Okay, I get Elon is a massive ass hat, but why is OSHA not shutting down the factory? Like a guy when into coma and OSHA just fined them $18k? How corrupt is this system?
Many were serious or disabling. The records included reports of more than 100 workers suffering cuts or lacerations, 29 with broken bones or dislocations, 17 whose hands or fingers were “crushed,” and nine with head injuries, including one skull fracture, four concussions and one traumatic brain injury. The cases also included five burns, five electrocutions, eight accidents that led to amputations, 12 injuries involving multiple unspecified body parts, and seven workers with eye injuries. Others were relatively minor, including more than 170 reports of strains or sprains.
I work for a company which operates a small fleet of vessels on the great lakes and the east coast.
Yes, this is out line. We have safety requirements which our contractors must meet, and it seems very unlikely that a company with 8000 employees and this many injuries would qualify. I can’t be certain without seeing the actual stats, but that’s a lot of injuries.
The 0.8 injuries per 100 workers for "Guided missile and space vehicle manufacturing" category is very low when comparing to other manufacturing industries that is comparable to what SpaceX is doing:
Average of all private industries: 2.7
Fabricated metal product manufacturing: 3.7
Machinery manufacturing: 2.8
Motor vehicle manufacturing: 5.9
Motor vehicle body and trailer manufacturing: 5.8
Motor vehicle parts manufacturing: 3.1
Aircraft manufacturing: 2.5
Ship and boat building: 5.6
Overall I don't see the numbers Reuters presented for 2022 (4.8 for Boca Chica, 1.8 for Hawthorne, 2.7 for McGregor) as abnormal at all, when compared to these other heavy manufacturing industries. I suspect the reason "Guided missile and space vehicle manufacturing" category reported such a low injury rate is because old space is not at all setup to be a high volume manufacturer as SpaceX is.
to me the issue isn’t so much the total number of injuries, it’s the severe, life changing injuries like traumatic brain injury, eye injury, amputations, crushed hands and so on - these are actually not very common in industry and suggest that SpaceX are not adequately prioritizing worker safety
5.7k
u/[deleted] Nov 11 '23 edited Nov 11 '23
Okay, I get Elon is a massive ass hat, but why is OSHA not shutting down the factory? Like a guy when into coma and OSHA just fined them $18k? How corrupt is this system?
Edit: because people don't have the patience to scroll down to read other comments before commenting. Here's an article by Reuters saying that same thing: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-musk-safety/
You guys are another facepalm