What If Executives Feared Prison Time For Health and Safety Crimes?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.labornotes.org/2011/01/what-if-executives-feared-prison-time-health-and-safety-crimes


A Day of Mourning in Oshawa, Ontario, for workers killed on the job. Canadian executives can face life in prison for egregious safety problems that lead to a worker’s death. Photo: CAW Local 222.


Jenny Brown | January 27, 2011

In the U.S., owners and managers of companies like BP, responsible for 11 deaths and 17 injuries in last year’s Gulf oil rig explosion, never face jail time for the workers they kill.

That’s not the case everywhere: Steelworkers in Canada are pressing a prosecution of managers after an untrained worker died on the job. Canadian law allows for a sentence of up to life in prison.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Act provides only for misdemeanor penalties—six months maximum behind bars—but even such minimal criminal penalties are almost never pursued.

The Mine Safety and Health Act includes harsher penalties, up to five years in prison, but enforcement is no better. Massey Energy’s Don Blankenship retired rich and free in January after two decades of evading mine safety citations, culminating in the deaths of 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia last April.

FULL story at link.

[DCKit]

1. Greater Priviledge = Greater Responsibility? In the USA? Bwahahahahahahaha!!! nt

[The Magistrate]

2. They Would Be A Damned Sight Less Common, Sir