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| Let's not forget the first responders who face death and injury every day |
Workers
Memorial Day (April 28) is not one of those holidays on which to give thanks
and feel good.
It is a time to be angry about the fact that nearly 5,000 people
each year are killed on the job in the United States in accidents that in many
cases were the result of management negligence.
Millions more are injured or
contract occupational illnesses. The just-published 25th edition of the
AFL-CIO’s Death on the Job annual report makes for sobering reading.
While
this day is a time to “remember those who have
suffered and died on the job,” it should also be an occasion to point the
finger at those corporations which have done the most to cause those outcomes.
A list can be found by consulting Violation
Tracker, the database my colleagues and I at the Corporate Research
Project of Good Jobs First introduced last fall.
We identified thousands of individual companies that have been hit with serious, willful and repeated violations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration since the beginning of 2010, and we linked many of those to parent companies. These large firms, which have the resources to ensure safe conditions, probably bear the most responsibility for workplace harms. Here’s a dishonor roll of big business occupational safety culprits.
BP.
The British oil giant with extensive U.S. operations is a poster boy for safety
lapses. Since the beginning of 2010 it has had to pay more than $60 million to
settlement OSHA cases — an amazing amount given the pitifully low levels at
which the agency’s standard penalties have been kept by Congress. Most of the
penalty total derived from an explosion at the company’s Texas City refinery
that killed 15 workers and injured 180 others.
Louis
Dreyfus Group. This French conglomerate is on the list because of its ownership
of Imperial Sugar, which in 2010 had to pay OSHA $6 million to settle more than
120 violations linked to a 2008 explosion at its plant in Port Wentworth,
Georgia.
Tesoro.
Criticized by the United Steelworkers for its safety shortcomings, the oil
refiner has accumulated some $2.5 million in OSHA penalties since 2010. A
report by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board cited “safety culture deficiencies” as
among the causes of a 2010 explosion at a Tesoro refinery in Anacortes,
Washington that killed seven workers.
Dollar
Tree. This deep-discount retailer has racked up more than $2 million in OSHA
penalties since 2010 because of repeated violations for piling boxes in storage
areas of its stores to dangerous heights and blocking emergency exits.
Ashley
Furniture. This retailer and manufacturer was fined $1.8 million last year for
38 willful, serious or repeated violations at a plant in Wisconsin stemming
from the company’s failure to protect workers from moving equipment parts. One
worker lost three fingers while operating a woodworking machine lacking
required safety protections. OSHA later proposed another $431,000 in fines for
similar problems at another Ashley facility.
Chevron.
The petroleum giant has been hit with more than $1 million in OSHA fines since
2010, most of that amount coming from a slew of serious violations relating to
a 2012 fire at the company’s refinery in Richmond, California.
While
remembering fallen workers let’s not forget these companies and others whose
negligence was often to blame.