Addressing Ischua Creek/Great Lakes Cheese disaster in the memory of Zach Allen
By Elizabeth Allen-Matthew
“A culture of noncompliance” is a phrase that has ping-ponged around my brain many times in the last two plus decades. For those in the community that don’t already know or aren’t old enough to remember, my brother Zach Allen was electrocuted and died at what is now the Great Lakes Cheese plant in Cuba. An OSHA investigator described, “a culture of noncompliance” that fostered the conditions that took Zach’s life.
Every so often, I look up the recent OSHA violation records for Great Lakes Cheese, company wide. Obviously, it is hard to put into perspective without the context of what led to a reportable instance of accident or injury. To me, what’s reported seems like an uncomfortable number of, “traumatic amputations”. I think any number of traumatic amputations probably speaks to a lack of training on pinch point safety and perhaps a worse issue of missing or unused guards on machinery. I can only speculate. Alas, some worker injured at a cheese plant somewhere who is given some pittance from a worker’s compensation system set up more to protect his employer & insurers than him, isn’t going to make the news. We’d all rather get fired up about identity politics and left vs. right when we need to be more focused on top vs. bottom. If you are working for a paycheck, you are working class, full stop. Identifying as “middle class” is a fallacy these days. The quicker we all realize that the better. We are all in this capitalist system where profits are private but losses and liabilities, like the 500+ million dollars given to Great Lakes Cheese to set up in Franklinville, are public and socialized. Let’s ask ourselves, who is really on welfare here?
I will be the first to admit that Great Lakes Cheese causing an environmental disaster wasn’t on my 2025 bingo card. However, I am not surprised in the least. Frankly, I am mad as hell and I hope everyone else is and stays that way too. Things like this environmental disaster don’t just happen because of a one time “oopsie daisy”. They are born and bred from, “a culture of noncompliance”. Lack of DEC oversight on all this could be an entirely different op-ed but let’s focus on the company that was given millions and millions of dollars and tax breaks whose responsibility it was to act as a good steward to the community they were allowed to build into. The fact that we have now learned Great Lakes Cheese has basically been in violation of it’s wastewater discharge permits since it’s opening, makes this all worse.
Corporate accountability in situations like this is far too fleeting. Sure, they’ll get fined but will it be enough to spur a paradigm shift? Too often the fines levied against corporations are just looked at as the cost of doing business. The fine is less than the cost of operating correctly and within the laws and limits imposed on them. Will accountability for Great Lakes Cheese even be tangible, measurable or, quantifiable? Speaking from experience, it sure didn’t feel that way after my brother was killed. From the looks of things in Ischua Creek, that “culture of noncompliance” that took his life, is alive and well at Great Lakes Cheese. I just hope they don’t kill anyone else.
In 2024, Forbes Magazine listed Great Lakes Cheese at #160 out of #275 of America’s Largest Privately held businesses. Forbes estimated their revenue to be $4 Billion, up from $3.6 Billion the prior year. It’s past time we all boycott their products and spread the message to boycott their products as far as you can. Remember Eddie Murphy’s line in the movie, Trading Places? “It seems to me that the best way to hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people”. I am not suggesting it’s possible to financially ruin just one CEO but I think the same sentiment is true for bringing on change and accountability at the corporate level. It is only going to happen if we hit them in the wallet.
Read more about the recent Ischua Creek disaster from Clay Hulin
