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Comment by trollied | Hacker News Reader

I'd imagine they're silent regarding it because 1) it's an active safety investigation 2) legal will be involved 3) it's frankly nobody else's business, seeing as it's a private business

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OSHA incidents probably don't fit the "nobody's business" pattern, in the same way major breaches like the one that happened at Uber don't.

Is this meant to say, if it's an OSHA involved incident, it should be made public knowledge?

I'd remove the word "should". OSHA incidents create public records. They are, by definition, our business.

I was not actually aware these incidents were made public record, so TIL. For this specific instance, here is a link for any interested. https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detai...

Essentially all public functions that create records create, by definition, public records. There are exceptions, but they're much narrower than you'd expect. You're entitled to demand copies of the records that federal agencies collect, and those records are created with the expectation that they can be produced on demand. Most agencies do a reasonable job of making things overtly public, so you can just download them. But even if they don't, you can just FOIA them.

>”2) legal will be involved”

In court, an apology, even something as simple as saying “sorry”, can be used as an admission of guilt. It behooves them to say as little as possible.

I mean #2 is obviously correct but that shouldn't make the public feel any better. Precisely because there are downsides (including legal and political) for announcing incidents they will only do so if they have to.

> that shouldn't make the public feel any better

The incident was reported to a federal agency. I’m not sure I’d want my medical history publicly aired if I were injured at work.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-cabadas-during-this-diff...

The family started a public GoFundme page. I think its clear that it is in the interest of both the family and labor at large to get stories about workplace injuries to the public.

It's interesting to note that the family has changed the main picture to remove any overt SpaceX references.

Workplace safety violations are absolutely society's "business."

> frankly nobody else's business, seeing as it's a private business

Uhh, wut? How many people have to die inside a private business before it does become other peoples business. And how do you know if you've got your blinders on.

>3) it's frankly nobody else's business, seeing as it's a private business

It is however a private business taking public money. If a government was pumping millions of dollars into a company that was producing an unsafe work environment resulting in injury and death (not saying that is the case) but I think the public has a right to know.

I pump money into a lot of local businesses, and yet they never send me workplace safety reports.

That's OSHA's job, not SpaceX's. And I don't think you can take a single incident and use that to determine if a workplace is safe or not. Especially considering the context of it being a rocket factory.

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