Risking your life for $9.00 an hour

[marvin martian]

The Democrats, Republicans and Presidents could change this? How? The GOP controlled the Congress for so long. How could Biden or Democrats have stepped into this?

Conservatives and MAGA GOP hate OSHA! Hate safety regulations. It's to them "The Deep State"

read up on the history of OSHA -- who attacks OSHA for decades.


Murder of OSHA -- Killed under Trump/Musk

The DemoKKKrats controlled BOTH houses of Congress and the White House for two years while this was going on, and never mentioned it.

Why not?

 

[initforme]

Just more reason to never go above and beyond on a job.

 

[JohnDB]

If their workers are illegals, that can be dealt with.

OSHA is a Federal government organ. Surely the State has a counterpart agency, also "responsible" for monitoring safety in its workplaces.

How does the safety record compare with other similar businesses? Although I have only done real work a few times in my life, I saw things that I considered unsafe on all of them, OSHA be damned. OTOH, I saw OSHA complaints result in quick and decisive changes in the workplace.

Consider also that every employer must obtain Workmens' Compensation insurance for its workers, and the worse the safety record is, the higher the premiums. If this company is as bad as claimed, how are they dealing with the WC issues?

YES.....absolutely.
State occupation safety and health agencies are more strict with rules than the Federal Government. Which is why I liked working Federal Jobs as the rules were less strict.

Alabama has their own occupation safety protocols....however....Alabama doesn't even have enough Electrical inspectors to inspect every construction site.
(For whatever reason)
So....there is that too.

 

[Captain Caveman]

"Causing the death of a worker by willfully violating safety rules is a misdemeanor under federal law. The maximum sentence is six months in prison, less than the penalty for killing an endangered animal."

crickets from USMB Magatoids.

But run with a bogus screed against Faucci and fleas and dogs...

Happened under Biden's watch.

 

[Dante]

Happened under Biden's watch.

already addressed stupid attacks like yours:

The Democrats, Republicans and Presidents could change this? How? The GOP controlled the Congress for so long. How could Biden or Democrats have stepped into this?

Conservatives and MAGA GOP hate OSHA! Hate safety regulations. It's to them "The Deep State"

read up on the history of OSHA -- who attacks OSHA for decades.


Murder of OSHA -- Killed under Trump/Musk

Tell the GOP controlled House to go against a company and support OSHA?

Biden's labor department tried. Hey, what about OSHA and the Labor Department. Do they still exist under Trump/Musk?

"The agency tried “to use all of the resources we have, all the tools we have” in its pursuit of the lumber mill, said Jim Frederick, who was the No. 2 official at OSHA and a deputy assistant secretary at the Labor Department (under BIDEN), until January."

Under Biden:

Since at least 2003, federal safety inspectors have fined the company nearly $5.3 million. They issued more than 180 citations for health and safety violations, accusing the company of knowingly ignoring workers’ safety “for monetary gain.” A quarter of the violations were deemed “willful,” the most severe category. Phenix Lumber workers told inspectors that they were routinely instructed to put their hands into the jaws of stuck machines to clear jams — without first cutting the power, a clear hazard. And the machines were in such bad shape that they regularly broke down.

Who has been against strengthening OSHA, trying to dismantle it?

 

[initforme]

Why get rid of worker protections?

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Put a face to the man who MAGA belittles trying to make it about Biden in order to deflect from what conservatives and MAGA against OSHA and the Labor Dept want to do -- make this more likely to happen in more places.

"Kill OSHA" "Slay the Labor Dept!"


View attachment 1079559

James Streetman, a 67-year-old maintenance worker, was killed in an accident at the Alabama lumber mill

Why was he still working at that age?

 

[initforme]

Meat packers should be making double their wages, or walk off the job.

 

[initforme]

In this case thr student thing yo do is simply shut the company down without due process. Close the doors forever.

 

[hadit]

The Democrats, Republicans and Presidents could change this? How? The GOP controlled the Congress for so long. How could Biden or Democrats have stepped into this?

Conservatives and MAGA GOP hate OSHA! Hate safety regulations. It's to them "The Deep State"

read up on the history of OSHA -- who attacks OSHA for decades.


Murder of OSHA -- Killed under Trump/Musk

If one president can kill OSHA, another could have beefed it up. Quid Pro Joe failed, full stop.

 

[hadit]

This man lost his life. Why? Profits over safety.

View attachment 1079561

The workplace accident he was involved in was preventable. Like Trump and MAGA, the owners believed they could ignore the law, the rules, and laugh at everybody.

Are you forgetting this happened while Quid Pro Joe was running things? This is on him, clearly, yet here you are, parroting away...

 

[hadit]

Happened under Biden's watch.

You weren't supposed to notice that, gets in the way of the narrative.

 

[initforme]

Nobody should be working for anything close to $9 per hour. Not even a kid.

 

[Woodznutz]

There are lots of places like this in America, meatpacking plants especially, staffed primarily by migrants doing all the dirty work, where you risk your fingers or other injuries daily, but apparently this place is the worst for injuries. I don't know if that is true, they are a small plant, there are bigger ones in the heartland with over a thousand workers where injuries are common but easier to hide amongst a larger workforce. Being a union shop means employers will take safety far more seriously than a non-union shop, mainly because of their responsibility in the event someone is hurt.

I was a retail meat cutter for 15 years. Sadly, those large plants have all but eliminated what was a wonderful trade. And yes, I did some 'dirty work' as well, cut myself only once seriously, my own fault. I knew an old meat cutter that cut some of his fingers off on the band saw, but he was drunk much of the time, so no one was surprised. The most frequent problems were back strains from lifting.

 

[leftwinger]

The Democrats, Republicans and Presidents could change this? How? The GOP controlled the Congress for so long. How could Biden or Democrats have stepped into this?

Conservatives and MAGA GOP hate OSHA! Hate safety regulations. It's to them "The Deep State"

read up on the history of OSHA -- who attacks OSHA for decades.


Murder of OSHA -- Killed under Trump/Musk

It's in ALA son. Let them handle it. Not my business what they do.

 

[leftwinger]

Nobody should be working for anything close to $9 per hour. Not even a kid.

Not you call what companies pay. You cause the rest of us inflation. Stop meddling. Let them get another job if they don't like it. Or go home. Put unemployed citizens to work.

 

[MarathonMike]

Phenix Lumber was the deadliest workplace in America over the past five years.

Remind me again who was President during this time? Oh yeah Biden. I guess he was too busy taking care of 10 million illegals than to care about worker safety.

 

[Meathead]

There are lots of places like this in America, meatpacking plants especially, staffed primarily by migrants doing all the dirty work, where you risk your fingers or other injuries daily, but apparently this place is the worst for injuries. I don't know if that is true, they are a small plant, there are bigger ones in the heartland with over a thousand workers where injuries are common but easier to hide amongst a larger workforce. Being a union shop means employers will take safety far more seriously than a non-union shop, mainly because of their responsibility in the event someone is hurt.

With Trump in charge now, Federal regulators will be called off. It's open season for employers.



The police lieutenant sounded unnerved as he stepped inside the old lumber mill. The power was off. The giant saws were quiet. But the smell of fresh sawdust still hung in the humid summer air. In the darkened factory, sunlight streamed through jagged holes in the rusted metal walls as Lt. Marc Cutt walked across a machine that turned logs into lumber.

“Has it been rendered safe?” Cutt asked another police officer as his body camera recorded the scene.

“Safe is a relative term in this place,” the officer responded.

The police knew this place well. So did federal safety inspectors.

At Phenix Lumber Co., workers had lost fingers, broken bones and been mangled by machines — at least 28 employees had reported injuries since 2010, at a company with only about 50 people on the payroll at a time. Three had died. A medical examiner’s report detailed how just 23 pounds of one employee was recovered after he was caught in a machine. It had reached the point, some former workers said, that they would pray before the start of their $9-an-hour shifts.

Phenix Lumber was the deadliest workplace in America over the past five years. No other office or factory posted a higher rate of work-related fatal incidents per worker, according to a Washington Post analysis of Occupational Safety and Health Administration fatality reports since 2019. The analysis examined deaths by workplace location, rather than by company, using OSHA data on fatalities investigated by the agency, which generally does not cover small farms or federal workers.

OSHA is tasked with ensuring that American work environments are safe. “There’s no way to characterize the history at this workplace as acceptable,” the agency said in a statement.

The story of Phenix Lumber — drawn from thousands of previously undisclosed documents and recordings obtained by The Post, along with interviews with officials and former workers and managers — shows the limits of OSHA’s powers. It cannot shut down companies even after years of repeated violations and penalties, even when workers die. It even lacks the power to ask a judge to do so.

It can request a shutdown from the court only in rare cases of “imminent danger,” such as a looming roof collapse. Causing the death of a worker by willfully violating safety rules is a misdemeanor under federal law. The maximum sentence is six months in prison, less than the penalty for killing an endangered animal. In the past five years, OSHA sent fewer than 50 cases to the Justice Department for a criminal review, records show, and it’s unclear how many of those were prosecuted.

The agency tried “to use all of the resources we have, all the tools we have” in its pursuit of the lumber mill, said Jim Frederick, who was the No. 2 official at OSHA and a deputy assistant secretary at the Labor Department until January.

Since at least 2003, federal safety inspectors have fined the company nearly $5.3 million. They issued more than 180 citations for health and safety violations, accusing the company of knowingly ignoring workers’ safety “for monetary gain.” A quarter of the violations were deemed “willful,” the most severe category. Phenix Lumber workers told inspectors that they were routinely instructed to put their hands into the jaws of stuck machines to clear jams — without first cutting the power, a clear hazard. And the machines were in such bad shape that they regularly broke down.

OSHA twice forced the company into a program for what regulators deemed “the worst of the worst employers.”

“This must stop,” they repeatedly warned the mill’s owners — one of the wealthiest families in eastern Alabama.

But nothing ever seemed to stop Phenix Lumber. It kept churning out millions of board feet of southern yellow pine for the construction industry from its sawdust-covered valley on the edge of town.

Now, in August 2023, the two police officers reached a red tarp covering a doorway, according to body-cam footage. One of them pulled the tarp aside and pointed. Just below a small balcony stood an auger — a giant metal corkscrew set in an open-faced chute to move wood chips. An hour earlier, James Streetman, a 67-year-old maintenance supervisor, had fallen in while the auger was spinning. Or the auger had unexpectedly kicked on as he stepped across it. No one yet knew. Streetman’s spine was shredded, liver ejected, heart never found, according to an autopsy.

WaPo

Apparently OSHA wasn't doing a very good job.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Were illegal aliens working ar Phenix Lumber?

They drive wages down, so I'd bet on yes.

 

[EvilEyeFleegle]

Were illegal aliens working ar Phenix Lumber?

They drive wages down, so I'd bet on yes.

Interesting how you always blame the worker..is it not the company's fault?
They did the hiring..and they set the wage...yet I seldom hear anyone from the Right blame the company..why is that?