Ohio Plant Horror: Worker Crushed

Dontrelle Inman and coworkers pour molten metal into molds at a foundry — Photo: industryviews / Shutterstock

A Chinese-owned glass plant in Ohio let workers suffer in brutal heat and unsafe conditions for years while Beijing-linked management dodged accountability, former employees now say.

Story Snapshot

Former Fuyao Glass America workers describe “unbearable” heat, unsafe machinery, and anti-union pressure at the Moraine, Ohio plant.
Federal safety regulators hit the company with multiple rounds of fines, including over $226,000 and later more than $724,000, after repeated inspections.
A 57-year-old worker died at the plant in 2018 after being crushed by a forklift and more than a ton of glass.
Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna has demanded records from the Chinese Communist Party-linked company over wage suppression and labor law violations.

Chinese-Owned Plant Faces Years of Safety Complaints

Fuyao Glass America opened its Moraine, Ohio plant in October 2015 as part of a Chinese glass maker’s push into the U.S. auto supply chain. Workers started complaining about unsafe conditions almost right away. Those complaints triggered eight separate federal safety inspections and $226,937 in proposed penalties from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Former worker Demetria Hodges, who says she spent five years at the plant, is among those now speaking out about what she describes as brutal daily conditions. Her account lines up with a pattern federal regulators already flagged: a factory floor where hazards kept piling up instead of getting fixed, even after repeated government warnings and fines.

Fatal Accident Exposes Deeper Problems

The safety concerns turned deadly in March 2018. Ricky Patterson, a 57-year-old Dayton man, died after being crushed between a forklift and more than a ton of glass at the West Stroop Road plant. The Montgomery County Coroner’s office ruled his death an accident caused by blunt force trauma. OSHA initially proposed a modest $7,000 fine tied to the incident, a penalty critics say barely registers for a company of Fuyao’s size.

The death wasn’t the end of the company’s safety troubles. In 2019, OSHA cited Fuyao Glass America for nine repeated and 13 serious violations, including electrical safety failures and inadequate workplace hazard evaluations, leading to $724,380 in proposed fines. That’s more than triple the penalty amount from the plant’s earlier inspection round just a few years prior, suggesting the company’s problems never got fixed — they got worse.

Democrat Lawmaker Demands Answers Over CCP Ties

California Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat, sent Fuyao’s parent company a letter demanding records on wage suppression, worker conditions, and possible violations of U.S. immigration and labor laws. Khanna told Fox News Digital his committee has heard the company engaged in anti-union activity against its own workforce. He has also pointed to allegations that Fuyao hired undocumented workers and paid below-market wages while receiving subsidies from the Chinese government.

A July 2026 letter sent to Fuyao’s chairman laid out what it called credible allegations that management “systematically suppressed” workers’ right to organize at the Ohio facility, while retaliating against whistleblowers who spoke up. For a conservative audience already wary of Chinese Communist Party influence inside American industry, a foreign-owned company allegedly skirting U.S. labor and immigration law on American soil is exactly the kind of vulnerability lawmakers from both parties should be watching closely.

Company Pushes Back on Allegations

Fuyao has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Plant president John Gauthier said management didn’t learn of the alleged safety issues until they showed up in media reports, and insisted safety remained the company’s “number one” priority. Company spokesman Jeff Vanetti said the firm wasn’t running an anti-union campaign but rather a “pro-company, pro-direct relationship” effort to work with employees directly.

Fuyao Chairman Cao Dewang dismissed some reporting as “hearsay” and claimed he doesn’t oppose unions. Company leaders have also pointed to a $2-an-hour raise given to production workers, a new safety committee, and what they call full cooperation with federal safety inspectors. Fuyao has also cited independent audits it says confirm the company’s position against the long-running allegations. Still, the repeated fines, a worker’s death, and years of unresolved complaints suggest those assurances haven’t matched what’s actually happening on the factory floor.