Burned Alive at Work: American Workers Dying in Totally Preventable Accidents

[JHB]

8. An employer willing to devote resources to the expense of proper maintenance...

...rather than to revenue-producing aspects of the operation.

That is, willing or required by enforced regulations.


From the article:

Hindsight in the wake of dust explosions has often revealed missed warning signs. Rarely does a company develop a dust problem overnight.

“It goes along for years with the dust building up, building up, and everything’s fine, nobody’s harmed, nobody thinks anything about it,” said Sandra Bennett, an official at the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which investigated the Hoeganaes accidents. “All of a sudden, one day, boom.”

Standards to address the danger have existed for more than 85 years, but following them is voluntary for many plants. Where they do apply, enforcement is so haphazard that the association that sets the standards believes this policing duty should be placed in OSHA’s hands.

The agency seems to agree. In 2009, OSHA announced it was starting the process of issuing a rule to address combustible dust. Three years later, the process is still stuck in its early stages, and OSHA has given up on making significant progress this year, moving the topic to its list of “long-term actions.” Some experts point to key impediments OSHA faces: the potential cost of the sweeping rule, an anti-regulatory political climate and an increasingly drawn-out rulemaking process.