California workers who cut countertops are dying of an incurable disease
California workers who cut countertops are dying of an incurable disease
The booming popularity of countertops made of engineered stone has driven a new epidemic of silicosis, an incurable lung disease, researchers have found.
“Nobody uses water,” one man in a Dodgers cap said in Spanish when Maria Cabrera approached, holding flyers about silicosis, an incurable and suffocating disease that has devastated dozens of workers across the state and killed men who have barely reached middle age.
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The disease dates back centuries, but researchers say the booming popularity of countertops made of engineered stone, which has much higher concentrations of silica than many kinds of natural stone, has driven a new epidemic of an accelerated form of the suffocating illness. As the dangerous dust builds up and scars the lungs, the disease can leave workers short of breath, weakened and ultimately suffering from lung failure.
“You can get a transplant,” Cabrera told the man in Spanish, “but it won’t last.”
In California, it has begun to debilitate young workers, largely Latino immigrants who cut and polish slabs of engineered stone. Instead of cropping up in people in their 60s or 70s after decades of exposure, it is now afflicting men in their 20s, 30s or 40s, said Dr. Jane Fazio, a pulmonary critical care physician who became alarmed by cases she saw at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. Some California patients have died in their 30s.
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So much victim blaming in this thread.
Depends on what you're used to. Some people fight using PPE when they really shouldn't be fighting it. It's a difficult nut to crack since too much force from corporate over stupid safety shit fatigues workers to that kind of shit. Finding the right balance isn't easy.
If you improperly use a knife and cut your finger off, is it the knife's fault? Improperly using a tool or process can and will cause problems.
And yet if you cut your finger off at work the employer is still liable for workers' compensation.
If they aren't using a mask at home when they are making countertops as a hobby, fine, that's on them. But they are at work.
An employee-employer relationship is born of a contract, a bargained-for exchange of labor for money, and with it an employer has a right to control. If the employer fails to exercise that right in order to protect its workers, such as by failing to compel PPE, the employer is more culpable than the employee. The employer could have taken the step of firing an employee who won't comply with PPE in order to protect the worker, such an employer is therefore doubly culpable, in my view. It's that element of compulsory control over the means and manner of work, including the employer's right to terminate an employee who won't use PPE, which excuses the employee from responsibility for resulting injuries.
The knowledge is out there and common, the machines come built in with hoses to damper the material. Run the hose. Wear a damn mask. It's not hard.
I'm not going to feel especially sorry for folks who choose to not use safety equipment.
You know for a fact each and every machine is hooked up to water at all times? And every one of them runs perfectly or use of the machine is discontinued until it does? Every time without fail?
The hoses and proper masks need to be mandated as official PPE so that companies are required by law provide them.
Exactly. It is funny that the same people here who make fun of people who died of COVID because they willfully didn't wear a mask, wash their hands, and get the vaccine. Well this ain't that different. The process is there. The tools exist. Do the job right. You aren't smarter than the engineers and scientists who developed these processes and wrote the safety instructions. Your stubbornness is not an excuse.
That's not wrong, but you missed the part where the workers are employees.
They have sold the right to control the means and manner of their labor to their employer. It is the employer's job to demand compliance, and the employer's right to fire employees who do not comply for their own good. When a worker doesn't comply and ends up sick, the employer has thus failed twice, the worker only once.
If the employer was not responsible, the employer could acquiesce to unsafe work, reap the financial benefits of the workers' negligence, and then disclaim the damage caused just blaming the worker.
The employer has the right to control the means and manner of an employee's work, it must exercise that right in a way that isn't knowingly harmful to the worker. To do otherwise would be a bad faith breach of the employer-employee contract of hire.
Hide behind whatever bullshit you want, these workers knew the proper way to do things and didn't do it. They fucked around and found out.
Per the article, the workers didn't know. The employers didn't tell them of the dangers or provide the necessary safety training/equipment. From the article:
"Dust was everywhere, he said, and he was given only a dust mask — one he said was inadequate for the job — to protect himself. Sometimes he brought a hose and tried to attach it to the machine to reduce dust, but there were no machines dispensing water as they were cutting, he said."
"Segura Meza had never heard of silicosis before he was diagnosed."
All these products have MSDS available. Every last one of them. And because of stupid "machismo" bullshit, the vast majority of these dopes wouldn't use safety equipment whether it was provided or not.
It isn't enough to have an available MSDS. I've just watched some mandated training videos on this actually. OSHA requires the following (in addition to other unlisted things):
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Workplace hazards need to be clearly communicated. This includes a translation into the language that the workers generally speak, if necessary.
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MSDS don't just need to be regularly available, the workers also have to be trained in reading them and where they are.
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The employer must provide PPE that is in working order and fit to use. Workers need to be trained in how to use these as well.
It isn't enough to say that the workers should have known. The employer has significant responsibilities above and beyond that. Even if the workers don't know about the PPE or don't want it, the company has to still provide it. The workers have to know that PPE is required for the work, why it's required, and what could happen without wearing it. Most places I've worked wouldn't even let you into the field nor a lab unless you met the requirements. It's hard to say what's company culture vs legally mandated however here -- everywhere I've worked, someone would blanche and yell at you if you walked in with just your plain clothes. Even if the employees scoff at safety, the law doesn't change. I suspect this is why employers typically make it company policy to wear the proper PPE -- that, and the heightened scrutiny if something does actually happen.
Funny enough, almost all of this is based on those required trainings I mentioned. Part of the training is informing workers of all this.
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