SAN FRANCISCO — Factory Video, a San Francisco-based studio that primarily produces gay bareback films, reportedly has been fined nearly $60,000 for occupational safety and health complaints filed by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation over the past two years.
According to the AHF, five of the citations Factory Video recently received were classified "serious" by Cal/OSHA, while others were classified as "general" or "regulatory" and also resulted in fines.
Of the "serious" citations, three resulted in $9,000 in fines a piece, 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; and a third 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."
In a release, Michael Weinstein, AHF's president, said that he advises those porn industry producers "who continue to ignore and break the law that we intend to continue to file similar workplace safety complaints.”
“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, AHF's president. “All workers deserve a safe workplace, including those primarily young, often powerless people working as performers in the adult film industry."
