Unsafe work kills US workers

This video says about itself:

On average, sixteen workers are killed a day in the United States because of reckless negligence on the part of their employers. 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.

From an e mail by Robert Greenwald from the USA:

Dear Friends, Colleagues and Supporters,

Twenty-five West Virginia coal miners dead in the worst mining disaster America has seen in two decades. Four more missing, their chances of survival dimming by the hour.

This senseless tragedy wasn’t an act of God. It wasn’t a mere occupational hazard. In fact, the mine‘s owner, Massey Energy, was also responsible for a 2006 fire that trapped 12 miners and killed two of them, because the company had removed ventilation controls the year before and had not replaced them.

Indeed, Massey Energy has been assessed repeatedly and routinely for worker safety violations. Massey, which brought in $24 million in income in the fourth quarter of 2009, simply saw the petty fines it incurred for violations as a cost of doing business, not as a reason to act to protect its workers from injury and death. And Massey is hardly alone.

The rules that protect workers from negligent employers in this country are so weak that thousands of employers make the rational decision to just ignore them and pay the token penalties if they’re forced to. This week in West Virgina, we’ve seen the consequences of this arrangement.

We’re working to spread the word about the need to pass the Protect America’s Workers Act, which would strengthen workplace safety rules, increase fines for willful negligence that hurts workers and protect whistleblowers on the job. Please help us by becoming our fan on Facebook.

If you don’t have a Facebook account, can you help us by forwarding our petition to your family and friends?

Thanks for standing with us to protect America’s workers.

Yours,
Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Foundation team

P.S. Our blog fellow, David Dayen, is providing great coverage of this issue every week on Firedoglake. Check out his blog post on this at FireDogLake.

Want Safer Mines? Unionize Them: here.