Cummins buys badges like a bored aristocrat buying titles. That is why TCAP was delighted to hand them the Golden Noose and the Most Farcically Decorated Company 2025 trophy for their wall. For free, too.
Waupaca Foundry is different. Waupaca did not buy a halo. Waupaca got an award for keeping Cummins’ supply chain moving during COVID. “Outstanding Supplier”. A nice clean phrase for a dirty job.
And if you read the enforcement history, you start to wonder what the real currency was. Spoiler. It was not applause.
Outstanding Supplier, Outstanding Appetite
Waupaca Foundry has been publicly recognised with a 2020 Outstanding Supplier award from Cummins for delivering iron castings through the pandemic disruption. The corporate version of that story is heroic reliability. No line down. No drama. No delays.
The industrial version is a foundry running hot, fast, and unforgiving. A place where “excellence” can mean overtime, shortcuts, and a management culture that treats injury as an acceptable production cost.
Waupaca did not buy an award. It looks earned.
That is the problem.
Two Fingertips In Eleven Days
In April and May 2023, two workers at the Marinette facility suffered fingertip amputations within 11 days. Federal investigators described repeat failures around hazardous energy controls during servicing and maintenance and proposed penalties of more than $230,000.
This is the bit that kills the brochure language.
If you are a supplier trying to keep Cummins fed, the temptation is always the same. Keep the line moving. Clear the jam. Get it done. The machine does not care what it takes. The machine does not bleed.
Workers do.
The Same Plant, Same Lessons, Not Learned
Marinette was also the site of earlier enforcement action. In 2021, OSHA described severe injuries and cited failures that included energy control procedures, machine guarding, and exposures tied to noise and respirable crystalline silica, proposing penalties of roughly $200,000.
Foundries are inherently dangerous. That is not a hot take. That is physics, heat, dust, and steel that does not forgive mistakes.
The question is what a company does with that reality. Invest, slow down, guard, train, enforce. Or keep chasing output and let the injuries become background noise.
Silica And Noise, The Long Burn
Silica is not dramatic in the way an amputation is dramatic. It is slower. It lingers. It turns a job into a countdown.
In 2016, OSHA described risks including noise exposure and silica at a Waupaca facility and issued repeat and serious violations. This is not a single bad day. It is a pattern across time where dust and sound are treated as manageable until they are not.
A foundry can be dangerous and still be run responsibly. The paperwork exists because too many places are not.
The Award Economy In Cummins Land
Here is why this matters to TCAP.
Cummins’ awards culture is a racket. Paid programmes, self assessments, partner networks, badges with a receipt stapled to the back. That is why TCAP ran the Golden Noose and the Most Farcically Decorated award.
Those trophies exist to expose the whole economy. And we aren’t done.
Now look at Waupaca’s award. It is not “best ethical vibes”. It is not “platinum wellbeing storytelling”. It is a supply chain award for performance under pressure.
In Cummins land, that is the closest thing to an honest prize. You either delivered or you did not.
So the dark question becomes unavoidable.
If Waupaca’s award was earned, who paid for it.
Fingertips As Currency
Nobody is saying Cummins issued a certificate that reads “thank you for the amputations”. They do not need to. The incentives do the talking.
In a supply chain award culture, downtime is punished. Injuries are processed.
When a supplier is rewarded for never letting the line go down, the message to the entire chain is simple. Deliver first. Explain later. Clean up quietly.
That is how a “valued partner” ends up with press releases about excellence on one page and federal enforcement write-ups about amputations on another.
If you want to know what an award is worth, do not look at the trophy. Look at the shop floor. Look at the hands.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Cummins Confidential Special : Fake Awards Update – The Golden Noose
- Cummins Confidential Special : Most Farcically Decorated Company of the Year Award 2025 – Winners!
- Waupaca Foundry receives Cummins award
- Waupaca Foundry receives supplier awards
- US Department of Labor investigation cites Waupaca Foundry after 2 workers suffer amputation injuries in 11 days, fines company $234K
- US Department of Labor proposes $200K in fines after 2 workers suffer injuries in separate incidents at northern Wisconsin foundry
- OSHA finds Wisconsin foundry employees at risk for permanent hearing loss, respiratory illness, other dangers from exposure to noise, silica