ECONOMY  
comments_imageCOMMENTS: 20

Companies Kill 16 Workers A Day

Sixteen workers are killed a day in the United States because of reckless negligence on the part of their employers.
November 16, 2009  |  
 
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 Under existing laws, these employers get a slap on the wrist, or walk away scot-free. Meanwhile, workers who blow the whistle face threats and retaliation at the workplace. It is time to change the feeble and antiquated rules that fail to protect workers on the job. Visit 16deathsperday.com and sign the petition protecting American workers' rights.



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Robert Greenwald is the director/producer of "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," as well as many other films. He is a board member of the Independent Media Institute, AlterNet's parent organization.
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OSHA WAS CRIPPLED BY BOTH CLINTON AND BUSH
Posted by: drricklippin on Nov 17, 2009 4:16 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The agency that was among the most crippled from doing its job under law and in an anti-regulatory model of government by both Bill Clinton and George W Bush was OSHA.

Workers died and sufferred in many ways.

Toward the end of the Bush administration the head of OSHA was caught literally sleeping at his own senior level meetings.

With all that is on Obama's plate I don't expect a miracle turnaround with OSHA soon but it needs to be on his agenda.

Workers deserve much better

Dr. Rick Lippin
Occupational Medicine Physician
Southampton,Pa

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Can we have a Global War on Corporations now?
Posted by: leafsong2 on Nov 17, 2009 7:47 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Please?

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More Evidence of Serfdom
Posted by: Gravitas on Nov 18, 2009 8:12 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How ironic that new health care proposals want to let employers charge employees who don't have pharma approved acceptable weight and other numbers double the premiums for those workers. Yet corporations can blatantly put their lives and safety at risk everyday with little consequence. This makes sense only if you understand workers in the United States have become serfs who exist for the benefit of the corporate elite. However they can sacrificed is acceptable, as long as every cent is wrung out of them.

I will definitely be sharing this video and web site with students!

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» RE: More Evidence of Serfdom Posted by: Richardsievert

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Governments kill a lot more, comrades.
Posted by: November2010 on Nov 21, 2009 2:11 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You commie Alternuts are so stupid. Sixteen people a day is nothing. More people die falling down the stairs. Governments kill thousands every day, but none of you nitwits are proposing an end to government. Yeah, corporations do horrible things. Big news. Governments do much worse things (ever heard of the Holocaust, the Gulags, the Killing Fields, Hiroshima, or a small country called Rwanda?) and none of you Obama-loving bedwetters ever complain about that. You act like Burger King is the world's worst evil while China is enslaving children, Cuba is arresting and torturing people for the crime of being unemployed, Russia is ordering hitmen to whack journalists, Saudi Arabia is decapitating infidels, and North Korea is studying the effects of human specimens dying of poison gas inhalation...just because, you know, it's interesting.

Would you losers PLEASE turn off MSNBC for one minute and get a fucking library card!?

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» RE: Here is a source for you Posted by: Government Is The Beast
» Not exactly relevant Posted by: bingahaba
» RE You are absolutely correct Posted by: Government Is The Beast

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I Work For a Company that Should Fail
Posted by: edgar_michel on Nov 21, 2009 6:24 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The company I work for is called PetSmart. PetSmart has 1,097 stores nationwide. At the p[articular store work at they have trouble maintaining basic safe working conditions because lower and middle management is incapable of managing. In other words if they had their own store to manage and it was up to them to succeed or fail in their business, they would fail in short order. The people who make lower and middle management do so not because they understand how to make a business run, they do so because they parrot PetSmart policy unflinchingly. The result is that equipment is purchased that is inappropriate for the application because they really have no hands on experience or understanding of how things are made or work, critical supplies aren't purchased on time because lower and middle management are more concerned about staying under budget so that they get their bonuses rather than making sure that the workplace is adequately equipped and safe. They only thing they understand is how to please "corporate". But lower and middle management expect productivity number to go up and up and up while the working environment deteriorates.

At the particular PetSmart I work at our squeegees needed for removing standing water from the grooming salon have broken and no new squeegee has been purchased for nearly a year and the same is true for all of our supplies. We are not able to maintain hygienic working conditions because management wants to keep costs down so they can receive their bonuses. The list is long; we have no ear cleaner for the dogs we groom even though we advertise that we clean the dogs ears because management doesn't re-order supplies in time to meet need. We have kennels that have razor sharp edges that easily cut fingers that aren't remedied and when the danger is presented to management they simply say to be carefull when working around the kennels, but then they expect their employees to work quickly around such hazards, and when someone gets cut, they don't apologize, they blame the employee for being careless. We are approaching the holiday season and their salons are ill equipped to handle the business and yet they will expect their employees to beat last years numbers with old equipment that is in disrepair and dangerous and with inadequate supplies.

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» The joy of being unemployed Posted by: badkitty

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Safe Jobs Can Be Had
Posted by: melpol on Nov 21, 2009 6:32 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
An enactment of the Pay For Play bill would give over 15 million Americans jobs as Sex Workers. The strongest opposition against its passage comes from older women. They fear it would make them uncompetitive in a youth oriented culture. Sex workers would have to give 10% of their income to Uncle Sam. In return they would be given free health insurance.

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How to report spam
Posted by: bingahaba on Nov 21, 2009 10:14 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If you click on report spam, after typing in the verifying letters, don't hit enter - click on submit, otherwise it may simply give a new set of letters. Also, you may have to request a new set of letters before it allows you to successfully submit the spam complaint.

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Where are those "pro-lifers" when you need them?
Posted by: Maurice & Gerard on Nov 21, 2009 11:59 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Must be their obsession with "life" before birth.

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A corporation and bankers' coup delivered us to a neo-feudalist state
Posted by: socrates2 on Nov 21, 2009 2:05 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
leafsong and gravitas have pretty much said it all. I have been convinced since the Reagan era, a belief unabated through the W years, that ours is a government by, of, and for corporations. Anything else is pure fiction and a reassuring, thumb-sucking inner mythology.
Yes, we do in fact live in a neo-feudalist world state. And corporations as owners of all resources and (shades of Marx!) "means of production" have systematically--thanks to Supreme Court decisions and unashamedly pro-corporate legislation by our own human representatives(!)--turned us into either toadies and/or serfs.
As a US citizen, I have few illusions about the future our children will live in. The Europeans after experiencing nazism and fascism have a better grasp of economic and political history. Ergo, they have a some checks and balances in place to forestall this corporate movement and make their human feelings known.
Long live the corporate-person/bankers' coup!?

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The laws are inadequate? That's the only problem?
Posted by: truth+equality on Nov 21, 2009 4:10 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Isn't it capitalism in general. Doesn't this system create a "profits before people" mentality? All the laws in the world aren't going to fix this problem. We don't need more laws. We need a new system. Changing the laws isn't going to get to the root of the problem!

Capitalism is the reason why we have such a large and powerful State. It's why we wage wars, do business with countries and companies that use child labor and sweatshops, its why the rest of the world suffers as we drown in our excess.

Get rid of capitalism through building networks, global worker solidarity, organizing etc. We don't need the top 1% to rule the rest of us.

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» RE: Get rid of capatilism? Posted by: Government Is The Beast

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r j reynolds
Posted by: union steamfitter on Nov 22, 2009 7:35 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
how many lives do you think tobacco has taken since our government has been looking / trying to protect our health ??

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