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> Companies fined by OSHA, whose role is to ensure workplace safety, sometimes ignored the penalties and faced no consequences, including one that still owes mo
by BadHumans 2y ago
> Companies fined by OSHA, whose role is to ensure workplace safety, sometimes ignored the penalties and faced no consequences, including one that still owes more than $1.4 million imposed after the deaths of two employees eight years ago.
> While those who violate OSHA standards can be criminally charged, authorities rarely brought charges. When they did, most offenders got off with a fine, probation or little time in jail.
OSHA regulations are written in blood and there should be steep consequences for those who violate them including criminal charges. Based on recent happenings[0], the Supreme Court is looking to target OSHA next. They may have denied to hear this case but the opinions speak for themselves. It is on the radar.
[0]: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-rejects-challenge-workplace-safety-agency-2024-07-02/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-rejects-chall...
- hipadev23 2y ago[flagged]
- rtkwe 2y agoOSHA exists because workplaces routinely skip safety in favor of quicker and cheaper work sometimes in ways invisible to the regular employees. There's no chance to learn because a lot of these accidents kill or maim their victims to the point they can no longer work. If businesses could actually be trusted to not take those shortcuts in favor of profits maybe we could get rid of OSHA but it's been 50 years and it's not looking like voluntary compliance works.
- hipadev23 2y agoYep. I’m not suggesting dismantling OSHA, in fact I prefer to benefit from hard-won lessons and advancements from our ancestors like the earth is round, vaccines are good, nazis are bad, and government regulations actually have a purpose that’s almost always rooted in safety. I’m saying a majority of the population in the US is eschewing this knowledge in favor of re-learning things the hard way.
- llamaimperative 2y agoEven more sad is that it's not really a majority. Instead what you're seeing is minoritarian rule. The GOP hasn't won the popular vote for POTUS since 1988, and the filibuster all but guarantees you need a supermajority to pass any legislation, i.e. the minority can just allow our institutions to deteriorate. No majority necessary!
- garciansmith 2y agoThe GOP hasn't won the popular vote for President since 2004 (Bush had more votes than Kerry).
- nothercastle 2y agoWe could fix this by having the states sue employers for workman’s comp cost recover as a result of failure to meet OSHA. Right now the profits are privatized but the costs of injury socialized
- throwup238 2y agoThe vast majority of money paid out for workers comp already comes from insurance premiums paid by the construction companies. Safer contractors get lower premiums and too many accidents can make them uninsurable which usually drives them out of business.
- gibbitz 2y agoKeep in mind all workers are paying premiums too. Socialized costs aren't only governmental. The point here is this is not punitive in a way that would lead the company to behave differently. None of this will matter in a few years as project 2025 will effectively neuter any regulation and allow companies to do whatever they want. All that will hold them back from the most deplorable treatment of workers will be social media and spin affecting profits at that point.
- nothercastle 2y agoWhile it’s true about lower premiums to a point I think the incentive model is still pretty strong in favor for having poor safety practices just to the point where you could get sued for negligence.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Salgat 2y agoWhen a business has leverage over your livelihood, it's easily abusable. It's not as simple as saying "no" when the consequences include your family losing their home. This is why OSHA is so great, it rightly shifts the liability from the employee to the employer who is running the job and telling the workers what to do.
- plasticchris 2y agoSome thing that stuck with me early on in engineering school, there was an ethics seminar, and the instructor asked me what I would do if I were told to sign off on say some sort of waste dump into a residential area. The thing that stuck with me is he didn’t let me off the hook when I said I would say no he said OK so they fire you and now they sue you and what do you do now?
- nothercastle 2y agoHa yeah that dump is going in you just dot your i’s and cross your t’s make sure you meet minimum requirements keep your emails and don’t let your professional insurance lapse because you know there will be lawsuits. That’s just yet reality of the job
- p3rls 2y agoThere are about 5,000 worker fatalities in America every year, with a third of them being falls. When was the last time you fell? What would happen if there was no floor underneath to catch you? Personally I'd imagine the vast majority of these 5000 people any given year are much fitter specimens than the typical HN user but due to the whims of fortune are not in a position to waste away in a desk chair like yourself.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- renewiltord 2y ago[flagged]
- hirsin 2y ago/s? The violations in question almost all happened during ZIRP. Capitalism is the culprit here, zero interest loans just meant they had more juice to squeeze from their workers.
- fny 2y agoStalin and Mao enter the chat…
- toomuchtodo 2y agoBusiness owners are not entitled to labor, especially if it puts labor in harm’s way. State “violence” exists to protect citizens from business owners and the broader capitalistic system.
- andrepd 2y agoThis has to be satire.
- rqtwteye 2y agoYou have no idea what fascism is. You also don’t seem to understand the mindset of capitalism.
- LargeWu 2y ago"mistakes" It is often very, very charitable, even disingenuous, to call a lot of accidents the results of mistakes. "Willful negligence" is often a more apt description. Intentionally disgregarding safety in order to boost margins.
- ClumsyPilot 2y ago> Perhaps we could give the businesses who violate the law zero interest loans so they don’t feel pressured to do work at bad margins like this and cut corners. Why do only businesses get kid glove treatment? I also want zero interest loans for breaking the law. Let’s give people arrested for being homeless zero interest loans to buy a house. Let’s give people who are arrested for stealing food zero interest loans to put their life back on track?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoIf you are killed or injured on the job then isn't the employer liable? Maybe I'm naive but why is OSHA necessary at that point? Are they not liable enough (is the payout for wrongful death too low)?
- cjalmeida 2y agoIf a 787 crashes and kill all passengers due to improper maintenance, the airline is liable. Does that make FAA regulations on maintenance unnecessary? Would you put your family in such aircraft?
- oivey 2y agoBefore OSHA, that didn’t work, so why do you think it will work now?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoI don't know if it will work now, I'm wondering out loud why our court system isn't enough.
- dboreham 2y agoBecause latency.
- Buttons840 2y agoDoesn't this assume courts are honest and neutral brokers of justice, and cannot be influenced by power imbalances, and that everyone has quick and equal access to the courts for redress? Sometimes it takes a powerful organization to get redress from another powerful organization.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoI'd imagine that wrongful death pays out so much money that lawyers will throw themselves at you.
- quickthrowman 2y agoI agree wholeheartedly. I work in construction and my company has a top-down safety culture which is the only way it really works. Management (including myself) repeatedly tells field workers that their safety is more important than making a bit more money, we have safety training once a month, PPE is readily available, our safety dept visits job sites and helps prepare site safety plans, fall protection equipment is enforced and so on. We also have a ‘stop work’ policy where anyone, even a lowly apprentice, can stop the work in progress if they don’t feel safe. Those of us who sell work are also told not to be afraid to decline work isn’t safe (working on live electrical equipment that could be shut down to work safely, for example). We have a ‘no live work’ policy, but will do live work in certain circumstances where there is no other option (mostly hospitals), and the head of safety and the COO are both involved in pre-task planning and execution to ensure the safest possible methods. We also have some certified rope access techs, those guys take their safety very seriously, to the point where they’re probably safer working off a rope than on a ladder. My workers tell me they feel safer working here when the company explicitly says ‘your life is more important than our profit’ and provides the PPE, tools, and know-how needed to work safely. FWIW, the bigger than construction firm, the more they care about safety. Big contracts can require a TRIR (recordable injury rate) below a certain amount. The big general contractors push new PPE into use, the most recent thing is hard hats with a chin strap to reduce TBI from ladder/lift falls. The strap does a better job of keeping the hard hat protecting the head by keeping it attached. You see the real cowboy shit on residential job sites, commercial contractors live and die by their reputation, and unsafe job sites are a quick way to lose your reputation.
- adolph 2y ago> Those of us who sell work are also told not to be afraid to decline work that isn’t safe Truely an absent Andon cannot be pulled. Likewise the first safety is psychological safety. [0] 0. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54851 https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54851
- eitland 2y ago> Management (including myself) repeatedly tells field workers that their safety is more important than making a bit more money You made me remember the spring of 2000, the first time when I worked for a company that actually thought that way. (edit: worked for some good companies before that as well, but what I mean is before that, security was always either up to the individual.) I got scolded for working without proper gear, and after a couple of issues (tiny rebar splinter in the eye, later a speck of concrete in the eye, both happening despite wearing mandatory eye protection) I suddenly realized I had my manager hanging over me to try to figure out if there was something that could be improved in the work flow. I loved working there, they paid very well, and here is the thing that looked crazy at the time but is obvious now: they had one of the best bottom lines in the city.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hedora 2y agoDo they even need to target OSHA specifically now that they eliminated Chevron deference? Presumably, as with all other federal agencies, all OSHA regulations not specifically encoded into the law by congress are moot, and can only be re-established via lengthy and expensive litigation, where judges (instead of domain experts) will set the technical standards.