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Comment by BadHumans | Hacker News Reader

> 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-chall...

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I 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.

> 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

> 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.

I used to work for Alcoa, a very large aluminum manufacturer. Their policies were right in line with everything you described, and it was a really good working environment. Every single first aid event was investigated so we could figure out how to do better in the future. The Swiss Cheese model was used to explain why "I've done it 1,000 times this way and never had an issue" isn't acceptable, and you must work according to the prescribed method.

It all started with their new CEO in the 80's who didn't want to talk about profits at Investor Day, and instead circled back to safety and the employees who weren't able to go home the same way they went to work.

https://davidburkus.com/2020/04/how-paul-oneill-fought-for-s...

Even now safety gets mentioned in their earnings calls. https://investors.alcoa.com/financials/quarterly-earnings/de...

Do 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.

If 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)?

Before OSHA, that didn’t work, so why do you think it will work now?

I don't know if it will work now, I'm wondering out loud why our court system isn't enough.

Because latency.

If 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?

Doesn'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.

I'd imagine that wrongful death pays out so much money that lawyers will throw themselves at you.

If it is a sufficiently clear-cut case, they might. However, no-win no-pay lawyers (the only ones accessible to most construction workers' families) rarely act in their clients' financial interest.

Typical tactics involve settling for whatever maximizes the $/hour the lawyer earns (e.g., they might take a low-ball settlement the first week instead of spending months on discovery to get to trial), and having fine print in the contract saying you have to pay for expenses regardless of the case outcome (and then racking up all sorts of expenses on your behalf, and perhaps settling for a value so low your cut doesn't cover the bills).

Poe's law

You will have trouble proving that the employer did something that caused the death. And they have usually deeper pockets so they can drag out court proceedings for a very long time.

I didn't think they'd have to do something to cause it- only allow it to happen under their watch.

Without some standard of what is "safe" each case would be an argument over the relative safety and risks in the particular situation, the knowledge and expertise of the people involved, etc.

With OSHA regulations there is much less wiggle room. "They weren't using trench boxes, as required..." leaves much less room for debate.

Does this shield from liability in some instances? Say they were using trench boxes and were still killed- is the company still liable?

Well you'd have to ask a lawyer but I think that if they were following regulations and otherwise using "reasonable and customary" safety precautions then yes. Or at least changes who is liable. E.g. if the trench box was properly maintained, properly placed, and failed, then you'd be looking at the trench box manufacturer, not so much the contractor who was using it.

You get to make that argument in court.

Before fire safety laws, fire escape ladders were made out of wood. If you lost a loved one in the fire, the company would say this was standard industry practice, and normal.

You would get no compensation.

Small players can avoid a lot of the downside risk associated with legal liability. They just go bankrupt or near enough and refuse to pay until they die. There's an example in the article. Much easier to extract a smaller fine from an operating business than millions from someone whose only asset is a social security card.

This is probably part of the reason bigger firms are often more compliant, also that executives are more exposed to personal liability as the number of workers grows, all else equal.

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