec by Coulton is 7 t rn port ant . He, like virtually every other alleger, said he I 6 was antimicatec curing a private meeting where only the 1 9 accuses ans sne accuser were present.
4
, 10 a.lat cif ferentiates Coulton's claim t rorn tne otner i
11 allegations is sna: sne rnesting was tape recorcec, and a 15 rev;en et snw tape ce.nonstrateo snat Loulton's claim was '
- d #rivolous.
IL i44 regret only that all of the confrontations were 15 not tape recorced, for tnose tapes would have revealed that l
16 all or virtually alt of the relatively few allegations of 4
17 intimicacion on this record are equally frivolous, i
18 1 coulc spena suostantial time on the proactive 19 rneasures tnat corporate management has taken in the past to
- EO assure tnat intimidation coes not occur at Comanene peaKl for 21 example, the init iat ion of the Hot Line program, tne .
- 22 installation of the site omoucaman, meetings between 23 Mr. Spence, the Corporate Officer anc presacent, and QC i
! 8 24 inspectors, anc sne numerous otner conspicuous rneasures taken 25 to cornrnunicate clearly to all staf f and site personnel tnat
- 5 1 tne positive corporate policy toward quality was of foremost
~
i 1 m oert a nt , anc tnat tne ceviations woula not ce toleratec.
3 MS. AXEL 6AD: Are tney cocumented?
4 MN. AdVNJuDS: Yes, they are.
5 MS. AXELRAD: Is tnat pulled together in one place,
~
6 or is it sprinklec in a bunen of places in the recora?
7 MR. REYNOLDS: The documentation?
s ..
6 MS. AXEuRAD: I would like to see at pullec togerner
'd in one place, a cascription of the programs tnat the Licensee 10 7as, tnat the Apalacan: nas put into place, to maxe sure tnat 11 Int 1Micat1Cn coesn't occur.
11 Mn. RiYNuuDS: 1 De11 eve Mr. bpence's coposit ion,
. lJ which is not very thick, nas attached to it certain
- 4 cocumentation tnat ne issuec personally to all site personnel, 15 relating to these Hands of 1ssues.
16 1 wou.c also invite you to Mr. Chapman's ceposit ion 17 anc Mr. Clements', and if you would prefer that we summartze 18 anc tale with the panel, we would certainly do that in 19 writing.
20 MR. GAGLIANDO: We will discuss that later.
21 MS. AXELRAD: All right. We' ll discuss that later.
22 So bpence's, Ch a pman' s, anc Clements' depositions; 23 okay.
( 24 MR. MUNTdR: During the meeting or tne corrective 25 action where Mr. Spence met with the GA/QC people, were
. -~ ._
i
- 6 1 meetings held witn craft supervision, foremen, h sacerintencencs, anc craft worwers, all or part, to incicate -
2 to sne a tMe "cuality first " attituce?
4 Md. AdYNC DS: 1 con' t sning the recoro has anytning l
1 5 on tnat. On the other nana, there have been a numcer of 6 accattonal efforts my Applicants recently to assure tnat 7 everyone en the site -- managers, supervisors, inspectors, ano 6 craft -- realtre that their inctvidual responst ot ltty onsite 9 is to report safety concerns, anc that they can feel assureo 10 tna- r,o severuw cor.secuences will sufter from any source for 1; tnear co'r.g . so.
i i 1E by aay of ex ata p i e, 1UGCO implernentec varlier tnis 4
13 yea- tre Safe Tea.a orogram, wnten was originatec by Detroit
, 14 cc. con, so previce an accitional, conventent avenue for 15 excressing concarns. '.here have Deen meetings netween 16 nign-Aeve. o'f tcars of 103CQ anu brown & hoot, witn craft 17 supervisaon anc inspectors, in wnsen cotn luGCO's commitment 18 anu brcwn & noo t ' s corara t t ment to safety anc to assuring the 19 unrestrained reporting of ceficiencies has been freely
- EO ciscussac,
- 21 inere are new train 1ng programs, classroom training, 22 which have been initiatec to make sure that construction is 1
13 cone rignt the first t irae in accorcance with NRC regulattons.
}
24 4 supervtuor trainang program has been developed to aic i d5 supervisors in their personal relattonsnips witn tnear
47 1 worxers.
1 P arogram is presently in process to reemonasize in -
3 une strongest terms to all craft supervisors their obligation 4 to encourage, not Just permit, the reporting of any safety i
5 concerns found my the craft, either to craft supervision, to 6 inspectors, to bafe ' imam, or to tne NRC.
7 MR. LIEBERMAN: M r'. Reynolds, this is 1985, anc I ..
6 these programs tnat you cescribe seem to be gooc programs.
I 3 If yoa know, why are these programs ceing institutec i
4 10 non and not cac< sn ' 83 or earlier wnen tnese issues cegan to 11 surface? what is the change?
i IE Md. HEVNOLCS: lo answer tnas question is to 13 summartre the recore. Management was presentec witn nothing 14 cor. crete snat indicatec tnat tnere was any neec for programs 1d to reassure people that they would not be intimidated for 16 report i ng r.oeconformances.
t 17 The evicence is clear on that, in my opinion. The ,
16 '79 anc '63 surveys, tne EGs0 report, tne 1 &E, the OI reports.
1 19 all indicate tnat there were no signs of management -- or ts 20 maria gement --
of pervastve problems that would warrant such 21 action. Even tocay, we feel that there is no serious issue as 22 to intimication at Comanche peak.
23 Coviously, you will have personal cisputes netween l E4 people. Tney nappen all the time. If you interviewed 360 NRC 25 employees and asked them if they nad ever been intimidated, '
}
I
48
- P 11 cet your recoro woulc not be as good as wnat this recoro s
h reflects aoout Comanene Peax.
3 There's another concern I have in the implication of 4
4 your question. As you xnow, as a member of the Far, tne rules 5 of evicence say that remedial actions taken after events 6 transpire may not be used in evicence to snow that there was <
7 guilt in the first place.
e ine NHC 15 very culck to assume that because 3 wicenseea 16 general take action, proactive action to accress 10 tre re*guiatory responsicilities, tnat there was something 11 arong, and now the Licensee nas found religion anc is I
la ccrrec11ng the proosem. Tnat is r.ot tne case, and at is an 13 unfair implication, I think.
14 MR. LldEERMAN Well, that was not intenced to be my 15 t rao 11 cat i on.
16 My question was af there was a reason, wnat that 17 reason was? I wasn't suggesting that --
18 Md. REYNOLDS: I woulo say that tne primary reason 19 is the Licensing board hearings, the issues that have been 20 raiseo, wnten even though we feel certainly co not indicate a 21 pervasive climate, that if anybody feels they were E2 intimidatec, wnetner they feel that fairly or not should be of 2J conco rr., anc it is of concern to this management.
( E4 1 thina also snas efforts incicates a need to 25 reempnasize what corporate policy has been.
I
. _ _ ~ - . ..
49 1 Tnana you. And I would appreciate an opportunity to a responc snortly at the close of Mr. nolsman's comments.
3 MR. GAGLIARDO: Thann you, Mr. Reynolds.
4 Does anyone have any questions right now?
5 CNo response.3 6 MR. GAGLIARDO: Okay. What l' c like to do now is 7 take about a ten-minute creak, and then we will near from the 6 Intervenors.
T CBrief recess.]
10 MR. 3A3 IAADO: We are cack on tne recccc.
.. Mr. Molsman ar.c Ms. Garce, we woulo 11*e to hea- a 12 s:stement frora tne intervenors' group with regarc to tne I ;d i nt ir11 cat ion issues. We will allow you an hour.
a ra. 40lSMAN: 04ay. Thank you, Mr. Gagliarco.
15 At the cutset, I want to reiterate, since we are
- E sere on tne recorc, our feeling tnat this panel shoulc have
- 7 gone anead witn the original paan to meet witn the workers i
16 tnamselves, snat we lawyers, in our glib explanations of wnat 19 the recorc may mean to you, do not speau at all eloquently of EQ what the workforce really feels and felt at Comanene peak, anc at that tnose workers wno nave now left the company and who are l l
] 22 willing to speak out, eitner because they no longer nave j
~
i 13 ar4ytning more to lose as a result of what has happened to tnem 4 E4 .mance they aeft sne company, or for otner reasons, coulo nave 45 given yea anc would still give you, if you cnose to go see
.. . .. . . - ~ _ -, - - .- .. , . . - - . . . . . . . -__ ,
I
(
60 1 tnem anc spean to them,.a mucn better insight as to wnat is 2 rea.ly goir.g on here.
2 Tnose people nave no reason not to tell you the
' 4 trutn. Tney nave no 45 billion plant at stake. The i
l t suotlet tes of tne issue of wnat cid you feel anc why cic you l
6 feel it at any given moment in time are more likely to be L
7 trutafviAy toic to you Dy them than anyone. And I tning from f
l 8 them you would near anc understand better that this massive
! i 9 worxstte witn its tnousaecs or pernaps tens of thousancs of f
i 10 employees ar,s pernsps miiiions of contacts was a place which ,
, 11 1s rarcly cor.cucive to co.npl aance with 4ppend1M b, ano snat, i .
I 12 c.* coarsu, is w~.at tne issue is acout.
i
~I
-3 inc Ascue in not wny, woat was the motivation, or 14 n34t cic scme particular inspector ce craft person or manager !
i 15 or Oc*perate vresscent intend to co. That answer woulo De
! 16 vareua.ly impossiele to obtain.- It would certainly be
- 17 trc.aossia.e to occain it on sne easts of wnat you nave to co, id wnich is to read a cry record. It could only be done if you ,
19 listenec personally to tnese people speak.
20 But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not i
4 El concerned with intent. It is concernec with puulac nealtn anc l
} 22 safety. And it is concerned with the vital question of I
- 2
- 23 wnetner cr not a particular plant, wnsen itself cio not ou11d,
, t i
j s 24 sut sorteor.e e ase ou14 t, got cu11t properly. And to answer i
I 15 tnat Question, sne agency has estaolisned an elaborate, a
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ . _ _ . _ _ . . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ . . _____.______m_.__.________________m
f l
51 e
1 complex, ard a vitelly important process in Appenc1x B cy E wNaco It absureb itself snat it a corapany w111 go througn the
- 3 procecures of snat Appencix as laid out, then the company's 1 4 allegation at the enc of tne process, tnat we have cullt to 5 tne oesign, will be a creciole allegation, testante by looking 6 at cocuments, not at harcware, ny not having to have an NRC 7 inspector at eacn welc as it's mace, at eacn pipe run wn11e l ,
6 st's teing pus in, at eacn incivicual installation of 3 concrete, j 10 but once that Appenc1x b process breaks cown, snan 11 wnat is the NRO left witn? It is left witn a virtually I li impossioie tacx of trying to tagure out wnetner this plant cia 12 get cu.1: properly, an: tnat is the issue that's invo.vec in i 14 Docnet d, wnetner or not the Hppenc1x B requirements were or 15 were, not met by this company, anc if tney were not met, then i
16 *nat consecuences flow t ecto it.
17 In the course of coing its work, the agency has, l
18 mucn .1xe sne Applicant, had an storative process. If you i
13 loon at the posture of the agency in its positions over the 20 years, it has omen one of genuine acceptance of tne Applicant i
21 and the crec10111ty of its programs, and over time, 22 culminating most recently in the publication of SSER-11, with !
l 23 an ocvious recognition tnat something was very wrong at l
j L4 Comanene Peak.
25 Now in Docket 2, what we have attemptec to co 1s to i
I 52 1 snoa you wnere tnat someth*.ng wrong nad its origin anc wnst c nappened.
3 ino repcrtec work cone by EGSG,.witn whlen we are
]
4 alreacy on record as stating we co not agree, is of 5 suDstantially less relevance at this point than 1t even was at i
6 the time when it was produced. As you know, the EG&G report l 7 concluded it s nnvestigations in early August of 1984, so that j 8 the er.t'.re recore wnten was mace in Fort Wortn -- Lipinsni, 9 Lcrey Allen, mauser, ali of the company efficers anc 10 executtves wno recurrec to the witness stanc in Fort Worth to l 11 attemst to exa.aln wnat events hac transpired in tne summer i
12 c .ac une boArc four.c uneartann -- Mr. Vega's tortuous attempt J 13 to te.; how 1% was snat ne could conclude that after the fact I
14 a nastawe nac been mace with the f-s91rt incident, out that at .
15 tne time it was cone, no was not willing to say tnat i
16 Mr. Tolson 9ac cone ar.ytning wrong -- tnat's an increatole 17 piece of testimcny to look at, oecause tne Applicant's Counsel 18 tnis morning continued to hold to it, like pieces of flotsam 19 a#ter tne snip has sunk.
I J. 20 iney cont 1nue to hold on to these ole philosochtes, 21 anc when you look at the T-shirt incident, you should look l
- c2 particularly at tnat, at Mr. Vega's test i, mony in Fort Worth l
i 24 anc nis attempt to explain now he still thinks that Mr. Tolson i h4 prouauly cid the riant thing at the moment, given tne casa
- 25 that Mr. Tolson hac, and that it was only in hindsight that he 1
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ . __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . _ - . _ m. __ A.._-._
53 1 was preparea to say that Mr. Tolson was wrong, cecause wnat d snat tells you is that a new T-snart ancident at tne site, 3 with the same information availaole to Mr. Tolson, woulc be 6 exactly sne same. iney woule co at again. Tney' c lock tnem 5 up. They' d send them nome. They' d make a big thing out of 6 what they nac printec on their T-s9trts.
7 They also woulc, after getting allegations that
, 8 inspectors nac cone costructive testing, they woulc stt11 9 never follow up on those allegat ions to f anc out whether they 10 we-e true or viot. Tney wouac nettner get to tne root of the 11 cra*C persore wnc a.leged that it was costructive, nor would
- 2 they t a r.c out dor sure if tne QC inspector nac cone tne I 13 costructive test 1ng.
i 14 4.1 tnose snings, they woulo co again. In ntncsight 10 only woule tney have sate tnat it was wrong.
16 in tne course of this ciscussion, EG4G cian' t have l 17 the benefit of all of that, and so unless anc until EGAJ nas 18 cone wnat we nave oven acvtsed my the Staff Counsel tnat it 19 intenes to co -- and that is to complebe itu investigation of
,1 20 all the rematncer of tne recore -- you have an incomplete 21 report, anc you neec to factor that in.
12 ine company's at titude with regarc to compliance f 23 witn Appendix B is an important issue that we want to be clear l e u4 or< sne recorc wnere we stanc. We nave no evicence in tnis 25 record of any attempt on the part of any company person to i
a i
e 6
S4 1 intimicate, maraus, threaten, or in any other way ciscourage a u OC inspecto- *rcn coar.g tnear Joo for any motive otner than
- 4 the motive tha; the company wantec to nave the plant built 4 tne way sney pe.tevec was the right way, anc in the time 5 schacule tnat they nelieved was acnievable.
6 No one snat we know of toic a GC anspector to not co 7 scmetning, nonestly believing that they were endangering the 6 safety or the aus11e nealtn, nor is it relevant whether they 3 ci: or not. *near well-intentiones enthusiasm to culld this 6
10 p.ent snear as y, anL to ne.. with tne regulations, is much 11 more cannir.g ?ce purposes of what yce are concernec with, than li sort e S ural irten; on tceir part to celicerately put in
'. 3 sucutancar: equiorent, snave off cotlars in orcer to make 44 paya**s co tovesocy, or any sucn tning.
15 We c on' t have any evicence of any that, and I con't
- 5 want tc suggest tnat it 's there.
17 anat is really at the root is tnat tne company saic, 18 as you nearc their Counsei explain it to you in ciscussing 19 some of the inc1 cents, "How many times do we have to tell the 20 person tnat we' re right, anc the person's wrong, anc Dy Goc, 21 they' d better get on witn the Job?"
22 Now tnere is a way to test what the implications are 23 of that position. It certainly existed. Company taanagement i u4 was very r.:uen -eiuctant to accept criticism of its 25 inspectors. If the inspector found a proolem that meant
55 1 ger.eric f ailure -- Cnuck Atchison's ACR, the infamous one over L wnten ne was tireo -- tnat was generic failure, the company 3 would cerce bacx anc give one of two Rincs of answers one, you can finc in the testimony of Corey Allen, whlen he was 5 toic when he came in to the plant, " Don' t be the engineer."
6 Tney were worried, cecause Corey was more educated than tne1r 7 GC inspectors in the paint coatings area, and they were 6 worriec that ne woulc cegin to cuestion procedures. Tney V saic, " Don' t co snat. That's an engineer's Job. You Just 10 caply wnatever we te . you to apply, anc if you con' t tninx 11 it's the right way, con' t worry aDout it. We' ve got engineers i
12 to worry acos.t that. You Just co wnat the procecure says." l l
13 And snat was a very important attituce tnat the
- 4 contpany insistec on. One o* those examples was, Corey Allen 1$ saic, "You know,
- cort' t thing the paint coatings in the lo reactcr cavity are going to De able to ho Ac up. I sninx 17 they' re going t o f ali cown in the event of a post-accicent 16 situation.' 1 19 Tne company went througn an elaborate process to 20 tell nim, first of all, tnat they didn' t like him coing that, 21 Decause they' c alreacy toic him, "I con' t want you Questioning 22 procedures," and secondly, to go up to Gicbs & Hill and to get E3 sorne explanat ion, anc I ask you to take a look at tne j 24 testimony of Mr. Branct, who attempts to explain curing 25 nearings nere in Wasnington in NovemDer of 1984, w9at ne e
c 56 1 09ou;n: was tme reason tnat Oorey Allen was wrong.
2 It's a worcerful study in inerecibility. Mr.Branct -
3 has get a variety of cifferent explanations, none of wnsen are 4 consistent, all of wnsen evolvec curing tne course of the 5 cross-examination, as best as one can tell.
6 But most importantly is that it was ultimately 7 concluced tnat Corey Allen was sufficiently correct --
that 6 i n, snat snere wac no way to tell wnetner those paint coatings 3 woulo stay on the wall -- tnat the company sought and 10 ultimatoAy got trom sne NRC an exemption for tne entire paint l 11 coatings program. No more does it matter whether paint l (
1d coatings stics to tne waai in tnat plant. But wnen Corey 13 A4.en mace his report, it mattered a great deal. It was the 14 iaw for tnat plant. Anc Corey Allen was given a specious 15 explanatior, and he was told to snut up and do nis work.
I 16 So the management's httituce is one that, "We 17 baileve we' re right, anc you' re in troucle if you question us i
l 18 on these funcamental issues," anc that --
that is narassment l
l 19 and intimication within the meaning of Appencix B. That is 20 what tne concern is about, cecause wnat Appenc1x B is, it's a 21 stancard tnat the company should actively encourage people to E2 raise these concerns. It's neutrality is not sufficient. A 23 "
company wnsen cic nothing to interfere with the employee, out i E4 also notning to encourage, would flung the Appendix B test.
25 MR. LIEBERMAN: Mr. Roisman, if there is a line to
L 57 1 ce crawr., at anat point co you permit chaos to let each h ancivicual Inspector cecace wnat is rignt for himself, anc at 3 wnas po i r.t co you say there has been enougn interchange anc 4 ciscussion anc cuestioning, anc now we have to maxe a
,, 5 cecision?
6 MR. ROISMANI 1 think that's a very dif ficult line 7 to craw, anc if we were stuck with nothing more than the 6 cecate, "Dio Corey go too far or not," I woule say that it 9 would be extremely cifficult to know whether management, in 10 tntt context, went too rar.
11 *ne i best evicence, the most persuasive evicence, 12 wsulc pe wno was ultimately right anc now raany of tnem turnec 13 out to be rignt. That would give you a good test. That is 14 sort of a way cf test ing.
IS management couac maxe a mistake. They could nave 16 thougnt that Corey was wrong, and they could have been wrong.
17 Anc in tnis Instance or tnat instanca, then you woula say, la "Okay, we expect management --
they' re the bosses; they tell l
19 you."
20 when you get a large number of people complaining 21 and a large number of management people telling them, " Shut E2 up, I con' t want to hear from you," and you later run a test 23 and find out tnat a substantial number of the complainers were E4 rignt anc management was wrong, then.you know wnere tne line
{
25 was crawn. The company went over the line.
b6 1 MS. AXEL 4AD: Do you thina you have a large numoer 9
a --
using your cwn test, co you tning that you nac a large 2 num:er c f peoale sayir.; that management wacn't rignt, tnat 4 were ult imately shown to be correct, out of tne thousanas of 5 people tnat were involvec in the construction on the site over
~~
6 the course of tne years?
7 MR. NOISMAN: The snort answer is yes. but "large" 8 is a subjective factor.
's it was clear at tnis plant that enallenging a --
10 well, let me step back a secor.c.
.1 Two tnings were clear. If you taxe a locx at tne 12 Lipinski testimony, you will see that Mr. Lipinski ciscusses 13 tne act snat ..e t o urt that tnere were a lot of things cone at 14 Comanche Peag wnien were cifferent frorn things ne had seen 15 cone at otner plants. Comanene Peak believec that they coulc 16 invent the wneci cifferently, and they were going to come up 17 witn a ci-terent way ct cullcing a nuclear olant than tne most 18 common way.
13 So there were lots of times wnen employees snowec up 20 at this plant, who nad worked at other plants, and said, " Gee, 21 we cidn' t co it this way." -Early on, management mace clear to 22 the employees that snat was not their business. So you would 23 expect -- in fact, this is the Caten-22 of the entire
{
24 narassment and intimication issue -- if it works, there's 25 nococy to complain. If the narassment and intimidation
\
59 i succeets, wno will complain? Nobocy.
E If you nave some complainers, tney are going to, oy
- 3 :ne very natare of the process, be very courageous, anc we hac 4 a significant number of tnose, not all of wnom showed up in 5 the hearing, out some 70 or so have now gone to the NRC. The
'~
6 TRT nas talkea to tnem. Tnere were some 900 allegations. We 7 uncerstanc at a recent meeting that the Applicant indicateo 6 that the Safe Team itself has now receivec 600 allegations.
9 we con' t now w9at the cisposition of any of tnose nas been, 10 at:c we nave no Icea -- anytning except snat there have been 11 600 receivec.
12 MS. AxdanAD: but only a few of tnose are alleging id intimication ar.c harassment.
- 4 M R. ROISMAN
- Well, we con' t really know that. We 15 know tnat after lunch, the man who toic us there were 600 16 allegations of safety proDAems came back to tnat same meeting 17 anc saic, "Most of tne, we think, nave to do with payscales."
18 MS. AX6uRA0: No. I wasn' t referring to tne recent I'd stuf f that we learneo at that last meeting. I' m talking EO apout, even of tne 70 people that you saic hac come forwarc 21 witn 900 allegations --
22 MR. ROISMAN: On, you' re talking about the TRT ones.
23 MS. AXELRAD: We know of only a few -- well,
( 24 cepending on wnat -- 16, 20, 27, 30 allegations of 25 intimidation.
., - .,-w--
60 i Mh. AGI5 MAN: Tnat's got to co witn now you are E cefining intimication. Tne tGEG report's cefinition is at s n e' 3 cottom of page 5. Tnat def1nition is not, in our aucgment, 4 the cefinition tnat eitner the boaro required or tnat you 5 would require.
6 Their cefinition: " Intimidation is an ancident, 7 action, or statement that causes an employee to act contrary 6 to cr refrain trom acting in cornpliance" -- excuse me -- "with 9 written procecures, anc wnlen incluces the three" -- excuse me 10 -- 'roajor components cescrioec in tne immec1ately prececing 11 caragrapn: the I v.c i c e nt , the resulting feeling or emotion,
~1 anc tne ensuing action on the cart of the recipient mecause 13 nas fear nas forcec 91m to cehave, wnere it otherwise would be 14 reJectec."
15 wnat's wecng with snat is tnat it goes muen to far.
16 It asks for mare than one-needs. The context of the Job, 17 probasly tne outk of people wno come to tne Joe are of tne 18 attitude, "I will co my Job, and the person who's my ooss will 19 tell me wnat ny Joo is."
20 "Now if I come i n, anc I think I should De coing A, 21 and the ernployer qu1CKly tells me that A isn' t any of my 22 business, 1 snouac stick to B, C, anc D, if I' m the average 23 employee, I' ll Just start coing B, C, and D, and you forget j E4 about A. "
25 Now in the context of tnis cefinition, that woulcn't
,- m + . . , -
+- -
61 1 ca ir,t imicat t er.; that woulo Just me following orcers. But
~
a wnen taa person leaves tne plant site, anc tney continue to 3 cealeve t,at eners were things tnat tney wantee to say 4 sometning acout au: olan' t , anc they turn arounc anc tell an 5 investigator from the NRC about it, and the investigator 6 investigates it anc fincs that it was valic, then for purposes
. 7 of whetner or not the GA/QC program was working at Comanche 6 Pea x, what nappenec to snat employee was wrong.
9 Now this lacel --
was he narassed anc intimicatec --
10 im:11es a n uen more aggressive situat ion. but snat 11 presuasoses a Darlene or henry Stiner, a mucn more aggressive 15 percorality on tne other sice. ine meeker ones -- if you look 13 at the testimor.y of Corey Allen, Corey Allen te.ls you that he 14 rea.1:ec re.atively Quickly tnat speaking up was not a gooc 15 thing to co. Anc curing the time tnat he was there, he nac no 15 registerec complaints of narassment anc intim1 cation.
17 Tnen he snows up as a Boarc witness sometime after 18 tnat, anc ne talas about his real teelings anc wnat ne really 19 thougn; aoout Tom Branet anc wnat he tnought about Aon Tolson 20 anc what ne tnougnt aoout the system.
21 Now a thinx Corey Allen was harassec anc antimicatec E2 in tne sense snat he cic not tell what he really celleved were 23 the aroolems at the plant. Tney never got recorceo. Corey j 14 Allen talked about problems that he never recorcec anywnere.
25 Tnat is what we' re trying to prevent.
62 1 MS. AXELRAO: now many peosle would you say were E actua.ly, ycu know -- coes tne recorc snow, let 's say -- coes -
3 che recore socw were actually suojectec to intimication anc 4 narassment? Would you say it's the wnole nuraber of people wno 5 came forwarc witn allegations that ultimately may have proved E to te true? Or is it sorr.e sucset of that that would have 7 actually been suoject to intimidation, uncer whatever
- a. .,
6 cefinition of intimication you woula enoose to use?
9 MR. ROISMAN: No. No, I think it was all those 10 peocle anc ca7e terwarc anc many otners wno clan' t, cecause we 11 were no; talkira about a single incicent. We weren' t talking 12 about one situation wnere someone pointec a snotgun out the 13 wincow at somdcocy anc saac, "Do it my way, or you' re going to 14 set slown away." we' re ta A xing aoout a pervasive atmospnere, it an attituce at the olant site.
- E 7,e attituce was, "You co it our way, or you get 17 out." Tnat was the attitude. Ana the "our way" mace a lot of 18 employees very uncomfortaole. Iney tnougnt the "our way" was 19 wrong, and they were subsequently -- and that's what
. 20 Mr. Liecerman properly asxec -- well, wnere co you craw the 6
21 line?
22 And one way to find out where you craw tne line is 23 to look later anc find out, was "our way" usually right or i 24 usually wrong. You' ve now got five SSERs that say it was 25 frequently wrong, tnat chare was a substantial numoer of e e
63 1 croclems that never were reportec at tnis plant -- suostantial E nusoer -- tnat cicn' t get touno until after the plant people 3 nac saic, "we' re all tnrougn. Everytning is safe."
4 wnat coes tnat tell you? It tells you tnat 5 something was going wrong at the plant. Why didn' t those 6 proolems get pickea up in the system?
7 MR. LI6bERMAN Was that because the procecures were 6 wrong, tne training was wrong? It's not clear to me tnat 9 :nere was necessarily narassment anc Intimication.
10 MR. nOlbM4N You had people speaking up acout tne 11 ceviaticns in procecures. The company did not, in a 12 signaticant nunoer of incicents -- they aid in some, out not 13 in a nuge numoer -- go afte* the employee who reported a 14 particular croolem wnere sometning was truly out et compliance 15 wit 9 existing plant procedures. There are some instances of 16 tnat, anc in a couple of tnose, toere are even some 17 respectacle responses my managermer t.
18 wnat they were most concerned witn was someone wno 19 wanted to upset the applecart, someDody who wanted to identify l
1
- EO a proc 2ere wnicn, if tney were correct, would uncercut the 21 wnole systern and cause eitner a retrofit or reinspection or a 22 major change in procedure. And there was a lot of that tnat 23 was brought to the attention of the TRT and was ultimately
( E4 tound rignt. A mean, the wnole 11ner plate situation, all the 25 paint coatings at the plant, all the problems about paint l
4 64 i Coat .r gS.
E Lon' t ae centusec in your own work by tne exenstlov. -
3 witn regard to tne paint coatings, cecause the key frcm your 4 pe-spective is, were snere any people tnat were saying all 5 along, "we' ve got a proolem witn paint coatings," anc cid 6 management ever prove that the paint coatings met the paint 7 coating requirements for tnis company?
6 Wa a r.t ccatings was an Interesting group, cecause 9 accarently, as mest we can tell from the recorc, paint coating IC inspectors are sinc of a special group. lf you reao the li L1 pins <y transcripts, you get tnat sense from the L1pinsky la group alsc. :nese aren't your re;ular GC inspectors, anc tney 13 sort c? cons cerec themselves to have a certain esprit ce 14 corps, anc ne paint coat ing inspectors know eacn otner arounc 15 une cour.try, not just from eacn plant.
4 16 And so tney came in witn a much mqre set attituce 17 about what the right way was to do paint coating and a muen 18 greater w1111ngness to speak up ano say, " Gee, I con' t tnink 19 that's right. "
- 0 c So we' ve got Dunnam in tnat group, anc we've got 21 Corey Allen in tnat group, anc we' ve got Krolaa and Hamilton, 22 and we' ve got a 2ot of people in that group. Anc wnat we nave 23 is -- the record reflects tnat those paint coatings were not
( E4 properly put on.
25 but tnen later we nave a ena'nge in the recuirements,
65 1
1 so it c icn' t matter tnat they weren' t properly put on. l l
8 ?. A . idbEstRN: but it seems wnat you' re sayin; 1s
- 3 t .at the roct cause cf this whole premiem is that ene 4 prceecures Tuncamenta11y clo not appear to De correct?
5 MS. AXELRAD: Did not appear to comply with 6 requirements is what I thougnt I nearc you say.
7 MR. ROISMAN: Yes. I thina tnat the root cause ic
~ ..
6 that tne company triec to builc the plant wrong. ine Joe cf a 5 GC inspector is to stop tnem from coing snat. They sno.ld oe 1C su r t i ci er.t . y inceser. cent anc Trce tnat tney can stos tnem.
A. w r.c wr./ cicn' t it stca' . why dicn' t it succeec? In
- d atner wercs, t.e syste.v.tallec. Tne QC system tallec. '. n e 14 cefects were toar.c after tne plant was cu11t, not wn11e it was 14 ceing suli
- .
IS ice ar.swer is snat toey were cut off at tne pass.
16 The msst outspoxen of tnam were fired, just thrown off the
- 7 plar.t site. The r. ext . eve. cf snem, Aike tne buste Neu
- .1 eyers le ar.c the Linda Barneses, Just got ciscourageo. Tney just gave 19 up. Anc procaoly tne great bulk of tne people at tne plant
- 20 simply saic, "Okay, I got the message. Keep quiet."
El Md. LidBddMAN: Anc toAlow the procecures.
22 MR. ROI5m4N s . Ano follow these procedures, anc con' t E3 question :ne procecures. Anc tnen tney snow up afterwarcs
'( 24 when sney leave the slant site, quote, " quietly," Just taking
-6 a new joc, 11 xe, say, Corey Allen, wno culetly left the
- y. ,_
3 -- _ .y, , . , ,r2- -
i 66
- plant. Mauser culetly lefc tne plant.
E iney turn arounc enc corae back, anc they say to tne ~
o NmL, " '. n i s wa s 1' t rignc. " Hnd it is -- intimication is a 4 st at erpen',, an articulation of wnat it means that a person wno 5 cetteves tnat something is wrong won' t say so anc get that
~
6 Into tne system, so tnat the system can resolve snat issue 7 properly, it cien' t get resolved until the TRT resolved it.
6 Mo. AxdukAD: Wnat signaticance co you tnink this 9 wnole issue of intimication will have, given the enange in 9
10 naragement at tne company anc sne reinspection or 11 rever1*1 cation program tnat's been instituted to actually look l
12 at the narcware anc the work tnat's Deen cone at tne plant to i 13 see if it's been cone correct ly?
i 14 MR. nUA674m: We1A, insofar as tne management change 15 is concernec, tne intimication and this wnole managemenc lo attituce proclem, it gives us a test. Tne tact tnat tocay, if 17 this were true, tnat they nac in tne right management, it 18 won' t raean snat tne plant got outlt properly yestercay. ho it 19 won' t enange the sucstance of it. We can use the past to test 60 tne present. Anc tocay, as you anow, as tne oay in wnten :ne 21 test results are going to be in.
E2 Management is now, on this very cay, to report to l 23 the boarc -- ar.d I assume you alA will De locking at this --
( E4 current management's attituce acout past raanagemen t ' s e5 attituce, wnat co you tning acout past management? what do
, l
- - - - - - - - .. - . - . - - , er , . ,y=.---
o7 1 yta tnAn< they cat wrong? wnat oo you tninx they cic rignt?
e w,c Lo you emorace, ar.a wno co you cut ot*?
a sna you'1A Aearn a Aos aoout current management from 4 tnat. At's t at reaAAy, i tninx, in your Panel, but it w111 oe d interesting to seen will anymocy now say, of the team that's E gone -- anc i nome it's not oeen lost on you -- tne fact snat 7 every single GA/GC manager wno we nave enargeo witn 6 participating i rs tnis pecgram of uiscouragement is gor.e, anc 9 not orie o- tnem, 7as Ic Owen saic that they left for cause.
10 No one -- A mean, preser.t manageraent's at t it uue is 11 reflectec my the preser.tation tnat you neard tnis morning, is, 12 "we cic netnin:; wrori; carore, anc we' re cc Ang every:q:ng 13 Detter now." Tnet's a goe: s ur.ima ry, A t r. i n k , of anat snele 14 position is.
15 If tnat's : rue, then tney rave lea nec norning, ar.c lo the currer.t reana gerrent is the past ma na g emer.c altn new suits.
17 it's not enangec.
18 ma. 4xEunAD: but 1 guess ray cuest icn v.e n c raore to 19 the effect of the reverification program.
20 Mn. nG A bm4.v : we nave so 11ttAe cetail on wnat the 21 reverification program really is tnat it's very cif ficul e to 22 say.
23 but we co know orie sn ar.g. wnenever tne reari wno 9as 6 2* nac responsio111ty in the GA/GC area is aswec, "scw are you E5 going to get at the root cause of why" --
let's ta<e tne liner
66 1 plate Inctoer4 as an example.
& rere we .9ac, startir.; way oac4 wi t a . . %. L 4111 n g 9 arn,'
3 wno was a crafts person, te. ling the company that, . con' t 4 tning tne liner plates are ceing welceo proper.y, and we' ve 5 got proolems nere," througn Susie Neumeyer who saic, "I' m very
~
6 uncomfortaole with signing of f on tnese cnits" -- arc 7 incidentally, the enas procedure was not followec when Susie 6 cic it estner; tne enit procecure tnat was in ef+ect at t,e 9 time tnat tne weicing was cone on tne iiner plates was, em the 10 cay tnat you co 'sne weicing, it the inspector is in tqe tie.c 11 witnout nis regular inspection report form, he may write cowr, la on tne cnit wnat ne nas coservec, anc tnat cay, ne is tc 13 ret urn to nis of fice, wr .te the information from the enas on 14 tne inspection report, arc seno tne cnit to tne vagit. The 15 enits tnat Ms. Neuneyer looked at never saw the vault. Tney 16 were taken out of some place in the -- in one et tne craft i 17 workshop areas at tne plant. Ano the entries t9ac she was 18 making were not In Compliance with any proCecurk waStboever, 19 asterisked or not.
20 but tne question tnat has been put to tne current 21 GA/GC manager 1s, "well, are you going to get at tne root 22 cause of that, otner than saying, 'Well, now it coesn' t 23 matter, cecause tne liner plates now con' t have to nave i
f 24 structural integrity,' so tnat eneckpoint ce=omes 25 irrelevant ?' "
63 1 bn3 n1s anhwer nas Deen, "I Can' t get my arrfs arounc
~
E inat.' wnat coes tnat mean? It means that ne cannot S comprener.c t,at unere are suen things as root causes, anc tnat 4 root causes are possicle relatec to management attituces, S wnlen mace Ms. Neumeyer's supervisors want to see that tnat
~'
6 work got cone and turnec over to tne plant as quickly as 7 possiele, anc to nell witn the procecural requirements?
6 Tnat's a root cause tnat woulc mean you con' t Just 9 stop your reinspection at the liner plates, wnlen would go to 10 everytainq snat tnat management Aoogec at anc nac unce- its
- 1. respons1DIAlty, cecause that management was unwtaling to li consicer tne crocecural correctness or wnat was going en 13 wnenever at tnou;nt it nac to get the Joe done more calcaly.
14 Ar.c we know rrom tne record snat tnere was a pressure for 15 turnover at tnat time, to get the liner plates turned cver anc 16 out of tne A59d anc into the non-ASME, anc in cruer to cc 17 that, you neecec an A5v.E inspector, anc ms. Neumeyer was one, 18 to cor.1e torwarc ar.c say, "Yes, tnese tnings are okay. we ca ".
19 sign tnem off and pass them on to the next team."
EO mR. LIdBEAMANs Would you agree, Mr. Roisman, that el there are a number of incications in tnis recorc where craf*
E2 people respectec NCds, anc wn11e they arguec or cifferec witn i
E4 ene qualaty assurance workers, they cicn' t violate notcpoints,
( E4 anc tney went tnrougn wnatever emanr.els were ava11acle to l ab persuace GA to mocify the noicpoints, but until snose 1
i l
- -t - es + - - - - - - -
"O 1 noicpoints were enangec, they respecte; them?
E .Ms. mLAb94N: 4asolute.y. 1 thinn you' + *Ignt, 4 :nat snara are i ns t a r.c e s in the recore where t la-'s exact A y 4 true.
5 1 co tning it's important, tnougn, to .oog at tnis 6 process anc procedure tnat existec. Wnat the corapany nad set 7 up was a process snat automaticalAy convertec a casagreement 8 Detween an incivicuaa crafts person anc an incivicual
's inspector into a n anagernent proolem.
10 Nca aAl o' ye a are suf ficient ly tow on the 11 t ot era po t e, as . was wnen 1 was in tne covervnent, t .la t you ic have a sense of wnat it's 11Re to ba called into the ooss' 13 ottice for a. r. eating wnen two or snree ctr,er ausses, a'. . ot 1* wno a sit over you are tnere, anc you are assec to ;ustify or 15 explain wny you tood a particular position.
16 Tnat is, in general parlance, caliac ar.
17 "antimicating experience.' A'm not saying t7at you snoulon't 16 nave to co it. But wnen it becornes the routine practice that 19 every time snat I make a call that the craf ts< nan coesn' t agree 20 with me on, I' m going to end up in a meeting where I have to 21 Justify my position, anc tne people in tne meeting are goin; 22 to me my cossus, and rarely, if ever, are they going to come 23 to my personal cafense -- 1 will not nave my enampion in t..e
{
24 rocra; my oosses wil. asx rne Just as toug9 questtors as tne ES craf tsman's cosses will as4 me -- tnat creates a feeling on
71 1 your part tha; if it's a close ca A 1, i' m going to call it the E otner way.
3 7.6 . AXi 4AJ: now wouic yea e,ugge's. tney redo.ve it i
4 if there is a cispute?
$ Mn, h3.5 MAN: well, again we go cacw to -- I forget 6 wnsen of the two of you put the point in terms of the root
^
7 cause procecure -- i tning 1t was you, Mr. Liemerman -- wnen 8 you starc w.tn a company snat is ou11 ding the plant wrong, 5 :nere is r.o ar.swer to t,at cuestler, Ps. Axe.ra . .t's 10 inevitaale trac yout ra going to enc up witn sa many cisputes, j 11 so reany cisagree.ner.ts, tnat you' re. going to ce to-ced -- Ir.
12 otner worcs, you start wit, a mad set of prociens, anc cne-13 everytaing snat you co to cea; witn tnea, since cr e t11rg yca 14 will not co is change the procecures or correct :ne ur.cerlying 15 Droclem, procuces trore proolems.
16 it was a forn of controilec chaos at sna plar.c site.
17 M5. AXi_h4J We i l , out one of tne proc;erts tnat 18 we' ve seen is tnat every time someone questionec, that tney 19 cic enange the procecures. That was one of tne thin 2s tnat I 20 tning contrioutec to some of the friction ontweei craft anc 21 GC, is snat wnen a GC inspector founc sometning wrong or there 22 was friction, that the procecures were revised, so snat it 23 Decame cifficult to --
{ 24 MA. ROASMAN: We l l , you are talking actuc revisions 25 tnat mace the QC inspect or's cecision, tnen, inecerect anc the I
e 6
r g -, re-- m -u , , -
72 1 craf t's position al. rig.t. Tnac is, tney relaxet ne u stancarc. Anc . ' m t a . .< i n g about t ne oppos i t e si t uat ic*. ame -e 3 the GC inspector woala complain that something wasn' t tein; 4 cone ragnt, anc tne prceecure saic wnat was being cor,e was
$ rignt, out the GC inspector saic, "eut I con' t tning that 4
~
6 procecure works. Anc in tnat instance, tne proceau-es were 7 not enangec to tight --
well, obviously there is no universal 6 nere. ~ney clan' t siways intimicate everyoocy, ar,c :ney, 9 cien' t always er. courage everycocy, anc neltner sace neecs to 10 prove sna 100 percer: to you for ettner of us te preval.,
11 une of tne things that I t h i r. 4 that's importar: also la to loog at I r. tne centext of tnis -- anc again, 1 aunt to 13 stress, I :ning intimication is an issue of what was tna 14 overall atmospnere at the plant; were tney actively 15 encouraging tnese people to come forwarc -- and agair., I thinx is your most persuasive evicence is now reany people's comple. A nts 17 nac to ca resolved cy tne TRT.
18 Osviously, as an agerecy, you co not want a sit uat tor.
19 in wnicn tna ultimate of the plant has to be cecicec cy a EO 40 person NRC team working for a year anc looging at 500 21 allegations. Frorn a policy perspective, you want to corse out 22 of the Comanene Geak procencing witn a result that raa<es sure 2d tnat snat is net a recurring situation. In any way, it 's not j h4 gooc -- for tne puolic, for the agency, for tne ecnpeny, It's s 2$ not gooc, and if this company thinks that this is the rignt
72 i way to co it, you war.: to make sure tnat your actiors maxe
~
E clear to taem tnat it ' s r.ot the rigat way to co it. inede 3 proslert.c should have coen cetected ar.c resolved earlier.
- Now cr.e tning snat we co kn w about management is 5 that wnat happenec in the past was a relatively steacy streav.
~
6 of concerns about the QA/GC program expressec by aucitors.
7 The most recent revelation relates to the earliest of those o" 8 wnien we are aware, wnicn is tne .MAC report in 1976, wqien 9 foanc nas the systea nad a num=er of problems w'.ta it. Ant 10 wr.at is instructive is, now raany of trose p-oc; ems v.e w 11 repeatec cy pecale wno were later cisenartec or who lo's an1 12 saic that tney *elt tnat trsy were not tree to spesx up, ar.c 14 now raar.y of tnose prouleros persistec until totay?
14 we cic a ti.Ing wnica we euAiemistically callec 15 tne 'ivicentiary st ar.c. arc F 1 ; 1ng " in Fesroary of t91s year, in 16 wnlen, with tne exception of the MAC report whic7 we cicn't 17 nave at that time, we tried to sort of trace tnroug5 the 18 nistory of NRO, INdC, and otner aucits that hac Deen cor.e of 19 tnis plant, incicating failures in the CA/GO prograre. whlen 20 persistec over the years witnout corrective action.
21 Tnat's an important element in your assessment o-22 management attituce? Now intransigent was manager. ent towarc 23 the worxer who would corce forware and say, "I u n i r.4 thare's a
( E4 procierc nere? ' . Is r.neasurec by now intransigent they were f
i 25 to the aucits snat were cor.e even ey people wno they retainec 1
e
74 1 tnemselves.
2 Cne tnir.g tnat 's important -- aric . t n a r: < . 've saac*
3 tnis, out ; war. t to scrt of put it togetaer in ore place -- is 4 to uncerstanc tne clitcate of sne site. You, of course, Know
$ the innerent tensions ontween inspectors anc craft. That's a
~~
6 reality. inat's tne reason why Appencix E can' t be met ey a 7 neutral program, cecause yoJ alreacy have something tnat you 6 nave to overcone. It's e natural tension. It coesn' t reean 9 tnat it's evli, mut it's there. Deeple con' t 11xe to be telt 10 tnat t hey' re co t r.g somet ni ng wrong,*anc cra'ts pe:ple co nave 11 quotas, an: tney to nave requirements, tasy to nava sene: alet, 12 to meet, anc OC anspecto s are potentially ceterreras to
- 3 tnat. So you start witn tnat reality.
14 SeconcAy, we' re looxing at a plant wnere tne 13 proulems st.artec, we thinx, quite early -- in tne ' 70s when --
16 we .1, for Instance, tne MAC report. We alreacy ce;an to see 17 MAC Irantitytr.; certain kincs o? problems in 197c.
16 Over the perloc of time before we get tnere witr. our 19 little camera to start taking pictures of the plant, there has 20 alreacy seen a significant reacJustment of the maxeup cf the 21 plant. Lots of people nad left. The turnover rate in the 22 QA/GC program was ratner hign, anc there weren' t a lot cf 23 people --
! 24 Mb. AXdLRAD: Excuse me. Hl an, comparec'to wnat?
25 MR. ROISnAN: Well, Just nign in the context of us l
l _ .. _ _.
9 75 1 not naving people, for instance, in 1984 wno hac osen tnere t r;
~
2 1979, relatively tew numoers of tnose.
3 MS. AxdLNAD: Do yoa gnow now tnat compares to ot9er*
4 plants?
t Ms. R0iSMAN: ho. 1 cion't mean nign in comperison
, 6 to other companies. I merely meant tnat a purging process was i
1 7 going on at tne plant, wnicn may nave coen just through the S normal attrition and turnover rate. I d icn' t want to suggest a 5 tnat we ceu.c prove to you tnat a lot of people nac "e5t
- ir 10 1960 cecause o' ne concitions that we triec to scentifying in 4
- 11 tne nearings in ' e4. . con' t gnow tnat. We con' t have ar.y 12 evicence on tnat one way or the other.
13 MS. AxdLAAD: Were you saying tnat a loi cf people 14 had left my -- what year wwre you talking acout? '60?
15 ,
nn. ROISMAN: No. by 19d3 anc '84, we cien' t see le 'very mar.y pecole ano were tnere -- in fact, the testimony cy 17 one of tne witnesses -- i'a sorry; I can' t rememour ne- name, 18 out it was one of the . women who wornec on the 1979 survey 19 aucit --
testifisc that the company reviewed tne 1979 cata as 20 of May of 1980, anc tney went around and talwec to some S
21 employees to finc out, cic tney feel better now tnar tney nac 22- in ' 79. And when sne was asked the question, "Did you tala to 23 any people wno nad been tne previous persons wno nac mace
{ 24 these complaints," the first answer was, "Well, tney were 26 neutral; we cian' t know," ano 1 saic, "Well, cic you asa any
. i L i
76 1 of t h e n' ? ' and she seic, "No, we dicn' t, " and I saic, "Di: you a nave ar.y ser.se of now many of tne people wno you talva- to 3 were there sefore? In otner worcs, even if tney hadn' t ueen 4 tne complainers, were they still there?" And sne saic, '"* e 5 didn't know."
6 in otner worcs, they had no icea wnetner they were 7 talking to a different group of people tnan the ones -- ever,
=. ..
e between Acvemoer of ' 79 anc May of ' 80, wnten suggests tnat u tnere was promably even at tnat time -- again, I con' t <now 10 tne reason for it, but a fairly rapic turr.over in t at 11 cepartment.
12 Anc tne woro got out. People came to tne f. a *.t ,
13 anow.ng after awn 11e wnat was expectec, like, " Keep your moutn 14 shut about these proolems," and not speaking up. So tnat it 15 is a fact unat you nave to nave an understancing of the 16 limitations tnat were present in tne maxeup.of tne peoM e wqo 17 we nave ultimately found to investigate, the 198* woraforce 18 anc some ' 83 workforce people.
19 R tntro anc, I think, extremely important 20 consideration for you to lock at in terms of management's 21 climate ano atmospnere at une plant is wnat has happened to 22 the allegers after they left tne plant.
23 Now you Know, cecause you' ve seen tne S5ER, that a
{ 24 number of tnem were found to be right. Tney were found to
~
2$ have Deen correct.
. _ - .. .. . . ~ . _ _
77 i Are you aware cf any of thera tnat nave seen
~
e appecacnec ty management to ettner say, "mey, we' re really 3 sorry. It looks like we cut yo2 off wrong, anc ae appreciate
- wnat you triec to co. We want you to ecme cack. If tnere's 5 an opening, you' re going to ce first on the list?"
6 No. In fact, Just the contrary. If you .cok at tne 7 recorc of the nearings in the Department of Lacor, if you loox E at tne recorc of unemployment'compensatzon clalec, what you 3 will finc is snat management nas persistec in ceny.r; tnat 10 tnese employees nac any _egitimate reason to cosp. air., in
- i. attackin; t r. e:.? persor.a. l y in every way lega.ly ar.c in some Ic cases 12.ega..y snat was ava11asie to t7em, arc in ma<ing it 12 quite clear to anyoocy wno enose to loow, that fcreer allegern 14 frort ne ucmanene keaa nuclear plant are goir g to get in 15 serious troucie. P.cc t of t7e'n are not even ereployec in the 16 nuc'. ear incustry anymore.
17 Anc tqat's a reality of the continued tailout trcm
)
1 18 tne clast tnat took place at the plant when these people left
- 19 or were forced out or fired, as the case may me.
20 Now the cornpany has an af firrnat ive Durcen. We con' t El tninx they nave cone or met that affirmative Durcen.
22 Tnis prograrn that you were asking about, 23 Ms. AxwIrac, wnten became known as tnw Eight doint program 1 24 af ter the nearing startac, out was not so cesignated by the .
25 company, was a sort of cat en-as-cat en-can -- anc con' t be gw- - -
m w-
76 l 1 cor.fusec cy ei w nt points. Gne point was inserting enings into e tne envelopes, anc anotner point was posting sigv.s. I tr e a n, 3 you Know, . gaess we couls get -- eacn insert coa;; nave bee, 4 a point, anc we cou;c nave nac a 4000 Point program.
$ The fact is tnat tne program, if you loo < at the 6 recoro, accomplisnec virtually notning, anc it's rct clear 4
7 tnat it was intencea to accomplisn muen of anytning, t ..
8 .9 5. AXdLRAD: wnat aoout One oramucsman? Wasn' t tne 3 site omoucsraan a part c f tne Eignt poin program?
10 Md. nO;5 MAN: N es, snat's rignt.
14 M5. AAdanAD: now effective ao you tning t..a- was' 12 md. RC i S.M AN : well, it was pretty cau, as some rf s
i 13 tne testimony from people wno nac taxen complaints te .ne 14 cmoccsman incicatec, anc tnere is testimony ir. tne re: orc o'
. 15 people wno nac gone to tne omoucstran witn cornplaints.
16 Tnere aas a tealing at tne tirae tne omsucsma?. aas 17 set up Inat une neutrality of tne omouosman was not weli 18 establisneo. He was pnysically locatec not only in tne
- 19 ou11cing, out in the sare hallway witn scme of the people 20 wnose cencuct was the suoject -- line Messrs. Tolson anc 21 Branct --
of the claims of narassment anc intimidation. Arc 22 his concuct witn regarc to the investigation or 23 non-investigation of the T-shirt incident is incicative of the j 24 quality of tnat.
25 Now Counsel for the company tells you tnat tqe fact i
I
[
?.
e
- 72 1 tnat they' ve new gotten ric of the ombucsrean progra:n and 2 rep.acec it with tne Safe Team cannot ce usac as evicence tnat' 3 there was anytning wrong witn the omoucsman. That statement
! 4 1s legally in error.
5 In tort litigation, wnten this is not, tne tort
~~
6 .stancarc would ce higher, anc it is permissiDie. At least
- 7 some courts have so held that a company's cecision to improve l
8 tne safety of a product is evicence that can be used in a tort i
5 case over tne lacs o* safety in the procuct in tne first 10 place.
11 but we' re not in tort anyway. We' re in tne real la woric. we' re ta a king aoout , will tne people in Texas ce safe 13 or in canger if tnis plant is allowec to opetate? A r.c l' m 14 sure you' re not going to get nung up on tnose tecnnicalities.
15 The fact is, tne company nas recognizac tnat a mardecly in cifferent Kinc of program to coal with allegations is 17 recuarea, one snat orings in essentially an outslue t ea.v, anc 18 tnat's very, very important.
j 19 lt's also important, I thing, that they' re not 20 willing to say snat they saw any failures in the past 21 program. But tnat goes to this otner issue, you know, of wnen 22 will management ever be willing to acmit that anytning was 23 ever cone snat was wrong at tnat plant my tnem?
24 Even on the T-shirt incicent, their so-calle
{
25 acmtssion is merely an acmassion that Mr. Tolson overreactec
, y+_ - - --- , -
4 80 l
1 to tne la=eling on the T-shirt. No ciscussion of the fact l
2 that Mr. To1 con was really in tne micst of a malt 1 ween effort
- 3 to crive the post-Construction Tass Force in ene safeguaros l 4 cuilcing, tne electrical inspectors, out because they were 5 delaying the completion and the turnover of that building t
' ~
6 Decause of their insistance on compliance with company i 7 procedures regarding electrical connections and the line.
6 None of that comes into their ciscussion. None of tnat
- S appears in tnear aucit of the program, and none of that
. 10 possicly relates to snear uncerstancing of sne T-snirt i
11 incicent.
12 Md. LI d&d A M A.N s Do you plan to go into any of tne j
13 otner incicents?
]
14 MR. dCISMAN: Yes, I co.
15 In terms of the positive evicence that . we' ve
} 16 presentec, putting asice for a moment the lack of wnat ne
+
17 consicer to be positive evicence of the company, I thing that i
l '
18 tne SSEA +1ncings, Sne cetects tnat exist after turnover, the 19 extent of tnose, the SbE4 ano its finding of wicespread GA/CC
~
20 oreaucown, the aosence of,all of the people from the plant now 21 --
I mean, we are getting beyond coincioence. We snould 12 procaoly ask sne EGSG, I know they have some statisticians wno 23 work witn tnem, to give us the statistical prooanility that j 24 every single one of the QA/QC managers wno nad oven with the P
25 plant as long as tnese people had should be gone, all witnin a i
I e
,,s. , r- - % . -, , , ., , , . _ - - -mm. ~ . . , - ,
61 1 relatively snort perloc of time coincicing witn the ce;1nning E of sac news coming out from tne 'iHT aoout the areadcoan of t n e' 3 CA/C0 program, i Imagine it woulo be relatively astronenical.
4 .
In terms of the specific ancicents, tne Circuit 5 Breaker. Tne Circuit Breaxer was a morale-booster. It 's not 6 a newspaper. I agree tnat tne First Amencment allows tnem to 7 puolish anything they want. And the Nuclear Regulatory i t ..
6 Commission has tne rignt to see if tne company was ceing 9 Insensitive Dv cnoosing to publisn it. The agency coesn't can 10 newspapers, out it coes look to see wnetner puolisning tne 11 names of a.legers in a local c1str1Dutton witnin the plant 12 com pa r.y , wno have come forwarc anc critic 1:ed the ccApany, is 13 going to make snein feel happy when they sn'ow eac:< up at the 14 plar,t anc lovec, or is it going to make tnem fuei a little bit 15 Intimicates?
And A con' t th 1r g unere's mucn quest aon acout 1
16 tnat. I mean, sne was even toic by Pr. Toison, Ee careful."
17 Now ne tells ne meant, "Be careful, because you' re 16 six months pregnant." but ce careful is be careful, anc sne's 19 on ner way to the nearings, and she's on her way out into a 20 plant site of basically SOOO construction people anc a hancful 21 of GC inspectors.
22 ine 1979 survey, 1 think again tne cefinitions usec 23 by EG&J to cefine wnat is narassreent and intimication is wnat 64 procuces tnese listiv percentages. If you use a cifferent
{
25 cefinition, as we nave usec, you get c i f f erer.t percentages.
~
l i
i .
el 1 But one of the things tnat is crucial is tnat a tot of people a complainec aoout .ac< of support, and tney taAxac about 3 concitions that existec at tne piant oetween tnemselves anc 4 GC, triction ano so tortn, anc wnen we asaec tne people, "wmat 5 cic you co to follow up on tnose particular allegations,"
)
~~
6 there's a wnole transcript -- Ancerson; asn't tnat her 7 name? -- Ms. Ancerson's ceposition of ner ciscussion of now 6 they followec up on specific allegations in tne 1979 survey, 9 wnat you finc is tnat taey dicn't follow up on any of them, 10 none et'tne ones w. ten we argue represer.t evicences cf 11 intimication. None of snosa got followee up on. Anc the 12 follow-up to the ' 73 survey was to enar.ge one procecure -- not !
13 all procecures; " a procacure that nac Dean icentifieo Dy 14 several people as ceing co;ectionaole, anc to co cometning 16 about the pay cifferential problems tnat some of the employees 16 nas mace. Anc that was it. .
17 MS. AXELRAD: wnat acout the ' 83 survey?
18 MH. RO 15M A.v : Well, tne ' 83 survey incicated snat 19 there were some problems. Neither of the surveys are great 20 scientific surveys. Our expert saac tnat, anc 1 tning the 21 EGSG people concoced tnat as well. The ' 83 survey scentifiec 22 some problem areas. It was -- tnere's r.ot any incication, 23 when we asked Mr. Brandt, "Did the problem areas" -- one j 24 focusec on Mr. williams' group; that's paint coa:Ings -- "Were 25 any of your actions taken in response to the ' 83 survey with
s ,
83 1 regard to W1111ams, the answer was no.
9 2 bo we can' t tinc tnat there was any to. .ow-up t o t na -
3 '83 survey by them.
4 Mr. Dunham. We are toic tnat the f ancing tnat ne S was firec represents collateral estoppel. Let's for a moment 6 accept snat as valla.
7 All the other tinc'ings tnat are in there are also 8 collateral estoppel, and I commend to you the entire fincing, 5 secause what tne DC boarc r.nemoer touno was that .t r . Dunnam ;
10 nac caen engagec, a great personal sacrifice, in protecteo 11 activity for a long time, anc that on one cay, ne t'inally lost 12 nas cool anc snappec. Tnat issue is up on appeal, ard I am 13 noceful tnat it will De reversec. but irrespectivs o' tnat ,
14 two months of Antimidating pressure tnat Mr. Dunnau testifleo 15 acout, tne boaro casically accepted. Tney ;ust f cur c tnat ne 16 snouac nave nele on a 11ttle longer, and they never would have 17 Deen able to tire nim. In otner worcs, ne snoulc 1 ave le continuec to exist in a suonuman condition created my tne 19 Applicant, anc that wouic nave savec him his DO_ ragnts.
~
20 That's not wnat you' re concerned with. You' re 21 concerned with, non cid ne get to tnat meeting, anc wnat nac 22 transpired in the two months? And the findings, I think, are 23 userel for tnat.
- 24 You will also finc an equally collaterai estopael in 25 those fancings is tnat the answer to whether Mr. Dunna'n was a
l l . ,
34 L crecicle witness, cecause of a prior felony conviction as a e young man, was tnat Mr. Brandt anc mr. durcy were, on tnear -
3 face, not creciale witnesses. Tncse two witnesses represenc a 4 real heart of part of tne Applicant's case nere on tne wncle 5 issue of narassment and intimication.
l l
~~
6 So one, you' re taxing collateral estoppel notice of 7 the finding theret also take collateral estoppel notice of the 6 crucio111ty of two Key Applicant witnesses.
9 Pi r . Atenison, i think that the questioning from 10 Mr. Liecerman rea..y saic everytning tnat I have to say, wnic7 11 is tnat snore were plenty of fincings in tnere, anc tney are li at least as reitao.e for you as tne dG66 fincin;s. Tney 13 represent the consicerec opinion of cotn the Secretary of i
14 Lacor anc tne Nearing Examiner, after receiving evicence. I 15 tning sney' ra persuasive as to whether or not Mr. pt en t son's 16 firing was -- tne pretex ual reasons were given.
17 Corey Allen, I' ve talked about him alreaty.
16 Mr. Hamilton, now we' re toad by the Applicant, 19 nat's not even collateral estoppel that's binding in this 20 case, cut on those fincings, ne tells you, "Disregarc tnat.
21 Don' t pay any attention to tnose findings, even tnougn they 1
22 represent the ruling of the Hearing board." l 23 I tning the proffer of evidence represents, of 4 24 course, untested evicence. If you are looking at tne Mam14 ton 25 event, I tnink you need to look at the record that the Board l
85 1 loogec at anc cecice on the casts of it. The proffers are 4
1 Just snat -- untestec, self-serving testimony from tne 3 Applicant.
- Ine Y-snart ancicent, one tning 1 tninx that yoa 5 procaoly know is tnat DIA is completing a report that will 6 snortly ce out, and tnat report is cesigned to look in ceptn 7 at the question of who snot cockrobin in the T-shirt incicent, 8 and I thinx it is wortn waiting for.
9 Mh. LIEEERMAN: Dic you say OIA? Dic you trean O!?
10 MR. ROlbM4N: No. i mean O'A.
11 MS. AXitd4D: we .1, tney would be 1.oo x i ng at it f rora 12 tne stancpoint of wnetner tne Staft cle anytnir.g wrong.
13 MR. ROISMAN: Tnat's rignt.
14 MS. AX6 MRAD: Anc we' ve been sort cf focusing on tne 15 company's concuct.
16 MR. ROISMAN: Yes, but they are also leoxing at the 17 company's conouct, cecause part of the question of ne Staff 18 1s tne interrelationsnip cetween the Staff and tne company.
19 And also it attempts to get at wnat the cottom of the issue 20 1s, wnten~is, wnat was that event about?
21 For your information, the people that were involvec 22 in tne T-shirt incicent were either transferred or gone from 23 the plant site.
{ 24 MS. AxdLRAD: All of them?
25 MR. ROISMAN: Yes.
m
~ .
66 1 MS. GARLE: Well, you nave two groups. You have the E Post-Construction Task Force anc tne T-snirt incicent. Ane -
2 3 tnrea of the people snat wore T-snirts were stila there, aut 4
4 tne whole sost-Construction Task Force was gone.
S MR. ROISMAN: In other worcs --
6 MS. AXSLRAD: 0xay. Tnere were eight people wno 7 were T-snirts.
6 MR. ROISMAN: Some of wnom were Post-Construe: 1on 9 Task Force people anc some wno were not. And all tne 10 post-Construction Tas4 Force people were transferrec ce gc r.e i
11 f rem - t he sit e wi t n in t wo mor.tns.
12 IncicentaAly, our analysis cf the event is tnat ,
13 mr. Toison, wns acmittsaly cid lose nis cooa -- cut tnat was 14 not tne first occaslen -- tnat F r. Tolson saw tne leacers of 15 the group wnen they came in and recognizac :nem as tne
- 16 Post-Construction Task Force people anc tnougnt wnat ce nac in 17 front of nim was the Post-Construction Task Force, anc tnst he 16 actec as ne clo decause ne tnougnt ne hac nis enance to get ,
- 19 these guys who were causing nim all this trouble, anc to get 20 them over an incicent of cisruptive cenavlor.
21 MR. LIEBERMAN: Is there evidence in the recorc that 22 would state why.tnese incivicuals were transferred, or is it 23 merely your view --
1 24 MS. GARDE: Are you asKing If tGe Company offered a 25 reason for their transfer, affirmatively? Is that wnat you' re o - -- w
67 1 asking?
2 I mean, tne company toon tne position tnat tasi e nas-3 no more wcr4 for tnem to co, so some of them were transferrec 4 to Unit-2. But there wasn' t any work for them to co on Lnit-i 5 ettner, and then sney left. Some of them left voluntarily; 6 some of tnem were laic off.- Only wayne Wniteneac remainec anc 7 remains. I' m sure you' ve read ...is h transcript.
6 MR. L I dBEd.1 AN : is tnere evicence to incicate tnat 3 :nas's not true? <
10 MS. bAdDEs nell, 1 mean, if tne company taxes a 11 particular position, I am not sure if you are asking me, was 12 tnere ctner word to be cone? Yes, tnere was etner word t9at 13 was to ce cone anc was ongoing.
14 ms. AXdLRAD: On Unit-1?
15 MS. GARDE: Cne Unit-1, yes.
16 vrocas.y more to tne point was, clo Wayne Whiteneac 17 cetteve, as the only person wno was cecoseo on tnis issue, cic 16 Wayne wnstenead celleve that ne was transferred for legitimate 19 reasons or not legt:1 mate reasons? And his testimony was that 20- ne believec ne was transferred cue to the 1-shirt incicent anc 21 the Post-Construction Task Force.
22 And more importantly, I tninx, to your inquiry is 23 Mr. wnstehead's testimony during nis caposition that l 24 immectately following tne 1-snzrt incident, wnen tne guys came 25 nack the next. couple of cays, that he was personally
68 1 approacnec cy wnat ne cnaractert:ec as over 60 percer.: o? the c G0 insaectors anc asgec wnat hac nappenec, wnat r. a c 3 transpireo, cecause those other QC inspectors oe.iovec that 4 the entire T-snirt incicent was, in fact, a reta11ation for 5 wearing the T-snirts, wnsen led -- wnten was also coming out 8
6 of the larger question of the scentification problems in tne 7 safeguarcs ouilding.
6 M5. 4Xd DAD: We were Just ciscussing this among 9 ourseAves tne otner oay, and a was Just woncering -- I nave 10 not gone cacx to tne recora to eneeg it -- some of sne T-snart 11 wearers, out not a .1, were raerabers of the post-Construct ion 12 las< Force; 1s tnat rignt?
13 MS. GARDE: rnat's rignt.
14 MS. AXiLRAD: Anc the converse is also true, that 15 tne post-Construction Tasa Force inclucec people otner than' 16 T-snirt wearers. .
17 MR. A3;bMANI For tnat cay. but as you Mnow, en 18 Monday of tnat same week, everybocy wore the T-shirts.
- 19 MS. GARDE: All tne electrical QC inspectors on tna 20 crew -- there were between 16 and 21 -- wore the T-shirts on 21 Moncay.
22 MS. AXELRAD: I knew 18 or'20 people wore tnem. Was 23 tnat literally all o f t h e --
i 24 MS. GARDE: It was everybody included in tne 25 post-Construction Tasa Force anc everyone uncer a particular
89 1 supervisor, wno was tnen removed or was in the process of c ceing removec. Greg henetson was tnen sent to Documentation. -
Marx We cn was transferrec in.
Tne post-Construction Task Force procecures, as you
.5 know, were subject to the nearing and went througn significant 6 enanges immediately prior to tnat time period, wnien the 7 Post-Construction Task Force members believed gutted that 8 effort.
5 MS. Axi-RAD:
_ G<ay. But tnen tnere were two of tne 10 eignt T-snirts wno were not members of the Post-Corstruction 11 TasA r'o rc e , anc tney re naineo two months later?
Id Ms. E.AnLd: 1 thing tnree.
13 sr .6. AAdunAD: Ynree?
14 MS. GARDc: i tnink there was three. Ard I Delieve 16 tnat tney' re st i 1 tnere, and I also De.leve tnat tnose are 16 the incivicuals wno the NRC Interviewed anc then basec its 17 various conclusions.on, snat at was only -- it nac r.otning to 18 co witn safety proolems, cecause everyone from the l
19 post-Construction Tasa Force was gone except Wniteneac.
20 MS. AXELRAD: why do you suppose -- why were three 21 left, if tney were retallating for wearing the T-snirts?
22 MS. GARDE: Well, you see, I thina tnat's where 23 tnere is a s16nificant, suotle cifference in tnase twv 24 particular incloencs. I tning the two incicancs stano alone4
{
25 1 tning tne 1-snart incicent could be viewec as a separ die J
90 1 incicent. It coulc have nappened amor.g any group of GC
~
E inspectors. .Jorget snat tney were electrical GC inspectors.
3 i tnin< tne Post-Construction Tas4 Force incloent 4 also couac stanc alone. i thinK, as Mr. Rolsman enaracterized 5 it, wnat Mr. Tolson saw in front of him, cecause ne didn' t 6 anow everybocy's f aces, was tne post-Construction Tasa Force.
7 Anc in fact, the leacer of the group, the spokesman of tne 6 group in tnat room, the one who took out tne tape recorcer anc 9 asxec Mr. Tolson if ne coulc tape recorc the meeting, was one 10 of the t.: ore vocal mem ers of tne Post-Constructior Tas< Force.
11 Anc as we will cnaractert:e it, at that point, we 12 believe Mr. iolson saw rec, cicn' t see wno else was tnere.
13 That's why wnen ne callec in anc gave the narces co 7.r. Cneck 14 at degion iv, wnat ne gave was the names of tne 15 Posc-Construction Task Force. he did not give the names of 16 tne people who were in t.1e roon. Anc tnere was a sp.it.
17 Does tnat mawe sense?
18 MS. AXdwRAD: Yes.
19 MR. ROISMAN: In other words, it was Just one of EO those weiro coincicences. As you know from tne history of it, El there were alreacy plans to take action against the 22 Post-Construction Task Force people, presumably as a result of 23 the cestructive testing, and the record is fillac with E4 testiraony regarcing that, and Mr. CnecK's notes are in 25 evicence and the 11 "
~
91 1 Rnc tnat's new the confusion got startec. Wnen the e call went from Mr. Clements to Region IV, ne gave thera tne -
3 narces of the Post-Construction Task Force peeple, cecause 4 he tnougn that's wno it was tnat Mr, Tolson was cealing witn, 5 and he sato, "lt's a management problem, anc, you know, J 6 personnel, and not sometning that the NRC neecs to get 7 involvec i n. "
6 MS. AXELRAD: But not the whole task force. I mean, 9 tnere were twenty memoers, rignt?
10 MS. GARDE: well, tne Post-Construction lask Force 11 was very smali. I tning six people -- four main inspectors.
12 MR. 6AGLIANDC: Mr. noisman, you are getting near 13 .tne end of your time. Hre you about reacy to far.ts,?
14 MR. ROiSMAN: inat'e, rignt. , promise s. Garce 15 five minutes here at the enc. ard I' d 119 e co gtwe mer those 16 five minutes, anc tnen I .i . -; - .c co c.. 1r.; sent erces 17 wnen sne gets cone.
18 MS. GARDE: my comments ceal farnt of all witm 1,e 13 metnocology tnat yew nave usec 2r cot ,>ur wc ru, w- -- is
. 20 on4nown : rr inis time 21 4 assume at some - sint we ._.. x et >fto snat, sner 22 t' :ugn cepcritions cr -- ;very. Howeve , I believe t' is 23 camenta. t.aw in 45 neccess sur work, case: o <, .4 n a d4 ; na-- seen to cate, wnler -11nx tr. you neec to be very
{
25 aware f, at leas: ' rom our -spective.
I l
92 1 i' m net sure wnetner or not your worn as cased i
& solely on tne recorc in tne hearings or it also incluces tne ~
3 entire regulatory recorc, if you will, of the NHC, whlen, .s f 4 course, incluces the 'iHT anc Region IV findings over tne last 5 couple of years.
6 If your position is going to be only on what is in 7 the recore, snen I oon' t see how you can possibly reacn any 6 position until tne recoro in Locxet 2 is closec anc al'. the 9 evicence is in, anc all of tne copositions anc ciscovery nave 10 ceen completec.
11 If, on the other nanc, wnat you intenc to co is tage ic a position for une Staff in general tnat, "Tnts is our 13 position on narassment anc intimication at Comanene Peak from 14 the ceginning of construction to now, Dased on wnat we nave 15 seen," then I thing you are charged -- or your enarge expands 16 far beyor.c the record to all the evicence ava11aule to tne 17 7ecnnical Review Team, as well as all the evloence in tne i
18 recorc from tne omginning of construction, which, as I am sure 19 you rea.12e, inciuces complaints of narassment and
- 20 intimication, comptaints of ,w ople leaving the site, giving El sucstant ive concerns to the N iC, from as far back as ' 77 and l
22 ' 78.
c3 Tee liner plate incident is a good example. .no j 24 inattaa aalegations on the liner plate, the date tnat I can l
15 finc, inatlaaly start in ' 77, anc tnose workers who I have 1
'l i
L- - -
l
4 93 1 taixec to snat arou;nt snose concerns to the NRO at tnat time e perloc,~tney enty taixec to ene negion Av anvestigato . Taere' J was no ;ranscripts then of interviews. -Dealing witn allegers I
4 was a wnole cifferent ca11 game tnan it is now.
5 Tnose incivicuals, if you would call them now, if 6 the NRC woulo call them now, wnsen they have not, woulc say 7 eney left the site because of the -- one was laic off, anc one 8 left in a constructive casenarge situation -- cecause of the 9 proolems sney were icentifying in the liner plates, because i 10 tney refusec to go along with woax concitions that tney 11 tnougnt were incoieracia -- unac a s, tnat tney were ceang tol 1
12 to work on tne air.er plate in a rcanner tnat was in violation 13 of procecure, faistfy cocuments -- there was massive amounts l 14 of taistftcation cf coeuraents going on arounc One.a.
15 ,
Tnat is not --
that was not pursued by the TAT.
16 inat issue nas not caen coveloped, otner than in tnis one 17 Hegion IV inspection report, wnten concluces witn essentially 16 norning. It coesn' t look at it, anc it coesn' t toilow up.
19 Tnat's the type of flaw tnat I' m concerned witn in 20 your work. You' re not looking at, to the mest of my M
21 anowlooge, the entire recore. Anc if you are looking at the l
i
- 22 entire recorc, you apparently are taking it on its tace ano l
- 23 not going ceyond it.
{
24 1 celieve, cased'on my contacts with sne woratorce, at tnat 1 woulo know if you were coing other than tnat. I woulo
-~ , _ , , ,1
I 94 1 know if you were going Deyonc that, going caca to allegers.
& Secone, tnere's a major cif terence netween tne -
3 evicer:ce snat was presentec in the record and the evicence 4 availaole to tne NdO on exsetly tne question of narassment anc 5 intimication. We startec getting reacy for these hearings 6 last year with a much larger witness list than we ultimately e
7 enceo up witn.
6 .
Tne first major cut came Decause the boarc ceciced 9 not to hear, at tnat time, from craft workers, casec on the 10 tneory snat if sne GC program tallec, it cidn't raatter wnat 11 nappenec witn craft. Cn the other hanc, if the GO program 12 worked, tnen even it craft was narassed anc a nt a rn eat ec , the 13 GC program woulc nave scentifisc the problems.
14 Over tne ecurse of procecural events, w*icn 1 won' t 15 get into, tnat exemptec things like cocumentation. So Docle 16 natley, all the cocumentation clerks, of wn s,cn tnere's large 17 amounts of cornplaints, corn tnrough the LA1 files, whlen are 16 the company's own incepencent complaint cycle, anc puclicly, 19 those have never oeen pursued, on the record or otherwise,
. 20 cecause tney were classifiec as craft personnel.
21 At the same time, the TRT nas interviewed a large 1
l 22 number of craft personnel -- T.R. Dil lingh arn is an exarnple -- l 23 who have suostantial evicence on harassment anc intimication.
24 Ne was mace to stanc essentially in a very small rocm, wnsen 1
{
25 sning was an elevator snaft, for two weeks while brown & Root 1
I l
SS 1 anc TUSCO figures ou- wnat, if anytning, tney were going to co 2 aoout tneir concerns. D1111ngnam was a senior craft -
3 supervisor at the time. Everyone on site Knew wnat WaS goin(
4 on with D1111ngnam.
5 Cur concerns on enilling effect stem cirectly frore
- 6 cnings tnat happenec to people like Dillingnam anc Doole 7 Hatley. That creates an atm'ospnare wnten isn't in tne minas 8 of the worker so evenly ano nicely parsec as a Boarc cecision 5 of now we' re going to procecurally try tnis case.
10 if you are making cecisions Dased only on the 11 evidence so tar ceveloped on tne GC aspect, I woulo suomit la tnat your conclusions are only as gooc as the si:e of the 13 evicence tnat you loonec at.
14 Anotner tning tnac I woule share witn you is snat 15 this wnole scea of harassment anc intimidation is sometning 16 tnat bad nas worneo on anc works in as our specialty, not only 17 for nuclear workers, out also tor feceral wor <ers. 'nei most le comprehensive study that I am aware of ever cone in this area 19 of whistleblowing was cone by the Merit Systems protection
. 20 Board a numcer of years ago anc recently upcatec by their 21 Office of Technical Assessment.
22 In that study, whicn is, as I saic, I believe the 23 only major stucy out wnsen attemptec to poll large numoers of f 24 workers, in tnat case fecerai workers, tnere was very 25 interesting statistics crawn about wno raisec cornplaints, wno k-_.____-__. - . _ __.__.-_.----______._-------___a--__-.____. _ _ _ _ _ . . - - _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ . _ - - - . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . - - _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . - - _ __ - _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . - - _ _ - - - . _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ - - _ _ . _
9 96 i cien' t raise complatnes, ano any.
L i woulo suomit, of course, snat there is a big -
3 cifference cetween a feceral, largely wnite collar workforce 4 and a construct ion workforce anu woulan' t want you to stanc on 5 that conclusion. but the report itself is something I thing 6 tnat you snoulo review, cecause tne point that it raises --
7 that is, tnat the culx of workers in tnis country go along to 6 get along; tney go to a Joc -- tney are essentially wnat 1 3, usec to cal. wnen I caugne coAlege "the peopic who work to 10 *ilve.
- Tney nave a joo; they go nome; tney live snear i a fe, 11 anc uney go caca to wor 4 the next morning. Tney are not cut 12 out tc ce a cne-man er one-woman army, anc they' re no: looging 13 to make waves.
14 Inat is the culk of the wornforce tnat is 1centifisc 15 in tnis narassment anc Intimidation whistloolowing stucy done 16 by tne MSPB, anc 1 think it's pretty mucn the same.
17 The smaller groups incluce people who saw or were 18 aware of, in tne feceral stucy, waste, frauc, anc aouse anc 19 clo not raise any questions, concerns, or scentify any i
. 20 proolems to tnear managers. ,
- l 21 In tnat stucy, slightly over 25 percent of thu 22 workforce had knowlecge whicn they cid not bring to tne 23 management's at tent ion, not cecause they were afraic of
{ 24 narassment, intimication, termination, but cecause tney 25 believec tnat notning would be done acout the proolem. It was
- .--,.--n. - - , , - - - , -n . -
I . ,
97 1 not taxing a risk, cecause norning would nappen anyway.
& A mucn smaller grous cic not raises proolems because' 3 tney were afraic of reprisals of some sort. Anc in eacn of 4 tnose cases -- and again, tnis stucy points to it -- tnear 5 fear of reprisals is basec on not necessarily sometning tney 6 say in tnear workforce, out because of the well puolicizac, i
l 7 well-uncerstooc situations witnin eacn feceral agency. Each j
6 agency, Just as eacn nuclear plant site, nas got their famec 9 whistleolowers.
(
I 10 Charles Atenison was known to tne workforce long la cefore anymocy else was anc procaoly xnown cy everyone.
12 witnin tnis stucy, tne same point is mace. Tney wnew asout 14 Ernie Fitzgeraic; therefore, the Pentagon generaAiy gept 14 quiet, even snougn sney nac majcr gr.owlecge cf cost overruns 13 and the same pro:lems,tnat F.r . Fitzgerale testifie acout.
16 That's a point that the Boarc nas raisec 17 consistently in wnat i will enaracterize as cicta -- tnat is, 18 wnen we're having conf erence calls or we' re having comates on L
19 wnat is really going on in the nearing, and sometimes tnose 20 are only over procecural points, whetner evicence is going to 21 ee in or out of sne recorc, wnether tnis line of questioning 1
I l 22 is or is not permitted.
23 Anc Jucge blocn has cefinitely given tnat cverview
{ 24 of nis view of the prootem. For instance, in Susie Neumeyer, SS wnen tnere was a cecate on wnetner or not Susie Neumeyer's l
O
9e 1 testimony was going to De permittec, Decause she cien' t say
& .tne raagic Inree worcs, "I was intimicatec," at wnic , t ime tne -
d Ap=itcant celas to get her t est iraony coot ec out, Ju;ge Blocn 4 came caca ano saic, "Dic other people know wnat nac nappenec 5 to ner? were other people aware of what was going on to 6 ner?" Wnetner or not sne says tnose tnree magic worcs is 7 really irrelevant, cecause if tnat situation was known to tne
~
6 workforce -- and certainly in her case, it was among her class 9 of peopte, among welcing QC inspectors, and snat tale got tolt l 10 quite a cit over tne next couple montns, tnat left en la impression. Ano we' ll never know what that impression was.
12 It's, as i see it, certainly imposstole for tnis i
la pane. to make a ceterrnination tnat as a result of buste 14 Neaneyer's incicent , four people falleo to icentity prootems l
15 ene next cay, une next ween, snat, I celleve, is tne enarge 15 tnat you tnir.x rr. Hansel r.eecs to get nas arms arounc it aro L7 nas not yet cone so.
16 It's a cif ficult task, anc l' m not exactly sure now 13 it coulc be cone. As I tning some of you heard me say at the 20 meetings, I have some iceas, 1 have some tnougnts on tnat, 21 wnich would more properly De snarea, I think, witn Mr. Hansei 22 and the Applicant than with this panel -- I con' t tninx it's 23 impossicle -- Dut snat atmosphere is not easily cetermanec, 24 basec on looning at little set numcars of incicents anc
{
25 cetermining whetner or not snat witness is crecible, whether
. - = _. .. .- .. . ..
. , l 99
- or not snac witness aroke a wincow anc was arrestec cn a 2
! felony wnen ne was ceventeen -- tnat's totally irrelevant to 3 wnat the woraforce thought aoout what was happening to 8111 4 Dunnam as tney' re escorting nam of f the site, or as GC
! 3 inspectors are af fectec as eney' re escorting eight guys 6 wearing T-snarts oft sne site, wno, as Wayne Wnsteneac's I
7 testimony nas saic, celievec -- the DC inspectors wno came to j ..
6 nam cellevec it was cecause of the dost-Construction Tasd i
3 9 Force's scentification of preolems in the sateguarcs ouilcing.
1 s
- 10 it ccesr.'t raatter tnat tne NRC anc tne Hpalicant a r.c l
11 al. of us sit hare anc cecice, well, the T-snart incicent was i
i 12 an everreaction, anc it was caciy hanclec, anc it was ral stade, i
la anc tnerefore it 's net a proclera. it is a peccler.t. It's a i
i i
14 proclex cecause over 50 percent of tne CC inspectorc, it l 15 Mr. ,wn s teneac's test imony is correct, thougnt it was because is tney were icent i fying proolems a re tne safeguarcs calicing.
17 Hnc tnat is wnat tney ce11evec was really nappent.qq :nere.
16 Notning tne App 11 cant nas cone since that time nas recuttec 19 tnat.
20 Greg benetson still stayec over in cocumentation.
i .
21 The post-Construction Tasa Force continued on the revisec 22 procedures. Notning happenec. Tney saw Ron Jones anc the 23 rest of the guys go over to unit-d anc sit there anc twidele
( 24 their thumos for two montns. Nothing affirmative was cone by 25 the Applicant to unco snat incicent, whether or not they were
10'J 1 maic for the cay anc wnetner or not they came cack fron the 2 cay.
3 Anc the leasers of the Post-Construction */a s x Force 4 left. Anc the NRC nas never talked to them. Tney never navu 5 gotten any impression, cased on wnat has nappenec to tnat 6 time.
7 Two more points that coal witn your process. Your j ..
e root cause concerns, I celleve, have to be affirmatively f
9 accressed by tne Applicant. Notning to case nah accrwssec
^
10 that. The recore is voic of any kir.d of loog at the root 11 cause.
12 Que position is tnat tne manager.ier.t t e ar.t in place 13 motn fosterec, encouragec, and tolerated narassment anc 14 intim1 cation, w,.len had tne cirect effect of weeping proolems 15 quiet. Nctning nas been done to recut tnat.
' 16 ine specific examples given my tng Applicant co not 17 incloce and co not reaut a large part of the evicence snat is 18 caveloped in our fancings. 1 give as an example Cincy Miller, 15 a persove who want to the omoucsman, said tnat she believed sne i
20 was oeing terminatec for raising proolems aeout crug anuse on 21 the site. She left tnree cays later. The omoucsman, Decause 12 sne left tne site, cic not pursue tnat allegation.
23 Cincy 7111er's story is very interesting, and it I
( !.4 Goes long beyonc nat particu'ar . incident of tne GAI file.
25 Notning has caen recutted on that incident. Notning has been i
4
, m . -r~- . . , , - - - , , , - - - - , ~ .e ,,g--+,n , - . --s -
- . . ~ . .
101 i
- I cone about it. Na evicence nas been presentec tnat reauts
~
2 t,at.
3 . reent lo ec cocument at ion, anc tne ot9er tning w11cq 4 I thin < you' re all aware of is, there have Deen new witnesses
)
1 5 wnien gad nas brought to tne TRT in tne last six to eight I .
j 6 merths, who cid not testify, and wnose evicence Dears directly 4
l 7 on the issues o' narasstnent anc intimication, anc 1 belteve t -
8 that Oncse transcripts snoald be mace availaole for you to j 9 review.
10 ,v d . 343_.4,DC: You nava two sentences?
i i 11 mn. 40.S*'r N I nave two sentences. S'entenes No. 1, i
12 1 6m tuily enare snet 4.y.cn g t n e r.91 rc s o f lawyers, it is 13 possicle, as it was cone for the EG&G, to cave.ca a cefinition 14 of m a-assenent an- ant iraicat ion tnat you coulc tinc t,at tnera 15 was nore at t91s site, out in your heart of hearts anc as 16 re:resentatives of tne Nuclear Hegulato=y Commissacn, t
17 corcernes with the real question of complianch witn Appencix 18 b, racolo Denton saac, 'Tnts case is a test of tne NRO," ano j 13 your canel is a test of you and your willingness to call it
~
20 tne way it is uncentadly so, anc we hope you will co tnat. '
21 Tnan4 you.
4
- E2 .M R . GAGLIARDO: inank you, Mr. Hossman anc 23 Ms. Garce.
E. at 2,.s time, we.we.1 al1ow the appiscants to ,na o a
(
25 ten to fif:een-minute remuttat statement.
. . i
101 1 TR. REYNCLDS I Deaieve that the Ciscussion this E nc
- n i ?.g as prCvicec t?.ts Panel with the Clear castinctior.s 3 ar: c t ? *ses .ces metacan One Intervenors' approaca t o tnis case 4 ar.c t na Hpplicant s' aparcaen.
S Intervenors would have the Staff focus altaost E entirely on innuenco anc speculation, Dasec upon :ne shrecs of 7 evicence nat they were asle to introduce in this case. They 6 ar;ue tnat wnen a sapervisor and an inspector cisagree --
? Corey Pl.en anJ 'en branot -- the supervisor, cy cefinition,
- C is ret concerr,uc aoout cuality, is interestec in int i r.:1 c at i n g 11 t *.c inspect:r, is arong, ano the inspector is right.
12 T hey covcounc tnear error oy arguing, wit 7out any 13 s -p p ort i r.; evitarce, tnat the a;iegec incifference to quality 14 t at is wx lo.twc Ir. tnat situation is an incication of a 1$ wiceSprea; ,:ro s a e r.t en the site, that it is represer.tativw of a 15 mcre pe vasave arc o A era. .: Just ain' t so.
17 .he evicer,ce ccesn' t incicate it. Nctning out la Mr. motst.',an's speculat ion supports tnat proposition.
19 MR. LIEBERMAN Mr. Reynolds, is it your view that
~
EO the recorc supports tne proposition that the company 21 encouragec people to question procecures?
E2 .m R . AdVNOLDS: Encourage to question procecures? I C3 c o'r.' ; Mr.cw that there is ar.y evicence in the record to 4 E4 trcicats t9at t7ey wars encouragec to cuestion or casecuragec 25 t0 cuestien. ; tnink it's a routine interface between
_~ . . . ___ _- .- -
103 i manatoment anc ;rispectors for inspectors, if they have 2 questiors, tc raise tne cuestions. -
3 Cris examcle cf a concern that was founc as a result 4 of' the '73 survey was tnat procecures were complicateo anc
$ confusing, and in particular, i thing tney were electrical
- ~
6 procecures in tnat situation. Manageraent enanged tne i
7 procecares, ar.c management made an effort to simplify the h procecures.
I S a con't t n a r.S there is anytnin; in tne recorc tnar 10 inscectaes were etscouragec frca com;r.g to mar,agement.
11 wnether inw e is any evloerick in tne recora to suggest tna 12 tnere was an overt a r.: conscious encouragement ey management
- 3 to inspecters sere.In; cuestions acout proceoures, 1 con' t
- 4 recal. ar/ evicence to that effect. But that coesn' t mean
[
15 that at wa sn' t a we.ccme interchange wnen it nappenec, anc I' m t
) it s.re it napcenec *requertly.
17 A r.c . c:.: rot suggestang eitner tnat inspectors were i
18 a*. nays satisfied with procecures. It's a complicatec joc to 19 cc wnat those people have to co cown there. The enginewes l
20 nave to wette tne procedures. The inspectors htve to inspect
! El to tne procecures. It isn' t easy, and it's rea* 1y a process i
j 22 that requires cynamics, really, to change as change is i
4 22 re*essary.
- {-
24 Md. _162i49LN
^
Is it tne company's position snat i
25 tne workers woulc be unreasonanle, if they perceived-the fear
- , - - - , m-_ - --.-__r _
,,_y.,_w , ,.e . . _ . . . _ - , . . . . ,y_4 _
. l 104 t
. ed questioning procecures?
E v i. siiNo DE: v es, certainly. inere is r.c rational
- 3 *6ascn "o* ar.yone to fear questioning procecures.
i t
a mA. _lfbsdMAN: Tnrougnout the time of tnis project?
4 5 F R. REYNCLDS: Yes.
i 6 MS. LIEBERMAN: Witn all the supervisors?
7 MR. REYNO DS: You are asking me to be too broac. ;
E car's t r. ;ocu cerscience say tnat every person at tne site was
. 3 an arga. *c- toe years, no. I wouldn't agree to enac, no.
10 ; ' r t s. . < n ; a c o s.: --
a li Th. L I EEE RN.AN : The majority, though?
12 Ph. niv AC
- Ja n Dn, aosciutely, the sa;ctar. :a.
13 rn aj cr i t y.
14 r. 4cisvan woulu rave you extrapolate cacw.warcs 15 fecn possiole narcware proolems tnat have Deen incicated in 16 tis "AT reports to a pervasive climate of narassment a r.:
17 ir.ttmicat.cn at Comanche peak, without any determinetton o+
16 root cause for snose proolems.
- 19 inere as no evicence to support sucn speculation.
- EO Ar.c tr. any event, snere are relattvely few of sne TRT cor.cerr.s 21 to cate tna: nave been foured to be substantial er to be saf=ty I
E2 cor.c erris. For example, if you look at'5SdR-10, there were 400
! 23
- aistgatior.c accressed by the iRT in nat arena; 60 were t 24 conf ier.se d an wnole or in part; 6 were founo to be 25 safety-relatec, ar.d 5 were issues of potential safety ;
., , ,- ,,_-y , .- , _ - - _ . , .-.--e-y -
,---,-wm.
- . . . . .. _ ~ . . , . _, - . . _ _ . - . . . . ~ _ .- - - -.
= .
Y i
i 105
! ; st;nif1CaMC3.
l l 6 . con' t tning, or, tne casas of snoce nuncers, nat l 1
3 tnis Ganes can concl. ace anychang cy way of bac4 wars i
4 extrapolatist, snat tne rincing of proolems incicates a i i
1
- 5 carvasive climate of intimication.
I i o j k Vr. Roisman woulc have this panel focus en >
7 compliance with Appencix B cy tnis Applicant on tnis project.
1 ..
6 That assignment is everly broac, given your scope. You are 3 fccusing primarily on Cr . terten 1 of Apmencix B, w71c7 in 1
- V =anica..y crganizaticnal freecem of tne inspecticn rcece. It
! 1. 15 for une coarc to cecace whether Appendix d' s 16 criteria ii 11 .ere net, r.ct'ror snis aanel. i i 13 Ms. Garce mas.es the point that the Fit:geralc i 14 We.taion memorancum cr cocument is meaningful nere -- tna lu, i
g 15 t m at, ceca.se st:ge-alc was known as a wnistleelcwer, the 1
l 16 3entagon clammec up. Nococy talkec.
i l 17 That is urcercut by tne OI investigations, where NRC j 18 investigators, in conticence, interviewee people,. and in the 19 case of the Atenison situation where CI went in to follow up i i ,
i i 20 on the impact of tne Atensson termination, 75 of 76 saic that
! 21 they were not ever'intimicated at Comanche peak.
t I
! E2 ine diant doint program was presentec, as l' m sure 23 snese of you in the Enforcement Division know, in response to l { 24 tne Atenssor, enfcreement action. It was speciftec clearly in !
I i 25 :ne response tnat it was created as an integrated pro; ram. It
)
i l
. i 1 . .
. . . - - _ __ . - . -- -. . . . .. . =- . . _ . - ~ _ . . _ - . . . . _ ._ . ~
101 l
i was imolemantec in tnat same fashion.
! h ". s . Garce su; tests tnat no one nas lootec intc l
l 3 coeur.artation issues at Comanche peak. This is wrong. ine A TAT spent a su stantial amount of time looking into I
$ c oeur.1ent at i or., anc their fancings are clear in their SSER.
1, E Ms. Garce talks about Cincy Miller anc the fact
{
7 that there is no evicence in the record rebutting her i ..
6 alle;ations. Tne reason there is no evicerce in the racccc 9 is escause thera is no affirmative evicence in the recor:
1 10 asout C i n c y F.I'
. . e r , oc tnere is rotning to recut. I 1
j 1; Wit 9 regarc to the discussion on the T-shirt IE a r.c i c ent , 4 t n 17. 4 ycu nave t ou r. lac to confusion cn tna tacts i
i 13 n ar ro.ancir.; t r.a t incicent. I thtr.K that the best sure.mcry of 1
- la tna acts sna; you can get is in tne testimor.y of Mr. horcy,
- $ F r. Vege, ant the two witnesses who were T-shirt wearers.
1 16 Ms. Garue is cpecu.ating wnen sne cascrices,the outcome of
]
l 17 ev. c . c y m u r.: for the fo.ks who wara involved. I am not going to i
18 pretenc to know snose facts in cetail.- Tney are in tne f =
t l 19 recore. But I au confident that her recitation to you tnis
!~
20 morning is in error.
El Just for example as her statement that Mr. Tolsor, 22 calloc Mr. Check. Her memory fails her in that respect. It E3 wasn' t vr. */cison wno callec Mr. Cnecg, and ner memory tails i
j i 24 ner in several ot9er respects, wnten will oecome clear wnen Eb you review tne reccru.
l 1
i I
________________.____.__._._______________._m.__ =__._._e_ . _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ . _ . _ _ . _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _
1
?
1 107-1 i There is or.e more important poir.t snat I tnin< we i .
j h s *c ulo s.ia <e, anc :nat relates to tne testimony of every
- i t
3 witness presentec cy sha Intervenor, save the Stiners, wnese f 4 crecistlity is, of course nignly suspect.
i 5 Every ~1tness that they nave presentec, except tne l
E Stiners, testifieo, as I recall, that they ota tneir Joos ,
7 properly. Not one of them s' aid that he or she failed to j 6 report a ceficiency because he or sne felt pressure or i
l 's tr.tidication -- e.ot ore. So even if tna scant evicence that 1
10 taey nave presented is constaerec ty tnis panel to ce l *i significant, che cottor.1 lir.e is, necocy ever changec their way 4
12 cf c o t r.; Dusiness cecause of the incucements snat ar.y alleguc 4
i
- j 13 int 1*.:tcation may have nac.
34 You nave nearc accut three nours of argument this 15 meening, summarizing evidencs that toog months to comp *.le anc 1
j 16 tact.wance ar;c snousancs cf trar. script pages. The evicar.cc 1 17 boils cown to snist weighing in favor of not finding of
! 18 pervasive intimication at tne site are tnree important cirect 19 measurements of climate, whien give the Panel the gloma;
] ;
l I j- 20 perspective. Tnose are tne '79 anc '83 surveys anc the C; 21 reports. *
- 22 For the reasons I outlined earlier, these i 23 convincingly snew tnat inspectors were free from antimicacion I
( 24 in tne perf ort.:ance c f tnear Joos, anc tne experts on sne iG&3 i
> 25 team confirmed tnis conclusion. These are the only glomal i
I i
h j . .
. . L
- r t
t 10e l l
i arcications ava11asle wnsen cear en the question, a r.d tnus are i b most persuasive.
i 3 keycnc tnat, snere is suastar.tial accasional -
! 4 avicence snat coars on the positive attituce of management in 1
4
- i preserving tne organa
- ational anc personal freecom of i ** 6 inspectors to perform unair Jobs without outside influence.
7 On sne otaer nanc, weigning in favor of a fir.cing cf
.i e servas.vo c.1'4ata is only the incirect measuremant tnat we 4
V cave Trom sna nanctal of alaegers taat nave Deen trougnt a
10 forwart, " r c r.^ aming tre tnousancs anc thousarics of people I
_1 empecye; on tne site.
I
! li ne ce.teve inat we nave reauttec tno te ttacyy cf 13 these nitressec witn crociale anc convincing evicence. But 4
14 even af you assa.te, arguence, tnat every alie;ation preser.tec f 15 on this reevrc is valic, anc tnat eacn instance cite: was, in I
j ~6 fact, in 1micattor:, you cannot even come close to a cecistcr.
I 17 that woulc state snat snis is a "suustantial ar.d pervasive" j 18 climate of int ir.*1 cat ion at the Joo site.
I e i 19 dven Mr. Golcstetn, the Intervenors' expert witness, O
EO after Deing spoonfee tne facts by Mr. Rossman, woulc not opine i 21 tnat there was a pervasive climate of intimidation at the i
E2 site.
! E3 At a c t t o.a, snat it is tne numraary of the evicence, 1
l { 24 arc in our view, it is not even a close call. ,
t j 25 mm. GQJL1AADJs inank you, Mr. Reyno1cs.
4
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- ; Does at
- yar,e else have any questior,s or comments?
1- 2 .N- response.
, 3 %R.' gab 1ARDO: I woulc like to express my 1
a j t* app ectat ten to totn parties f or t a k t r,3 your s t ree t o come 4. ,::,
5 give us your statements and your posit tons on these issues.
j 6 , As Incicatec, tne Panel is still in the peccess ci' l
- 7 coing its review and getting near completion, although not .
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- 6 quite coapleteu yet, ar;c assure you tnat your staternents ar.r [
j i 3 comrcents will be factored into our constoeration. ,
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- ;; C wne ra u por,, at 12
- 00 o' clock, noo r,, the Par.e.
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CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER -
2 3
4 5 This is to certify that the attached proceedings 6 before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the 7 matter of:
0 9 Name of Proceeding: Comanche Peak Intimidation Panel 10 11 Cocket No.
12 Place: Bethesda, Maryland 13 Date: Friday, June 28, 1985 14 15 were held as herein appears and that this is the original 16 transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission.
1e /
(Signature) 39 ,
(Typed Name of Reg 6rter) /Suzaq$'e B. 55dng i 20 21 22 23 Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
24 25 k
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