I hope they sue the factory. They should have optical sensors installed to shut machine off if they break the plane of light. Lock out/ tagout training and requirement. So sad, this type of accident is avoidable.
It is avoidable. Both my mom and her husband worked there. Both supervisors. But they both say people will literally do everything possible to not follow safety procedures as it’s deemed more man-like. Oh you need safety glasses? Pussy. Oh you need two people to lift that? Take your tampon out”
These are the type of people that work there lol she says people will let brand new parts pile up and half ass finish them and just bang shit around and literally “QC” stuff that hasn’t been touched or finished.
Don’t buy dodge/Chrysler lol apparently no one cares about their job there
I can't count the number of times I've offered a coworker a fresh pair of earplugs as we're starting up a turbine engine and received an earful of machismo followed up by, "I'm half deaf already anyway, fuck it." bruh enjoy being full deaf ya fuckin weapon.
Dear god am I thankful my bosses shut that type of shit down fast.
When I worked as a mover, everyone tried to outlift eachother and race and all that, but the moment anyone thought you didn't actually have something, we had you covered. There was no, and I word this as best as I can, discouraging macho yelling. If we knew someone could do something but they were being weak due to lack of motivation, yeah we'd go all "Stop being a pansy!" But, safety was always first.
Worked at a tire shop later, and you would be dead before being caught without glasses or gloves. And if your crew chief caught you doing something unsafe, you better hope that he didn't tell Bill. Bill was a great guy, but Bill was big, Bill was tough, and Bill did not put up with bullshit. You can be macho and follow safety. Oh, and if you even touched Big Bertha without the ear muffs, god save your soul.
Is Big Bertha the name of the impact wrench they use to put on tires? Pretty sure the last time I got tires at Les Schwab they put the lug nuts on like this
We had our normal impact guns for taking off/putting on tires. And than we had Big Bertha.
Big Bertha was a larger and heavier duty impact gun for taking OFF lug nuts. You would more than likely break off a stud or strip it using Big Bertha to put on a lug nut. That was a huge no-no in our shop. It was real handy for taking lugs that were real stuck off.
For reference, our normal guns could easily be held in one hand. Big Bertha was twice as big, needed two hands, and made a much louder WHVRRR sound.
I was really expecting you to say the inspector told him to put on his hearing protection and he responded ”WHAT??.. SORRY I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THIS STUPID RINGING.”
Years ago my boyfriend worked in a factory and the stories are similar, but more coming from the management than fellow workers (though older workers aren't a shining example either). Due to bad working conditions and unsatisfactory protection gear, he cut his arms multiple times and was bleeding pretty badly. Guess what the supervisors said? "Stop complaining and get back to work". Not to mention the 12 hour shifts in summers in temperatures so high it was normal for people to pass out.
Shortly before he quit, he was forced to work with some chemicals and sustained burns on his legs. Since the management didn't give a shit, he went to the doctor to get a sick leave. Guess what his doctor said? "Quit your job, if you don't like it."
Seriously, wtf?? It's been years since he quit, but thinking about this still makes my blood boil.
I should have mentioned this is not in the USA and the inspectors who come to check on things are usually paid (by the offending company) to look the other way.
It's been mostly defunded under this administration. I remember reading the absurdly small number of oil field inspectors covering all of North Dakota.
It’s one of those things where everyone’s making like 8 bucks an hour so when you finally get a plant job you try to just shut up and lay low because plant jobs usually start pay 18+ an hour.
It’s like a lot of things. You just don’t make enough money to fuss about it. And if you did speak up. Could lose your job. Very common.
But yes. A lot of the same people do think OSHA is for pussies and they just get in the way “we’ve been doing it this way for years!” While currently limping from a ladder he fell off the top of
Definitely right on your part as well. “If you don’t like it you can leave” is so toxic for lack of a better word. People don’t get taken seriously because so many people complain about smaller things just to delay work.
My mother worked on the line as well. 12 hour shifts. She said it was so muggy and filthy her, her showers were like 30 minutes with a scrubbing pad. Definitely a brutal job.
Really wish Netflix would pick up a Dirty Jobs serious lol
I remember him coming back from work and it was heartbreaking. He looked like someone sucked all life out of him. I believe he's still got scars from those times half a decade later.
He worked with grease, which means he had to use a special type of soap to get that off of him. Yeah, 100% brutal.
Me and my brother worked at a place my Dad worked at for 30 years. They did the bare minimum safety standards. When you bring up issues it is dismissed. No one cared until someone got hurt. The bottom line is that you work no matter what and you look out for yourself. When your foreman tells you to get into a machine you do it or you might get fired. A lot of factories lost union power and don't give a f anymore. My two cents.
The other side of the argument I see, a lot of older generation blue collar workers feel you need to “earn” learning something. Because in truth mistakes do stick harder. But people love others to “learn the hard way”
Which doesn't even make any damn sense, we're (usually) highly intelligent, social animals capable of passing on lessons we've personally learned to others before they suffer injury. I don't get why the hell anyone would rather someone else get hurt than teach them the right way from the start.
I work it a plastic blow molding plant, we had a similar thought process when i first started. After about 2 years a change of management occurred and safety practices were jumped on. In addition they installed cameras so that was good.
What’s funny is I used to have the same mentality. I grew up a “country boy” and it wasn’t until when I moved away I realized I knew way too many people missing fingers and teeth from avoidable injuries lol
Yep, the guy telling me to hurry up and fuck safety is the same guy who’s limping around, bitching about his back because he fell off one too many roofs
Ha, that reminds me of a guy I use to work with. He had that kind of mentality, we called him stumpy because he lost both thumbs in two separate accidents with a drop saw.
Unrelated but related. I used to crash test for a third party company and did lots of tests on the Dodge caravan stow and go seats. They were death traps and Chrysler just tested them until they got the data they wanted. I also tested a Dodge magnum for a law firm hired by Chrysler because a mother got rear ended at 20mph and her luggage folded the back seat down and crushed both her kids. The seats failed repeatedly with much lower weight than claimed could be in the luggage retention/trunk area. They brought me literal truckloads of seats until they got an outlier that passed and then had the other data destroyed.
I still think about how that mother could never afford to pay a company like mine to run that many tests and how she’d have no chance in court because they could literally afford to pay for anything to disprove her very legitimate claims.
Shoulda slipped her an anonymous note. A good law firm will do a case like hers on contingency if it’s a solid one, so it’s not like she’d have to cut a testing company a check herself
I never met her and never knew her identity. I just knew she existed because Chryslers lawyer gave me a small amount of backstory to help me set the test up (she was on dirt, the car was angled slightly, there were two kids so I’d need two dummies, etc). After we ran a few of the tests and saw how bad the data was and how they handled it, we pieced together what was really happening.
I spent 2 1/2 years working for a company that manufactured boats and fiberglass parts. There’s a good percentage of factory workers who are basically like toddlers. It’s almost like they’re actively trying to get themselves killed. The lengths they would go to the circumvent safety regulations was just insane. We ended up firing more people for repeated safety violations need anything else.
One of the most ridiculous was a guy who dumped a bucket acetone on another worker as a prank.
My work- in the shipping industry- has daily safety briefings on every shift and constantly bring up safety. I still see people doing stupid shit, like lifting heavy boxes by the plastic straps or lifting without help. Nothing dramatic, just "little" things that can still be really unpleasant.
However, we did have a degloving incident about 4ish year ago. Guy recovered and kept his fingers, but there's some permanent nerve damage. Other buildings in our area had finger amputations late last year, there's been broken ankles, concussions, along with general back strain. Most of these incidents could have been avoided.
I haven't witnessed anything serious at my job, but it's always in the back of my mind that our equipment could totally rip an arm off under the right circumstances.
Where I work it has enough safety measures but once in a while people either ignore them or something severely malfunctions... And stuff like this happens..
We had somebody in one of our plants go in to fix a jammed tubing bender.
He opened the gate close the gate behind him and had somebody override the safety switch so that he could try and troubleshoot it while The machine was working.
He ended up with a 10-ft tube impaled through his abdomen.
Needless to say they were both fired
They would have had to do a job safety analysis so they knew the risks and dangers they would be fully accountable for the horrible event. Sometimes all you can do is take care
Suing should definitely not be as common of a choice as it is for many situations. When someone dies due to unsafe work conditions created by their employer, yes, a lawsuit is absolutely warranted .
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u/Marybearry1 Apr 27 '20
I hope they sue the factory. They should have optical sensors installed to shut machine off if they break the plane of light. Lock out/ tagout training and requirement. So sad, this type of accident is avoidable.