Mother of Gabriel Infante, 24, sues employer for $1m, saying construction workers had no protections from extreme heat

  • grte@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    57
    ·
    1 year ago

    Working someone until they die of heatstroke should be a murder charge, not risk losing a damned business license. What a sick society.

    • MoonshineDegreaser@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      You’re absolutely right. However there were rules and amenities put in place way before we were born

      I’ll give you an example. When I worked as a utility locator, I caught a GC’s team doing HARD drugs on a construction site. I reported it to the county. Nothing happened. Same team, same habits. I would speak to the GC directly about their teams, and they didn’t care.

      A week passes and the entire site is roped off with police tape. A heavy machinery operator from that team ended up running a cleaner over in one of those JLG cherry pickers with the monster truck tires. Turns out he had meth and thc in his system. He was fired. No charges towards the individual or the GC because it was chalked up to a workplace accident.

      Now why were they able to get away with that you ask? GC’s have to maintain state and county contracts and they even do work for the counties and states. They literally have all the power when it comes to construction. The only real way to get a GC shut down is if there are multiple accidents resulting in an unusual number of injuries or death. But even then, that’s usually when the feds and OSHA get involved

      • meat_popsicle@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Doesn’t hurt that the GCs will often just lose envelopes full of cash around where certain regulators, investigators, and politicians live.

        It’s just by accident - those envelopes are just too damn easy to lose.

        • MoonshineDegreaser@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          AND when they do get caught in something of that nature, they don’t really shut down. They change the company name under a new license and then magically get all the contracts that the previous company had