The British Petroleum oil rig that blew up last week, killing 11 workers, is now spreading oil over a massive area in the Gulf of Mexico… “Drill Baby Drill”,one of the campaign slogans from McCain’s presidential campaign, is not looking quite so catchy. It’s too bad Obama caved into oil interests recently and authorized more off shore drilling.
This comes on the heels of the Massey Coal Mine explosion that killed 29 miners a few weeks ago.
What do these two events have in common? Both British Petroleum and Massey Coal were nonunion work sites.
As economist Teresa Ghilarducci writes:
In 2009, four years after a BP explosion in a Texas refinery that killed 15 workers and injured 170, the Occupational Safety and Health administration imposed the largest fine in its history—$87-million on British Petroleum. BP also paid billions in criminal charges and civil claims for the accident: $50-million in criminal fines for violating the Clean Air Act and over 4,000 claims from a $2.1-billion claims fund.
Why does this company still operate in this country? How many more workers does it have to kill?
In my economics classes, I teach the economics of health and safety. The two-minute version has the same conclusion as the two lecture version: If it is cheaper for the company to kill workers than it is to safeguard the workplace so they are not killed, workers will be killed. Unions and hefty government fines would raise the price of killing workers. Both Massey and BP work sites were nonunion. And the rate of unionization in this nation is at a all time low: 7.2 percent.
No other developed nation has a weaker labor movement than the United States and this country kills more workers per year than most.
Even these numbers are suspect. And the United States, unlike other rich countries, does not count fatalities due to occupational disease as a fatality. Seven countries impose safety obligations upon either directors or senior managers of companies—Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Japan, Canada, and Australia—while the United Sates imposes none.
The U.S. Department of Labor classifies on-the-job fatalities as misdemeanors, even if the employer was negligent by willfully failing to follow OSHA safety standards. The maximum civil penalty OSHA can levy for a safety violation is $70,000, and the maximum prison sentence for a willful violation of a safety standard that leads to a worker’s death is six months. Six months.
Check out Fair Warning for direct commentary on corporate health and safety practices.
These workplace fatalities are not accidents of nature; they are caused by the Congress’s and the president’s failure to regulate and protect workers who attempt to unionize
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I believe no company nor any individual would want such a loss not only in people’s lives but also investment. Nevertheless, accidents and disasters happen. The issue of repetitive occurrence in one company may of course suggest a faulty safety system, incompetence of the workforce and staff, or just mere coincidence. I hope the concerned agencies will help identify the real causes and propose a good solution to the problem.
The oil spill in the gulf is undoubtedly one of the most terrible events of our current millennium. While September 11 was constrained within that small space of ground zero, this oil spill has effects all the way out across the ocean, impacting innocent animals, long stretches of coast as well as industry of the southern USA. I really hope that this atrocity is solved as soon as possible.
Quebec immigration law enforcement have said they’re going for the crooked agencies that receive peoples money with no. immigration officials are going after them with jail terms of a year as the prevention, this is excellent news for anyone wishing to emigrate, how many of them agencies exist?
Oh my god,This oil spill will be go down in history as the one that ruined the Gulf of Mexico and polluted most of the East Coast beaches as well.
This oil spill is really destroying too much of our gulf, I feel terrible for New orleans
I’m just disgusted by this disaster. Where can I find an realistic assessment of the true size of the oil released? The information are all over the place. Thanks for your interesting post.
Well, the nightmare of the Gulf oil desaster is really a burning question. Your article is noteworthy contribution to this bloody oil desaster. One has to look at it in depth. In fact I do not agree with some minor things all in all Im fully on your way. I am looking forward to coming development, which eventually brings help and slows down the oil problem.