5 ms·

This person should rightfully be receiving most of the gross profits from the company making the displays as compensation for the loss of her hands, and the peo

by gnu8 11y ago

This person should rightfully be receiving most of the gross profits from the company making the displays as compensation for the loss of her hands, and the people responsible for designing an unsafe production process should be in prison, treated exactly the same as if they had walked up to her on the street and chopped her hands off with an ax. This is not hyperbole, this is simple fairness and justice. The shareholders shouldn't receive a dime until after their victims have received their share, and any person or company complicit in unsafe industrial practices belongs in prison just as surely as if they had directly assaulted someone, because assault is what it is. There is zero reason to risk any human's personal safety just to increase a profit margin, and if we need to put executives, managers and engineers in prison to get that message across, so be it.

fweespeech 11y ago
I think this is unreasonable simply because industrial accidents do happen and they aren't 100% preventable, much like car accidents. There should be [large] amounts of financial compensation [like $2.5 million, or about 10x what she'd have made at $400/month for 50 years] but "most of the gross profits" and "jail time" is ridiculous. https://www.osha.gov/oshstats/commonstats.html https://www.osha.gov/oshstats/commonstats.html > 3.3 per 100,000 in the US die http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/osh_12042014.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/osh_12042014.htm > Over half of the more than 3.0 million private industry injury and illness cases reported in 2013 were of a more serious nature that involved days away from work, job transfer, or restriction (DART cases). These cases occurred at a rate of 1.7 cases per 100 full-time workers, a statistically significant decrease from 2012. http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx > Fatalities per 100,000 Licensed Drivers > 15.84 in 2012, 23.21 in 1994 There are, frankly, far more dangerous for-profit machines that people happily refrain from suggesting those sorts of penalties for.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  I don't think it's unreasonable. If the costs of these accidents are high, then they'll invest in making their processes safer. There is absolutely no excuse for having a machine like that in use.
  - err4nt 11y ago
    if the reward for losing body parts is high, people will find a way to make it happen to collect the reward! No matter how much you reward them, it can never be so much as to ever be an incentive to somebody.
    - johnchristopher 11y ago
      Ah! But then the factory builder will be forced to build safer factories to prevent workers from injuring themselves and ruining the owners. /s
  - fweespeech 11y ago
    1) 10x the lifetime salary of a worker is high. 2) Nothing is 100% reliable or safe. We are lucky to have a 1.7% rate of serious injury/fatality in the US on a full time worker per year situation. You aren't going to be able to reduce that significantly. Operating heavy machines is dangerous.
    - s73v3r 11y ago
      "10x the lifetime salary of a worker is high." So? Losing a limb is huge. "Nothing is 100% reliable or safe. We are lucky to have a 1.7% rate of serious injury/fatality in the US on a full time worker per year situation. You aren't going to be able to reduce that significantly. Operating heavy machines is dangerous." And this is an incentive for employers to keep up maintenance and make sure that their workers are properly trained. And to not do what happened in this story, which is to try to get people to cut corners so they can make a couple more units.
      - Erwin 11y ago
        Would you apply this to software engineering, and if not why not? Should the engineer that was responsible for some XSS flaw 3 years ago used today to extract personal information (which in turn can be used for identity theft) be personally required to pay damages? Should a peer that reviewed and approved their code, and maybe the sysadmin that deployed it and manage who run the projects and didn't use all possible security controls?
- gnu8 11y ago
  Why not jail time? If someone designs an unsafe process, doesn't put guards on the machines to save a buck, or eliminates safety procedures to increase output, that is morally as reprehensible as if that person held the knife. I think it should be treated as an assault. Edit: I see this situation as more analogous to drunk driving than a simple car accident. We certainly do jail people when they unintentionally injure someone because they were drunk. It would be reasonable jail someone who prioritizes profit over human life and causes an injury as a result.
  - johnchristopher 11y ago
    Isn't the whole ISO business and industry standard practices put in place to prevent that and protect everyone: workers from getting injured on the job, bosses from having to pay enormous amount of money as compensation (the insurance will kick in if the company got his ISO and stuff right) and the insurance raking in money for forcing the workplace to be safer ? (I know reality isn't that rosy but that's the objective, right ?)
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    >that is morally as reprehensible as if that person held the knife. I think it should be treated as an assault. Are you guilty for buying a cheaper produce when child labor was used to produce it? Does your knowledge of the abuse going into making it cheaper matter?
    - gohrt 11y ago
      Absolutely.
    - task_queue 11y ago
      You are knowingly and directly allowing a child slave driver to profit from your purchase. Where exactly do you absolve yourself of guilt in that transaction?
hliyan 11y ago
This is horrendous on the part of the managers: “I want you to work faster, because we need the material urgently,” he said. I screamed. Everyone around me was crying and yelling. They stopped the assembly line on the female side of the room, but the men were told to keep working. In my first year in university, before picking my specialization (computers), we had to study the basics of all the engineering disciplines, including mechanical engineering. One day in workshop class, we were given the assignment of making a nut -- a nut, from a metal block, using a hammer and chisel. After laboring at it for hours and producing completely uneven hexagon, I asked the instructor: "Why do we have to learn this? I'm studying to be an engineer. I'll never be doing this." The instructor replied, "So you will know the difficulty the tasks you order others to do." I felt immediately humbled. Fifteen years on, I've never forgotten this. In my position, I can't avoid putting pressure on people to perform anymore. But as much as possible, I've learned to see if it's something I could do myself if I were in the same position. Pushing people to work harder is not management.
- scarmig 11y ago
  That's idealistic, but the logic of raw capitalism suggests otherwise. If a management philosophy increases worker stress by 500% but increases widget production by 5%, then companies that implement that philosophy will outperform, outcompete, and devour companies that don't. If one of out ten workers suffer a life debilitating injury but you can reduce the cost of that worker's injury to you to effectively zero (at least, to an amount much smaller than the additional profit you make), then you're still running a sound business. In theory public outrage might punish companies that do mistreat their workers, but, let's be real: the vast bulk of the market prefers unethically produced widgets to ethically produced ones that are 10% pricier. And even a company that sells itself on being ethical is, as likely as not, just using that as a marketing campaign to hike up profits while still treating workers terribly.
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    Luckily there are countries where unions still matter.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jahewson 11y ago
It's grossly simplistic to assume that a single person is somehow responsible for deliberately designing a known-to-be deficient system. Hindsight is always 20:20 and safety is one of those things that improves over time as accidents occur and measures are taken to prevent their reoccurance. Just think of how many safety features a modern car has: were 1980's cars criminally unsafe - no, they simply hadn't yet incorporated lessons yet to be learnt and technologies yet to be invented. There's a huge grey area too, as workers often ignore safety rules or bypass them to save time. An accident with a machine might be due to a worker failing to operate it correctly or to double-check that some mechanism is correctly engaged. It might be the fault of a mechanic who has incorrectly maintained the machine. It might be a flaw in the design of the machine, which could not be foreseen. It might be a fault with the machine due to a supplier, e.g. inferior bolts. It might be the fault of a fellow worker, who forgot to perform a safety check - should we throw them in jail? Whatever the case, the employer should compensate the worker - and do so justly - but the issue of the employer's criminal responsibility is complex indeed. From a legal standpoint it's vital to distinguish between someone who unwittingly designs something unsafe, having followed reasonable and standard practice versus someone who is negligent and actively ignores the safety of others. Criminal negligence exists and is prosecuted, but it's important to realise that accidents can and do happen.

by gnu8 11y ago

fweespeech 11y ago

I think this is unreasonable simply because industrial accidents do happen and they aren't 100% preventable, much like car accidents. There should be [large] amounts of financial compensation [like $2.5 million, or about 10x what she'd have made at $400/month for 50 years] but "most of the gross profits" and "jail time" is ridiculous. https://www.osha.gov/oshstats/commonstats.html https://www.osha.gov/oshstats/commonstats.html > 3.3 per 100,000 in the US die http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/osh_12042014.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/osh_12042014.htm > Over half of the more than 3.0 million private industry injury and illness cases reported in 2013 were of a more serious nature that involved days away from work, job transfer, or restriction (DART cases). These cases occurred at a rate of 1.7 cases per 100 full-time workers, a statistically significant decrease from 2012. http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx > Fatalities per 100,000 Licensed Drivers > 15.84 in 2012, 23.21 in 1994 There are, frankly, far more dangerous for-profit machines that people happily refrain from suggesting those sorts of penalties for.

s73v3r 11y ago
I don't think it's unreasonable. If the costs of these accidents are high, then they'll invest in making their processes safer. There is absolutely no excuse for having a machine like that in use.
- err4nt 11y ago
  if the reward for losing body parts is high, people will find a way to make it happen to collect the reward! No matter how much you reward them, it can never be so much as to ever be an incentive to somebody.
  - johnchristopher 11y ago
    Ah! But then the factory builder will be forced to build safer factories to prevent workers from injuring themselves and ruining the owners. /s
- fweespeech 11y ago
  1) 10x the lifetime salary of a worker is high. 2) Nothing is 100% reliable or safe. We are lucky to have a 1.7% rate of serious injury/fatality in the US on a full time worker per year situation. You aren't going to be able to reduce that significantly. Operating heavy machines is dangerous.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    "10x the lifetime salary of a worker is high." So? Losing a limb is huge. "Nothing is 100% reliable or safe. We are lucky to have a 1.7% rate of serious injury/fatality in the US on a full time worker per year situation. You aren't going to be able to reduce that significantly. Operating heavy machines is dangerous." And this is an incentive for employers to keep up maintenance and make sure that their workers are properly trained. And to not do what happened in this story, which is to try to get people to cut corners so they can make a couple more units.
    - Erwin 11y ago
      Would you apply this to software engineering, and if not why not? Should the engineer that was responsible for some XSS flaw 3 years ago used today to extract personal information (which in turn can be used for identity theft) be personally required to pay damages? Should a peer that reviewed and approved their code, and maybe the sysadmin that deployed it and manage who run the projects and didn't use all possible security controls?
gnu8 11y ago
Why not jail time? If someone designs an unsafe process, doesn't put guards on the machines to save a buck, or eliminates safety procedures to increase output, that is morally as reprehensible as if that person held the knife. I think it should be treated as an assault. Edit: I see this situation as more analogous to drunk driving than a simple car accident. We certainly do jail people when they unintentionally injure someone because they were drunk. It would be reasonable jail someone who prioritizes profit over human life and causes an injury as a result.
- johnchristopher 11y ago
  Isn't the whole ISO business and industry standard practices put in place to prevent that and protect everyone: workers from getting injured on the job, bosses from having to pay enormous amount of money as compensation (the insurance will kick in if the company got his ISO and stuff right) and the insurance raking in money for forcing the workplace to be safer ? (I know reality isn't that rosy but that's the objective, right ?)
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  >that is morally as reprehensible as if that person held the knife. I think it should be treated as an assault. Are you guilty for buying a cheaper produce when child labor was used to produce it? Does your knowledge of the abuse going into making it cheaper matter?
  - gohrt 11y ago
    Absolutely.
  - task_queue 11y ago
    You are knowingly and directly allowing a child slave driver to profit from your purchase. Where exactly do you absolve yourself of guilt in that transaction?

hliyan 11y ago

This is horrendous on the part of the managers: “I want you to work faster, because we need the material urgently,” he said. I screamed. Everyone around me was crying and yelling. They stopped the assembly line on the female side of the room, but the men were told to keep working. In my first year in university, before picking my specialization (computers), we had to study the basics of all the engineering disciplines, including mechanical engineering. One day in workshop class, we were given the assignment of making a nut -- a nut, from a metal block, using a hammer and chisel. After laboring at it for hours and producing completely uneven hexagon, I asked the instructor: "Why do we have to learn this? I'm studying to be an engineer. I'll never be doing this." The instructor replied, "So you will know the difficulty the tasks you order others to do." I felt immediately humbled. Fifteen years on, I've never forgotten this. In my position, I can't avoid putting pressure on people to perform anymore. But as much as possible, I've learned to see if it's something I could do myself if I were in the same position. Pushing people to work harder is not management.

scarmig 11y ago
That's idealistic, but the logic of raw capitalism suggests otherwise. If a management philosophy increases worker stress by 500% but increases widget production by 5%, then companies that implement that philosophy will outperform, outcompete, and devour companies that don't. If one of out ten workers suffer a life debilitating injury but you can reduce the cost of that worker's injury to you to effectively zero (at least, to an amount much smaller than the additional profit you make), then you're still running a sound business. In theory public outrage might punish companies that do mistreat their workers, but, let's be real: the vast bulk of the market prefers unethically produced widgets to ethically produced ones that are 10% pricier. And even a company that sells itself on being ethical is, as likely as not, just using that as a marketing campaign to hike up profits while still treating workers terribly.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  Luckily there are countries where unions still matter.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

jahewson 11y ago

It's grossly simplistic to assume that a single person is somehow responsible for deliberately designing a known-to-be deficient system. Hindsight is always 20:20 and safety is one of those things that improves over time as accidents occur and measures are taken to prevent their reoccurance. Just think of how many safety features a modern car has: were 1980's cars criminally unsafe - no, they simply hadn't yet incorporated lessons yet to be learnt and technologies yet to be invented. There's a huge grey area too, as workers often ignore safety rules or bypass them to save time. An accident with a machine might be due to a worker failing to operate it correctly or to double-check that some mechanism is correctly engaged. It might be the fault of a mechanic who has incorrectly maintained the machine. It might be a flaw in the design of the machine, which could not be foreseen. It might be a fault with the machine due to a supplier, e.g. inferior bolts. It might be the fault of a fellow worker, who forgot to perform a safety check - should we throw them in jail? Whatever the case, the employer should compensate the worker - and do so justly - but the issue of the employer's criminal responsibility is complex indeed. From a legal standpoint it's vital to distinguish between someone who unwittingly designs something unsafe, having followed reasonable and standard practice versus someone who is negligent and actively ignores the safety of others. Criminal negligence exists and is prosecuted, but it's important to realise that accidents can and do happen.