By DAVID PHINNEY
Members of Congress joined union leaders and workers in
demands that the Defense Department investigate an Oakland
Park, Fla.,
military contractor
for possibly producing defective bulletproof vests used by
U.S.
soldiers in
Afghanistan
.
At a press conference held Thursday outside a congressional
office building, Point Blank Body Armor shipping clerk,
Umberto de la Cruz of Tamarac, accused his company of
reusing old material to make new products and said that
inferior-grade gear is sometimes passed off as being of
higher quality.
Point Blank is a leading provider of body armor to the U.S. military and police departments around the country. It
presently holds a six-year, $350-million agreement with the
Defense Department to provide body armor.
De la Cruz also claimed that company management routinely
told workers to fill orders with improperly sized
bulletproof vests after switching size labels.
“I brought these problems to the attention of
supervisors,” de la Cruz said. “Their response is always
to let the products go out.”
The shipping clerk and more than 200 other workers at the
Point Blank factory have been embroiled in a labor strike
since Aug. 9 after the company locked out employees and
fired three workers who are labor organizers.
“This is not just a labor dispute,” said Rep. Alcee
Hastings, D-Fla., who represents
Oakland
Park. “This is an issue
of protecting our soldiers.”
Hastings, who has taken the lead in attempting to rally
congressional support for a Defense Department
investigation, said that 100,000 US
soldiers in Afghanistan
and elsewhere use Point Blank vests and armor.
He and others at the news briefing said that the ongoing
labor strike may exacerbate problems with product quality.
In recent weeks, the New York City Police Department
investigated possible flaws in Point Blank body armor,
including as many as 5,000 vests, according to published
news reports.
The NYPD has conducted a series of tests, which found that
the protective gear fails to stop bullets in some cases.
The Army is also investigating complaints from U.S. troops in Afghanistan
who reported that improper sizing of body armor hindered
mobility.
Point Blank is the sole producer of the Interceptor body
armor widely used by
US troops in Afghanistan. One soldier had been killed while wearing the Point Blank
armor, according to those speaking at Thursday’s news
conference.
A Point Blank spokesman said allegations of defective
products are “absolutely untrue. He said De la Cruz
lacked any knowledge of quality controls at the Oakland Park factory.
“These allegations are being made by a striking
employee,” said Paul Donofrio, executive vice president of
DHB Industries, Inc., the New York company that owns Point Blank. “He is completely
unfamiliar with production and has no knowledge of quality
assurances.”
Union officials say that de la Cruz has been with Point
Blank for 18 years and that he has held a number of jobs
with the company.
“He has a very good sense of the quality,” said Chris
Chafe, a spokesman for the Union of Needletrades, Industrial
and Textile Employees. “As a shipping clerk, he knows what
goes out and what is returned.”
Chafe also said that more than a dozen other employees have
signed affidavits making similar claims of faulty and
mislabeled products.
Donofrio said that problems with Point Blank and the New
York Police Department have also been overblown, and were
settled on Thursday.
“We have agreed to provide 1,000 free replacement vests of
a higher quality than the ones that were originally
sourced,” he said. “The big picture is that we retained
the New York Police as a customer, so clearly they have
confidence in our company.”
Still, members of Congress will continue to press for a full
investigation of the company, said David Goldenberg, a
legislative aide to Hastings
.
“A settlement with the NYPD does not negate the fact that
there is a problem,” he said.
Last month, ten members of the House Armed Services
Committee signed a letter to Point Blank in support of the
striking workers and
Hastings
was barred from entering the factory after attempting to
meet with company officials.
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