12 responses to “Some Sobering Figures Regarding Workplace Safety”

1. 

   wr

   April 28, 2013 at 1:28 pm

   And yet all we hear from the right is how terrible the fascist jackboot of the gummint regulatory bureacuracy is, and how it destroys business. If the Tsar hadn’t apparently fallen to the Bolsheviks, he’d be saying this right now.
2. 

   Gustopher

   April 28, 2013 at 2:33 pm

   And, if the response to workplace “accidents” caused by a violation of OSHA regulations was prosecuting the managers for negligent homicide, then this lack of regulators wouldn’t be as much of a problem.

   But we don’t even bother enforcing the weak laws we have after the fact.
3. 

   Ben Wolf

   April 28, 2013 at 2:56 pm

   But in its blind unrestrainable passion, its wear-wolf hunger for surplus labour, capital oversteps not only the moral, but even the merely physical maximum bounds of the working-day. It usurps the time for growth, development and healthy maintenance of the body. It steals the time required for the consumption of fresh air and sunlight…. All that concerns it is simply and solely the maximum of labour-power that can be rendered fluent in a working-day. It attains this end by shortening the extent of the labourer’s life, as a greedy farmer snatches increased produce from the soil by reducing it of its fertility.
4. 

   KariQ

   April 28, 2013 at 3:37 pm

   Freedom!

   In my experience, most conservatives would tell you that this is a good thing and we should be glad that the government can’t tell more businesses what to do. In fact, the only problem is that we still have the iron hand of government holding down poor, oppressed business owners.
5. 

   Ben Wolf

   April 28, 2013 at 3:42 pm

   Not really on topic, but for some reason this comes to mind:

   http://www.thersa.org/events/rsaanimate/animate/rsa-animate-crisis-of-capitalism

   An excellent way to spend ten minutes.
6. 

   mantis

   April 28, 2013 at 4:41 pm

   Let the market work it out. If people don’t want to get goods and services from companies who use unsafe practices and kill workers and/or customers, those businesses will suffer. The market works.
7. 

   wr

   April 28, 2013 at 6:18 pm

   @mantis: “If people don’t want to get goods and services from companies who use unsafe practices and kill workers and/or customers, those businesses will suffer. The market works. ”

   For those who remain alive.
8. 

   mantis

   April 28, 2013 at 7:14 pm

   @wr:

   For those who remain alive.

   It works for the dead too. Sacrifices are necessary to keep the market running in proper order. The machine has no pity.
9. 

   Steve Z

   April 28, 2013 at 10:53 pm

   Has anyone considered whether state regimes have occupied some of the space that federal OSHA programs previously did? I know CalOSHA has a presence in California, but I have no idea how those agencies interact or whether that may account for the reduced federal presence. Anyone know?
10. 

    mantis

    April 29, 2013 at 10:19 am

    @Steve Z:

    I know CalOSHA has a presence in California, but I have no idea how those agencies interact or whether that may account for the reduced federal presence.

    States can start their own OSHA system that replaces the federal oversight if they meet the requirements. 22 states have done this. So effectively, CalOSHA is the only OSHA for California. It performs the same function that the feds would do if California hadn’t started CalOSHA. So the state agencies don’t really pick up the slack from the feds, they replace the feds entirely.
11. 

    J-Dub

    April 29, 2013 at 10:29 am

    OSHA employed 2950 people. In 2006, it employed only 2092 people, despite the near doubling of the size of the workforce

    That’s some interesting math.
12. 

    mantis

    April 29, 2013 at 10:42 am

    @J-Dub:

    I think it means the overall US workforce.