“Nobody uses water,” one man in a Dodgers cap said in Spanish when Maria Cabrera approached, holding flyers about silicosis, an incurable and suffocating disease that has devastated dozens of workers across the state and killed men who have barely reached middle age.
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The disease dates back centuries, but researchers say the booming popularity of countertops made of engineered stone, which has much higher concentrations of silica than many kinds of natural stone, has driven a new epidemic of an accelerated form of the suffocating illness. As the dangerous dust builds up and scars the lungs, the disease can leave workers short of breath, weakened and ultimately suffering from lung failure.
“You can get a transplant,” Cabrera told the man in Spanish, “but it won’t last.”
In California, it has begun to debilitate young workers, largely Latino immigrants who cut and polish slabs of engineered stone. Instead of cropping up in people in their 60s or 70s after decades of exposure, it is now afflicting men in their 20s, 30s or 40s, said Dr. Jane Fazio, a pulmonary critical care physician who became alarmed by cases she saw at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. Some California patients have died in their 30s.
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Personal liability (piercing the corporate shield) is a really tough nut to crack. That’d also do some outsized harm- think kids college fund raided for settlement money.
That said, I’d be happy to make it a personal crime to, with knowledge of the law, instruct any worker to use a machine without safety equipment and water hookup, or to work without a mask. THAT should be a personal crime, like criminal charges. And you should have to, when hired for any such supervisory position, sign a one-piece thing that has that law laid out so you can’t claim you didn’t know the law.
In my country (Germany) as an architect or civil engineer you can be held liable, in some cases also as an employee, when deliberately or grossly negligently violating technical rules.
At the end of the day no college fund is more important than peoples lifes, but there exist liability insurance specific to certain jobs. It is similiar to doctors malpractice insurance. Expanding the concept to site supervisors seems reasonable to me.
And of course that must not except the company from liability. It should mainly take effect, when the companies liability cannot cover anymore.
Engineering and architecture are different. It’s our job to make sure the things we design bring no harm to people and we have specialized training allowing us to take that responsibility on.
Site supervisors are often tradespeople, and may not even have the authority to direct health and safety measures on their site if corporate sees otherwise. I agree, they have a responsibility to do so, but it must be started from the top with some coercion by strong regulation. Putting liability personally on supervisors just removes it from the company who likely made the decision to forego supplying water because of cost savings.
So what? That’d change real quick if site supervisors became personally liable.
Well, either that, or “corporate” would suddenly be unable to find anybody willing to do the job and go out of business. It’s a win either way!
It’s not an either-or. Put the supervisor in prison for a year; put the company execs in prison for 10. There’s plenty of criminal liability to go around!
That’s the key- deliberate or grossly negligent. If a supervisor, through deliberate choice or inexcusable gross negligence, instructs an employee to work in an unsafe manner, I have no problem making that a criminal offense that makes both the company and the supervisor liable.
This is well reasoned.
All injuries arising out of employment should fall under workers’ comp., except if the injury is caused intentionally.
Even recklessness, I think, it best suited for workers’ comp. I would make workers’ comp. benefits more robust.
I would support criminal liability for wanton or reckless conduct by coworkers.
Unlike with asbestos, the companies that mine and make the raw countertops have clearly labeled their products and warned of the risks of silicosis.