Thousands Die, Millions Injured On The Job, And No Businesses Prosecuted
While Wallstreet Capitalists are fretting about the increasing wealth gap and begin to worry about their security, planning to build floating cities on the oceans in the event of a global collapse, here is what the "progressive left" discusses about in these 2 videos below: workers' empowerment and protection. The very sad thing is that these speakers take themselves seriously. Though it is worth listening to them to realize how pointless they really are. Economist Joseph Stiglitz, despite the fact that he wrote a new book "Progressive Capitalism For An Age Of Discontent" is an embarrassment.
Actually the numbers of people killed or injured on the workplace is kind of staggering as we'd think that any workplace, in the West, would offer a decent level of safety net for risky jobs. Sorry, workers are being left behind by their employers who most of the time manage escaping prosecution. Hence worker's families dealing with additional difficulties to make ends meet. The blue collar jobs are the most affected by this awful injustice of course. Our system is not the cream of democracy.
But how do employers avoid prosecution? Just read the indybay.org article at the bottom to understand that it is another BIG story about corruption and corporate efficiency. But instead of paraphrasing and summarizing all these links, we ought to see beyond and comprehend that "profits seeking" inexorably leads to the same conclusion... workers and consumers end up paying the price. And Nature as well.
And what to say about Asian and Latin American low wage workers? They are the deep bottom of production and even paying much more than us in the West. globalcitizens.org contends that 45 million employed in India's textile industry, fight for a compensation for work-related injury. And this is India alone. If digging further, you will even find out that there are still sweatshops in America.
There is no "gentle capitalism". Any system that has a monopoly on value (currency) and endorses competition as a model is capitalism. In between there only are extreme or soft forms of capitalism, but long story short, they all lead to the same outcome, sooner or later. Fascism. EU is called socialist but the problems there are as bad as in America.
And without a monopoly on value, no currency based system can survive... so the only choice is a money-free society, not based on exchange nor barter, a system where people pursuit what they LOVE doing, and where PASSION about what we do self-organizes. Many might think that it is Utopia, but anybody able to see the big picture will grasp that it is the only option left out there.
Bill Black describes how OSHA's few underfunded inspectors can't do their jobs, and prosecutors don't prosecute businesses for non-compliance
Economist Joseph Stiglitz: Capitalism Hasn’t Been Working for Most People for the Last 40 Years
FURTHER READINGS
14-year-old criminal law for workplace fatalities rarely being enforced (2018)
Hunt has relentlessly fought to stop corporations from using human lives as collateral damage in the rush for profits and productivity. “After Westray, we still kill on average 1,000 Canadians a year. We call them accidents. I call it corporate murder,” Hunt said.... https://globalnews.ca/news/4703315/14-year-old-criminal-law-for-workplace-fatalities-rarely-being-enforced/
“Most employers would describe OSHA as the Gestapo of the federal government,” declared Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), one of Gingrich’s chief lieutenants in 1995. (2019) NBC reported last year that after Trump’s inauguration, OSHA “lost 40 inspectors through attrition and made no new hires to fill the vacancies as of Oct. 2 [2017],” 4 percent of OSHA’s total force.” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/exclusive-number-osha-workplace-safety-inspectors-declines-under-trump-n834806
(2018) KPFA WorkWeek Radio interviews former US OSHA Whistle Blower Protection Program investigator and lawyer Darrell Whitman. He was bullied and fired along with all the other lawyers in OSHA Region 9 WPP office in San Francisco. He exposed the criminal corrupt activities of the OSHA management and also the obstruction of justice by then Secretary of Labor Tom Perez who is also now the Chairman of the Democratic Party.
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2018/07/19/18816519.php
(2013) Work-Related Deaths Kill 150 Americans Per Day: Study
The union found that about 4,693 workers were killed on the job in 2011, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates 50,000 workers per year die from work-related diseases. Combine those numbers and you get about 150 work-related deaths per day, the AFL-CIO report found. ... Americans are 271 times more likely to die from a workplace accident than from a terrorist attack, according to an op-ed last month from Mike Elk, a labor reporter for In These Times.... About 3.8 million Americans suffer from work-related injuries and diseases each year, according to government reports, but experts estimate that number may be closer to 11 million due to underreporting, according to the AFL-CIO.... https://www.huffpost.com/entry/work-related-deaths_n_3231919