The Durango Herald
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By Lewis McCool
Herald Technology Editor
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| The approximate location of the Sept. 20, 2002, fatal accident north of Shiprock, N.M., is shown in this photo taken Monday. U.S. Highway 666 is in the background. |
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| Shiprock is visible through haze to the south of the accident site, where this picture was taken Monday. |
Fifteen people were crammed into the 1992 Chevrolet Suburbanwhen it rolled over on a lonely stretch of U.S. Highway 666 about five milesnorth of Shiprock, N.M., just before noon last Sept. 20. Two teenage girls werekilled.
Brandy Korba, 19, of South Lake Tahoe, Calif., and AliciaGerandt, 18, of Columbus, Ga., were ejected and pronounced dead at the scene.The Suburban had seats for eight and seatbelts for six.
The New Mexico State Patrol’s accident report identified thepassengers as employees of a magazine sales company, Atlantic Circulation Inc.,of Mountville, Penn. The employees were headed to Farmington after solicitingmagazine subscriptions in Cortez.
The Shiprock crash was not the first involving an AtlanticCirculation sales crew. Less than a year earlier, on Sept. 28, 2001, a20-year-old man was killed and seven others injured near Minneapolis when thedriver of their van apparently fell asleep and rear-ended a car at high speedbefore rolling over several times, ejecting some passengers.
The magazine subscription sales industry has become one of thedeadliest for young people nationwide. A Milwaukee man whose daughter was killedhas tallied 53 deaths associated with traveling magazine sales crews. Most ofthe deaths have been crew members, but a few were customers or others whoencountered violent crew members or were hit by a crew vehicle.
In addition, the father, Phil Ellenbecker, said there have beennumerous rapes, beatings and abandonments of workers. Reports of abominableliving conditions abound, he said, including crowded motel rooms with noprivacy, food being withheld for poor sales performance and intimidation.
"Traveling youth crews" is ranked among the worst fivejobs for teens, based on injuries and deaths, by the National Consumers League,a 104-year-old organization that represents interests of consumers and workers.
A New York-based watchdog group – Parent Watch – is mountinga nationwide campaign to call attention to what it alleges are deceptivecampaigns to recruit young people to work in an unregulated and dangerousindustry.
"The crime rate inside crews has skyrocketed," saidEarlene Williams, the director of Parent Watch. Williams tracks the operation ofthe door-to-door industry and documents its labor abuses. "There are manyinnocent kids caught up in this."
Most recently, a van carrying 11 Atlantic Circulationsalespeople flipped on an icy stretch of Interstate 15 near Butte, Mont., inFebruary. Several passengers sustained minor injuries. The 18-year-old driverwas cited for drunken driving, careless driving and driving without a license.
Williams blames Atlantic and others in the industry forindiscriminate hiring and turning a blind eye to abuses.
Tom King, a lawyer in Wichita, Kan., represents the Gerandtfamily and three surviving passengers in the Shiprock accident.
"These are fly-by-night operations. ... AtlanticCirculation accepts no responsibility," King said in a phone interview.Atlantic maintains that the victims in the Shiprock accident were not companyemployees but worked for an independent contractor.
According to the accident report, the Suburban was registered toMichelle R. Sanchez, of Atlantic Circulation.
Despite the information in the report, Laura Potter, aspokeswoman for Atlantic Circulation, said the vehicle did not belong to thecompany.
"We don’t own any vehicles," Potter said in a phoneconversation. She said the Suburban belonged to a distributor and that she hadforwarded the Herald’s request for an interview to him.
"He should contact you," she said. She would notidentify the man, and he never called despite repeated requests throughAtlantic. Potter refused further comment on the Shiprock accident.
On its Web site, Atlantic Circulation describes itself as"a processing center for direct sales orders of products including magazinesubscriptions."
King said he plans to sue but is unsure a lawsuit will succeed.
"We are worried about suing them and their folding up theirtent and moving to another state," he said. "... We are researchingthis to determine how best to proceed. ... There was not a lick of insurance onthe vehicle."
Nor was there insurance on the workers.
Industry out of control
Parent Watch says problems with Atlantic are typical of anindustry out of control, rife with abuses.
Parent Watch was founded in 1983 by five families, all of whom,Williams said, had a child fall prey to deceptive recruitment by traveling salescrews.
"Today Parent Watch is still a service provided by familiesand ex-sales people, and there are members in most states who are working tobring this dangerous phenomenon to public attention," Williams said.
Her goal is to keep pressure on subscription companies.
"They just have to know that every time they turn aroundthey see you right behind them," she said. "We just try to help thecases as they come up ... to help families and young people in trouble. We don’tlook too much beyond that."
At any given time, Parent Watch estimates, as many as 15,000 to30,000 young people are involved in door-to-door magazine subscription sales inthis country. In a year’s time, more than 100,000 youngsters are involved.
The business has increased in recent years. The economy is down,no-call lists have curbed telemarketing, and magazine publishers are anxious togain subscribers because advertising rates are tied to circulation. Billions ofdollars are at stake.
"It’s big," said Ellenbecker, the Milwaukee father."It’s a silent killer of teens and young adults ... sales byexploitation. The recruiters are ruthless and are not in the business of childsafety."
Ellenbecker’s daughter was killed, along with six others, inthe 1999 crash of a magazine sales crew van in Wisconsin. Four others sufferedpermanent disabilities.
The van’s driver, whose license had been revoked, wasattempting to swap seats with a passenger while being pursued at high speed bypolice. The replacement driver, not yet seated, lost control.
Unsafe vehicle
The Shiprock accident report said Jaime R. Miller, then 25, ofClovis, N.M., was driving the full-size sports utility vehicle – on bald tires– when he lost control after the blowout of a rear tire.
"The two deceased girls were still on the ground when I gotthere," said the investigating officer, New Mexico State Police PatrolmanPaul Gonzales. One passenger, Steve Rouse, with a head injury, had been flown toa Phoenix hospital before Gonzales arrived.
Gonzales said in his report that "all four tires on theSuburban ... were lacking tread (bald) and had dry rot on the sidewalls."He estimated that the Suburban was traveling at about 80 mph. The speed limit onthat stretch of road was 55 mph.
Miller was cited for careless driving (speed too fast forconditions), having no insurance, and driving an unsafe vehicle. Alcohol was notthought to be involved.
Magistrate Court records in Aztec indicate that Miller failed toappear on the citations. He was fined $100. A warrant was issued for his arrest,and his driver’s license was suspended. The case remains open.
Gonzales said that during his investigation he talked by phonewith Terri Miller, of Dodge City, Kan., whom he identified as the sister-in-lawof the driver. She told Gonzales that a representative of Atlantic Circulationhad told the crew that they would have to earn new tires by selling moresubscriptions. That never happened.
"It seems to me that the company was responsible for atleast part of it," Gonzales said in a phone interview. "She (Sanchez)was aware these tires were not in the best of shape."
Life on the road
The Herald obtained a statement by a young woman fromMontana who worked on a sales crew in 2000 and 2001. She asked to remainanonymous. In the document, the transcript of an oral statement given to ParentWatch, she detailed her life on the road.
"About 75 percent, easily, of the sales agents had badbackgrounds," she said. "If you were an angel, you weren’t on crew.There were always a few that were on probation at any given time, and they werejust kept with us. It wasn’t even a big deal. ...
"Managers did drugs all the time. I personally saw all themanagers do pot, mushrooms, acid, Ecstasy. Kids could get in on it. A managerwould let anybody have stuff or drink with them if you’d had a good (sales)day. You didn’t have to be 21. ...
"I left because I was pregnant. ... My manager was mad. Hehad so many people trying to talk me into staying, but I know this manipulativepitch – I used to give it to people myself."
She said sex was a tool used to keep people on crew."Putting people over," it was called.
"On crews you don’t look at this as prostitution; it’sjust your job. It’s what you do."
Ellenbecker said efforts to reform the door-to-door industryhave fallen short. He, Williams and the parents they represent and support hopethe courts will re-examine the relationship of the field workers, thedistributors and the clearinghouses.
"This has been very well plotted over the years,"Ellenbecker said. The clearinghouses "are using ‘independent contractors’to protect themselves from legal liability against a customer or a member of thesales crew. They say, ‘We don’t have anything to do with that. They don’twork for us.’ We’ve heard that time and again."
He added, "The independent contractor concept has been athorn in everyone’s side for quite awhile. The courts are starting to seethrough this."
Innocence, lives lost
Although Brandy Rose "Sweetpea" Korba was only 19, shewas no newcomer to traveling sales crews. She had been working on crews aroundthe country for five years. Among her survivors is her 2-year-old son, BryceAaron Korba. Brandy’s mother, Monica, who declined to be interviewed, iscaring for the child.
Alicia Gerandt had earned her GED and had stopped smoking anddrinking. She wanted to go to college.
Her mother, Ruby Gerandt, said Alicia was "a veryintelligent little girl."
"She was the idol of my heart ... God’s gift to me,"Mrs. Gerandt said in a telephone interview from Columbus, Ga.
Alicia started working with the Atlantic Circulation crew inFebruary 2002, looking for adventure and a chance to earn some money forcollege.
"She did great," Mrs. Gerandt said. "She coachedothers who worked with them on how to get by."
She described the crowded, unsafe living conditions that Aliciatold her about and said she would have tried to talk her out of staying with thecrew if she had known of the risks sooner.
"She wanted to take care of herself – on her own,"Mrs. Gerandt said.
Mrs. Gerandt talked with her daughter less than two hours beforethe accident. Four hours later, she was notified of her daughter’s death.
She is bitter.
"I am one hurt woman, and I am mad," she said. "I’dlike to see them (traveling sales operations) closed down nationwide. I’ll doanything in my power to stop them. ... They hurt a lot of innocent kids."
