The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently announced the Top 10 most frequently cited workplace safety violations for 2019. What were they?
Workers at meat and poultry plants suffer some of the highest rates of occupational injury. In his 1906 book, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair wrote of the occupational dangers within Chicago’s meat processing plants. A hundred years later, food processing plants still function as if human labor and lives are expendable.
Chicago is famous for the meat-packing industry. In Alabama, these plants are typically chicken processing plants. They are places that employ people at low wages and expose them to non-stop processes. You don’t need me to tell you that many of these plants have a shameful history of workplace injuries and deaths. The numerous news stories already tell that history. Too many of these plants view people as cheap and expendable labor. But, that’s NOT how we should value human lives.
Over the last twenty years, I’ve represented numerous workers injured in Alabama poultry plants. Shoulder, arm and hand injuries are rampant. The assembly line moves too fast for any human to work long-term without injury. Yet, it’s more than just rapid assembly line injuries. The lack of safety concern also produces many injuries from falls, forklifts, and heavy lifting without proper equipment.
Last year, a flash fire at an Alabama car dealership in Jasper killed one employee and severely injured several others. What caused that fire? Flammable chemicals being stored improperly. After the flash fire, OSHA inspected the dealership and issued several serious citations for improperly storing a flammable chemical in a dangerous location. Plus, OSHA cited the dealership for not even developing a hazard communication program for its dangerous chemicals.
For the families of these dealership employees, no penalty or punishment will ever restore their loved ones. Hopefully, OSHA’s action will spur other local companies to take needed safety steps.
Does your workplace handle chemicals safely? For me, the question is front and center. Why? I’ve spent several days this month in deposition over a Huntsville injury case involving the issue.
Is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) failing American workers? Are workplace safety standards actually decreasing? Are more workers suffering personal injury or death due to fewer inspections? These are important questions.
Recently, A Congressman wrote the Secretary of Labor to address his concerns with declining workplace safety. Here are a couple facts about the rising rates of serious injury that concerned the Congressman:
Workplace horseplay is not simply harmless fun. Horseplay can lead to serious accidents and injuries. What if I suffer an injury in a horseplay incident at work? Can I get workers’ compensation benefits if injured in horseplay? In Alabama, horseplay can bar a claim for workers’ compensation benefits. It’s a serious issue that prevents you from recovering needed workers’ compensation benefits. If you were hurt in the workplace and an issue of horseplay exists, you should consult a skilled workers’ compensation attorney who has been through trial in these claims. Your benefits can depend upon it.
Are there situations where you can still recover workers’ compensation benefits if injured by horseplay? Yes. Situations do exist where horseplay injuries may still be compensable. A primary situation involves workers who are the innocent victims of horseplay.
Several years ago, I tried just such a case. What happened in that case? My client drove a truck for a large parcel delivery service. He drove an overnight route across Alabama. His company had a hub in central Alabama where he often stopped for fuel. The company supplied both gas and mechanics at that location. One night he stopped at the hub for fuel. As he sat and waited for his truck to be fueled, a mechanic suddenly jumped on him from behind. My client suffered a torn rotator cuff in the incident. The mechanic who caused the accident did not intend to hurt my client. Rather, this mechanic had a long history of dangerous horseplay in the workplace. Other employees had previously complained. Yet, for some reason, the employer did nothing. After the injury, the employer denied my client’s workers’ compensation claim on the grounds of horseplay. That’s where we became involved. In that case, the client was an innocent victim. We were able to win his benefits in court. If you are truly the innocent victim of horseplay, your claim should be honored.
A couple years ago, the Discovery Channel’s Mike Rowe set off a firestorm of commentary on the role of safety in the workplace. Rowe stars in the Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs. Following one episode a viewer called him out for not wearing proper safety gear. How did Rowe respond? Rowe called the “Safety First” slogan a bunch of “nonsense.” He also responded:
In the jobs I have seen thus far, I can tell you with certainty, that safety, while always a major consideration, is never the priority.
Never. Never, ever. Not even once.
I’ve previously expressed my criticism (disgust) of efforts by a few Alabama Legislators to strip workers of the minimum protections provided by our work comp laws. Every year, the same few legislators try to gut the Alabama Workers’ Compensation Act. This small group usually starts by introducing bills to cut benefits for the most disabled. Cutting benefits for totally disabled workers. Shifting medical benefits (and costs) from their rich insurance friends who collected premiums to taxpayer-funded sources. Preventing benefits from being adjusted to increased costs of living. These few legislators forgot the working men and women who built our communities.
Today, I want to talk about workplace safety. The true cost of workplace injuries and disabilities is borne by the injured workers and their families. The legislature could really make an impact on the number of workplace injuries by pushing companies to make their worksites safer. From top to bottom, our legislature could make safety an important issue to all. However, this is not the concept of safety used in Alabama’s Workers’ Compensation laws. Instead, our laws place almost all the burdens of safety on the front line worker and NOT the company or its management. Why is worker safety a one-way street where the worker bears all the burden and most of the cost?
Let me give you three examples to prove my point:
Alabama Injury Lawyer Blog