There's Safety in a Union
Michael C. Moynihan | December 2, 2008, 12:22pm
Well that didn't take long. Just a few days after the death of a Wal-Mart employee in Long Island, following a stampede of psychotic "Black Friday" shoppers, a spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, longtime nemesis of the behemoth from Bentonville, was already exploiting the tragedy. CNN has details:
The union is calling for an investigation "by all levels of government" to ensure justice for Damour's family and make sure that such an incident never happens at Wal-Mart again.
"If the safety of their customers and workers was a top priority, then this never would have happened," said Patrick Purcell, a projects director for the local UFCW. "Wal-Mart must step up to the plate and ensure that all those injured, as well as the family of the deceased, be financially compensated for their injuries and their losses. Their words are weak."
The UFCW has long been a harsh critic of Wal-Mart's, arguing that the world's largest retailer offers low wages and poor health care for its workers and pushes competitors and suppliers to do the same or go out of business.
It is true, in its way. Perhaps the UFCW could argue that had the Long Island Wal-Mart been a union shop, wages would be much higher, as would be the price of the products on its shelves—thus potentially preventing the crush of bargain hunters.
In other Wal-Mart stampede news, the
New York Times refers to the death in Long Island as a "shopping Guernica," comparing the trampling death to a Nazi bombing raid during the Spanish Civil War. And
according to the Times, it was all rather predictable anyway, because big business like Wal-Mart are controlling our minds and making us kill for plasma televisions:
It was a tragedy, yet it did not feel like an accident. All those people were there, lined up in the cold and darkness, because of sophisticated marketing forces that have produced this day now called Black Friday. They were engaging in early-morning shopping as contact sport. American business has long excelled at creating a sense of shortage amid abundance, an anxiety that one must act now or miss out.
I wrote about the history of anti-big box hysteria
here.
R C Dean | December 2, 2008, 2:18pm | #
They didn't provide adequate crowd control procedures outside the store, and the mob turned ugly when the mad rush ensued.
Apparently, the cops looked over the situation and thought no additional "procedures" were needed.
The mob didn't riot. There was a rush, and somebody got trampled.
To my mind, a mob that breaks down locked doors and kills someone is close enough to a riot, but whatever.
Rushes happen frequently at open gate events, particularly at sales like this. There's a link upthread about people getting hurt at one.
But locked doors getting broken down? No links about that. And out of how many "sales like this" is someone hurt? I think that foreseeability should be a tough sell here, but of course juries love hindsight.
There are many such circumstances [in which a store should be held responsible for crimes committed against store property and employees on its premises].
Such as? Generally speaking, a criminal act, such as breaking down doors and stomping someone to death, is an intervening cause. It is generally not negligent or a breach of a legal duty to fail to prevent someone from committing a crime. I'll need some specifics here, joe.
The general duty clause [of OSHA]. Employers aren't required just to follow the letter of the law when regulations are promulgated; they're required to operate their businesses in a safe manner.
Not exactly. That clause states: "Each employer shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from
recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees."
And so we are back to foreseeability, only more narrowly, as it pertains to harm to employees. So, how many employees have been harmed by crowds at "rush sales"?
And, of course, there is the additional question of whether the hazards to which OSHA applies include criminal acts by third parties. I don't believe it does, but feel free to provide a citation to the contrary.
joe | December 2, 2008, 4:34pm | #
Pro Libertate | December 2, 2008, 4:12pm | #
joe,
OSHA, workers' comp insurers, good sense, and concern for ones fellow man (or, at least, in maintaining an effective work force) all contribute to companies providing safe work environments, without any union involvement whatsoever. I'll take the self-interest of unionss, and the self-interest of employers seeking to avoid union problems, over the "good sense" and "concern for ones fellow man," thanks.
I'll table the question of whether a lot of government regulation is necessary in the safety arena, but it is another reason that a union's likely contribution to a net improvement in safety is negligible, something I expect you'll acknowledge. Pass. The safety practices mandated in union contracts didn't get there because of the common sense and concern for ones fellow man and the perceived self-interest of employers who had no worries about their workers.
Also, worker safety is surely at an all-time high, despite unions being a much smaller part of the workforce than in most of the preceding century. Yes, the safety practices that were originally mandated by unions became widespread. Yay, unions! Also, the growth of office-jobs and decline of manufacturing, mining, and other manual labor played quite a role, too. Safer work is safer.
OtherMatt
I don't know how me being a union skier would somehow make that better. Wow, you are a stupid individual. How many times have I written about working conditions and practices?
Maybe if it put it into a skiing metaphor, the World's Dumbest Troll can even understand it: if you were a union skier, and your management was sending you down their mountain, you could negotiate to make the run safer, for better bindings, and for a well-equipped and -staffed ski patrol.
Other Matt | December 2, 2008, 5:11pm | #
What? Apparently, the anti-union peole who OtherMatt reads told him that unions don't ever make noise when something bad happens as a unions shop.
Actually, joe, I'm pretty much union neutral. I don't particularly like "card check" due to the inherent abuse that it would cause, and I don't see any problem with secret ballots.
I also believe unions in the past had a lot to do with political views changing enough to pass something such as OSHA. It means well, and has resulted in some safety improvements, but also has resulted in bizarre regulations which increase costs and have no benefits. Further, when OSHA shows up after an accident, their main focus seems to be to institute fines rather than prevent a future accident. Then again, I've dealt with the beast known as OSHA first hand, as well as MOSHA, and various state incarnations thereof. Fortunately it's never been a situation where any of my companies have been on the foul end of it, but I've seen how they work.
As to the point, I said that if instead of a worker being killed, a shopper was trampled, the union wouldn't give a shit, nor would you. I also said you must agree with this, as you've never given any coherent response.
If WalMart was union, and the worker killed was union, you wouldn't see this chest beating bullshit either by you or any union about how safe unions make things and how there needed to be investigations. There would be sorrow expressed, which I referred to as typical platitudes.
As I said, you sound tired, perhaps Ep needs to bring you another Sobe?
Fluffy | December 2, 2008, 5:44pm | #
I just don't get this. Is the idea that it's impossible for a company to be responsible for decisions its managers make, when those decisions are negligent? Is it the idea that negligence can exist?
If a construction company oversaw employees stand in a pit they knew was going to be filled with gravel, would the commentators on this site scoff at the idea of management responsibility?
"No one knew the gravel was going to fall!"
"Sure, blame management. It was the gravel that killed them!"
"Look at how many construction sites don't have their employees stand in pits that are going to be filled with gravel. Therefore, this particular company is also above rebuke."
What?
This is almost abysmally stupid.
This situation is in no way even remotely analogous to your hypothetical situation.
It would be more apt to compare it to a construction company that told its workers to go stand at a given work site - and then terrorists crashed an airliner on to that work site.
"The company is responsible! They should have stopped that airplane! They should have anticipated that terrorists crash planes into things, and had a plan in place to protect their employees if that happened! Blah blah blah blah blah, whenver anyone is hurt it's always the fault of the guy who can pay the biggest settlement! Wah!"
Unless your good or service directly deals with protecting people or property from lawbreaking [like a security company or a bank or a safe company or a bodyguard firm] you should have no liability for harms caused by acts undertaken by people committing crimes. That's my first problem with claims of liability for Walmart.
My second problem, and the one that doesn't require you to be a libertarian like me to accept it [which I can see as a potential problem with my statement about problem #1] is that the police came to the store, spoke to the crowd, decided the situation was in control and wasn't a hazard, and left.
A finding of criminal negligence requires the state to prove that the store managers should have known that the crowd was a hazard, should have known that one of their employees was about to be hurt, but did nothing. And although joe and I have haggled over the minutaie of this issue, I just don't see how the state can argue that the store managers should have known the crowd was a hazard moments after the state's representatives determined that it wasn't.
I have this problem with other findings of employer liability. For example, in the area of background checks. In many cases, an employer can be held liable if they hire a parolee and place him in particular employment situations where he commits another crime. I have never understood how this can be, when a grant of parole is a statement by the state that a person is not a hazard and is fit to be released into the population. Why should I be expected to anticipate that a person will be a hazard when there's been an affirmative statement by the state that he is not and will not be?
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