Every day, a worker dies somewhere just doing his or her job. And that death rate hits hard particularly communities of color and immigrants because many work in industries and jobs with low pay and very sketchy safety practices.
This is murder at work, the human "cost of doing business" in the glorious "free market"--except there is very little cost to the company. And usually the managers and CEOs skate, getting a fine or some other slap-on-the-wrist.
Those who wear the burden are the family members of the murdered worker.
In this sea of injustice, a glimmer of justice beckons from New York.
Kudos to the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance who is seeking justice for Carlos Moncayo:
With construction-related deaths and injuries on the rise, prosecutors announced on Wednesday that manslaughter and other charges were being brought against two construction managers and the companies they worked for in the April death of a worker at a Lower Manhattan building site.
...The worker who died, Carlos Moncayo, 22, an Ecuadorean immigrant who lived in Queens, was crushed by thousands of pounds of dirt when the walls of a site in the meatpacking district, steps from the High Line, collapsed around him on April 6.
Prosecutors said on Wednesday that the two managers — Wilmer Cueva, of Sky Materials, and Alfonso Prestia, of Harco Construction — had ignored repeated warnings for months from private inspectors that treacherous conditions existed at the site on Ninth Avenue.
City and federal regulations require that any excavations deeper than five feet must be shored up to prevent the walls from caving in. But in this case, at a site where a Restoration Hardware store will occupy the former home of the restaurant Pastis, the trenches went as deep as 14 feet and lacked any fortification, according to prosecutors, citing emails and other evidence.
On the morning Mr. Moncayo died, prosecutors said, another private inspector noticed a seven-foot-deep trench, and alerted Mr. Prestia, who was inside a trailer at street level and unable to see inside the pit. The inspector also notified Mr. Cueva, who was at the site, supervising work. But Mr. Cueva did not do anything initially, prosecutors said. Nor did Mr. Prestia.
By the time the pit reached about 13 feet, two hours later, Mr. Prestia told the workers, in English, to get out. But the workers, who spoke mainly Spanish, did not. Not long afterward, the walls collapsed, crushing Mr. Moncayo.[emphasis added]
So, we understand that the deaths of workers all across the nation does not usually happen in huge numbers all at once (an exception would be the
28 coal miners killed in 2010 at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, for which Don Blankenship will go on trial this Fall). Mostly, workers die alone or in small numbers so the drip-drip-drip of murder is not seen.
It's a product of two things. We have a shitty safety and health system. It's partly because of the decline in unions because, truthfully, having a union at work is your only real protection against abuse and threats to your safety and health. And that's largely because the safety and health regulatory system is piss poor.
Today, the OSHA budget is just $552 million–and federal enforcement is only $208 million--that's under a DEMOCRATIC Administration. So, the AFL-CIO found in its annual report:
At its current staffing and inspection levels, it would take federal OSHA, on average, 140 years to inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction just once. In 10 states (Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia), it would take 150 years or more for OSHA to pay a single visit to each workplace. In 28 states, it would take between 100 and 149 years to visit each workplace once. Inspection frequency generally is better in states with OSHA-approved plans, yet still is far from satisfactory. In these states, it now would take the state OSHA plans a combined 91years to inspect each worksite under state jurisdiction once.[emphasis added]
And, then, you add to that the legal regime that makes it virtually impossible to charge managers and CEOs with felonies and put them behind bars.
I've made this point about the Wall Street thieves but it's basically true about all criminality at the CEO level: we need to jail these people, take away their freedoms, take away their limos, their fine wines, their jets and their huge pay and give them hard time. You do that just a little bit and you will get some behavior to change.
Cyrus Vance is going to have a hard road to get to a conviction with jail time. But, good on him for trying.
#WorkersLivesMatter
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