even when it's good for business. I work in a silk screen sweatshop. It's more of the toxic gas chamber type, than the kind ready to collapse on your head, but it has its fire hazards: I took the toxic fog pic at 9am, one hour after starting. It's mostly the smoke from sending 100% polyester wicking shirts with black silk screen paint through an oven to cure the paint and it was worse than the picture shows (old phone camera) and got worse as time went on. Some of it is cotton smoke, but the wicking shirts made it look like 3pm at 9am. And yes, that is a gas tank semi-perma parked amid all that dry wood. And yes, that is a bunch of dry wood stacked against the building and behind the camera is an even larger pile of dry wood stacked against trees. Anyway, I was catching the shirts out of line 7 and really couldn't look around much. Carlos is loco rápido. During the downtime between jobs, I looked over at the job across from me. They were printing the sponsors on the back for some regional branch of the Arthritis Foundation. I think Janssen was on there, along with some orthodontist and orhtopaedics? I looked at the skid they were stacking the packed boxes and then at the table and skid of shirts still waiting to be printed. It looked 80% complete. The floor boss signed off on that screw up before printing began. They let the job run to completion because the customer signed off on the art, so technically, it was correct to the customer's approval. It would have been a major point of pride if the floor boss had caught it before it started printing. Some people can't be bothered to read even when it is good for business.
What you need man, is a good ol' revolution. A real, bolshevik one, not one of those pink socialist "we want free health care for sixth child"-types. Clubs in hands, red banners, nasty things done to those ecologically careless capitalists.
Completely off subject (and I hope this isn't taken as an inability to read ), but it's been so long since I've lived anywhere where winter actually happens that seeing trees denuded by the cold just looks so strange to me.
I'm actually considering a shame campaign. Posting the pics with the name of the company and its customer list. The customer list is a lot of prominent charities. After the building collapse in Bangladesh, few want to be associated with a sweat shop. OSHA warned them to clean up the air, but like any near worthless govt agency, they didn't come by to check it out on a follow up. Someone has to die before OSHA acts.
Just thinking about the same people fucking up lives both in Bangladesh and in US makes me nauseous...
In these times of sequestration, OSHA is probably like any other federal agency - strapped of funds while ideologues cheer the downfall of government. If you really want a shame campaign, don't do it yourself. Get a media outlet involved - a newspaper or a local TV station - and then let it go viral. If you do it yourself, it may not get far and you'll be discovered and fired. If you work through a media outlet, you are more likely to succeed and they will likely protect you. The first photo is the best, but you would be better off with a clearer photo. Can you sneak a small digital camera in? Sneaking a reporter in would be even better. Good luck.
Not every state is an OSHA state. While states have to meet OSHA minimums, some states have their own agency and add more rules than OSHA has. WA has WISHA and CA has CalOSHA for example. OSHA also oversees all federal facilities like the VA hospitals even in states with their own agencies. The highest priority is given to worker complaints and they are supposed to keep the name of the complainer confidential. @Robert_S, you can file a complaint and that should generate a site visit. There are also fire codes and if they are being violated a call to the city or county "Code Enforcement" will usually also generate an inspection. The complainer is usually kept confidential but with so many local jurisdictions I couldn't say that's true everywhere. Confidentiality of workplace complainers is written into OSHA law so confidentially is more consistent with those agencies.
