Employees Allegedly Forced to Work Among Human Waste, Feces

By Rusty Surette, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Employees at an Oklahoma City call center said they were forced to work in unsanitary conditions.

A spokesman for GC Services, a Houston-based call center with an Oklahoma City location, said sewer line issues resulted in backed-up toilets at its facility on Northwest Expressway.

Workers said despite the smell of human waste and feces overflowing from the toilets, they were not allowed to leave work until one of the employees called the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to complain.

"I talked to them like, 'what's going on? Are we supposed to work?' And he told me, 'Yes, go ahead clock in, get started and they'll take care of it,'" said Phillip Martin, a former employee at GC Services.

Martin was the first employee to call OSHA and said he was fired after his supervisors learned of what he did.

"How can they think anything about that would be right? Making someone work in someone's waste, there's nothing right about that at all," Martin said.

A spokesman for the company said Martin was likely fired for another reason, and work to clean-up the spill is on-going.

Martin's girlfriend Kristy Diaz, who still works at the call center, said she isn't buying it. She said her supervisors fired Martin for being the first one to call OSHA, although he wasn't the only one to do so.

"When he told me what was going on, and he asked me for OSHA's number, I knew what was going to happen," Diaz said.

OSHA has been in touch with GC Services and an OSHA representative said Wednesday afternoon that Oklahoma is a work at-will state, meaning employers can fire employees at will.

GC Services officials said employees are being allowed to go home if they feel sick and crews are fixing the sewer problem. Officials also said the flooded portion of the building will be torn down and rebuilt.