AHF: Cal/OSHA Cites and Fines Gay Porn’s Factory Video $60K for no Condoms
OSHA officials issue multiple safety citations adding San Francisco-based Factory Video to a growing list of adult film producers and distributers cited for failing to follow workplace safety regulations
In February 2013, AHF filed workplace safety complaints with OSHA against Factory asserting that the production company filmed without condoms, activity that showed unprotected exchange of bodily fluids
LOS ANGELES (October 9, 2013)3Ž4In response to workplace safety complaints over the lack of condom use in adult films produced by California adult film production companies, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), AHF has learned that Cal/OSHA (California’s Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Occupational Safety and Health), recently issued multiple workplace safety citations and fines to San Francisco-based Factory Video, an adult film company that primarily produces gay bareback, or condom-less, adult films. Factory was fined close to $60,000 for numerous occupational safety and health complaints, which were filed by AHF over the past two years.
Factory now joins a growing list of California porn companies cited and fined by California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA), the state’s health and safety regulatory and watchdog organization for failing to follow workplace safety regulations. Other adult film companies recently cited include Larry Flynt’s Hustler Video (LFP Video Group LLC), cited and fined in March 2011; and Streamray Studios Inc., cited and fined $27,000 in January 2013.
“I am very pleased to see that Cal/OSHA is really starting to step up its enforcement of existing California health and safety statutes that have long required the use of condoms in adult films produced anywhere in California,” said Michael Weinstein President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “All workers deserve a safe workplace, including those primarily young, often powerless people working as performers in the adult film industry. To OSHA, I say ‘thank you’ and advise those porn industry producers who continue to ignore and break the law that we intend to continue to file similar workplace safety complaints.”
Five of the citations Factory received were classified ‘Serious’ by Cal OSHA (others were classified as ‘General’ or ‘Regulatory’ and also resulted in fines). Of these five Serious citations, three resulted in $9,000 fines apiece including one for failure to maintain an Exposure Control Plan; a second, for failure to observe and practice Universal Precautions for possible contact with, or exposure to, blood or Other Potentially Infectious Materials (OPIM); and lastly, for failing to use engineering and work practice controls to eliminate or minimize employee exposure to “…minimize splashing, spraying, spattering, and generation of droplets of… blood or Other Potentially Infectious Materials (OPIM).”
22 Responses
Factory Video Fined 60K for shooting with no condoms http://t.co/eOQx6FqBPK
Ouch
Thank you, Michael Weinstein!!!!! You’re AWESOME!!!!
YES!!! You rock, Weinstein!!! 🙂
Jay Cee liked this on Facebook.
There no place run as there no place hide from them.
J.r. Wolfe liked this on Facebook.
When you have the mentality that #HIV is a “manageable disease” http://t.co/jVTgIDhhzF you get fined $60K http://t.co/CXuEn9gvUo #AB640
Fucking bullshit ! This is why I’m building a new complex in New Hampshire were the assholes AHF cant touch me . This is getting way out of hand and all the studios should have got together to fight this shit before it was passed.
They are too busy blowing fabian.
Could be that I dont doubt it. I dont book any of my girls for that ass hole or his sites.
Here’s another opportunity for the porn industry to fight this in court. If, as the industry claims, they have a first ammendment right to produce porn without condoms then they need to appeal this in court.
But we all know they wont, just like nobody in the past has ever taken an OSHA citation to court. Why wont they appeal in court you ask, because they have lawyers who know they would lose, and you dont pick a fight you know you cant win. Larry Flynt had the same opportunity last year, he passed, because he has good lawyers who dont like loosing.
And to the idiots in the industry who still maintain that performers are independant contracors, give it up, you’ve lost.
Well a federal judge already ruled that condoms are NOT against the the industry’s first amendment rights. They won’t be appealing this fine in court.
Just like Steve “full of shit” Hirsch won’t be moving his company to another state because he knows there are no laws to protect the performers/ producers / directors for being arrested for prostitution and pandering anywhere except in the state of California and New Hampshire.
@jilted –
So, in actuality, the industry has the state requiring performers to wear condoms or face criminal charges and they also have OSHA who can hit them with monetary fines because of exposure to fluids, etc. And, these OSHA rules are already in effect?
Do I have that right?
No porn being filmed anywhere.
Girls for 101 Modeling are escorting like crazy.
Going to hesr a.lot of crap on this
Soon. Huh bob? and Bud lee.
Getting desperate.
Lacey, there is no state law, that is, a law passed by the legislature that requires condoms. Measure B is a county ordinance, covering only the county of Los Angeles. Cal-OSHA regulations cover every workplace in the state, and the specific section 5193 is the blood borne pathogen regulations A good source for alot of information about this is in the paper wrirtten by Brian Chase, that mike printed here a few weeks ago. The index of that paper cites all of the sources for the information in the article.
Kate, I believe the judge in that case wrote in his opinion that it is ‘likely’ that first ammendment claims of the industry would not stand up in court. He did not rule directly on the matter, as that was not the issue that was before him in that case.
You’re right ,jilted… The judge said because the plaintiffs First Amendment claim regarding measure b’s condom requirement is unlikely to succeed on the merits, the court denies a preliminary injunction on that issue.
The judge also said that making actors wear condoms during porn shoots DOESN’T violate the First Amendment. He thinks that condoms on set would be a health benefit. ( No, Really?)
Since 2004, the health department received reports of 2,396 cases of chlamydia, 1,389 cases of gonorrhea, and five syphilis cases among adult performers. ( gee, I thought the testing works?) That’s crazy!!
But Steve “asshole” Hirsch continues to believe this unfunded mandate infringes upon the industry’s freedom of speech and he/they will continue their fight… Right… hahaha.
@kate,
The healt department stats you cite here are from 2004 to i beleive 2009, and they are only from AIM. They do not include any reports from any of the other multiple clinics that performers use to ‘go around’ they system. And testing DOES WORK, it has proven the need for more regulation.
You have not see the county putting out any new stats since the closure or AIM, because they have no way of knowing who the patients are from private for profit clinic
The industry keeps repeating this ‘we are the most tested workforce’ line of crap, but they will never tell you the results of those tests. You can rest assured if the results of all those tests showed an extememly low rate of infection the FSC and the industry would be putting that information out there for all to see, but the results of the testing program show just the opposite, and therefore you will NEVER see the industry release stats based on the test results.
Jilted, I think you’re right about the stats only going up to around 2009 and being from AIM. It doesn’t even include the performers who contracted HIV. it’s all bullshit!!
And you’re right…The testing does work. It proves the industry needs more regulation. haha. Good one!!
I agree 100% with everything you’re saying. It’s all bullshit!!
@jilted –
I still need to finish reading the Brian Chase document. Damn, that thing is long. Very well-written, but also very long….
By the way, what happened to the October 3rd court case?
I beleive I corrected that here a week or so ago. The hearing is on the 23rd.