Originally Posted by
USirritated
Stop and think about it, if Massey Energy would have allowed the unions in to take care of safety issues, there would probably not be 29 dead miners in West Virginia now, and that mine would be operating, and not closed, and the mine would probably be more productive too.
There is marked difference between union and non-union mines. Union mines have safety committees who receive all the inspectors reports and share info on violations with employees. Employees who see unsafe conditions can shut things down until those conditions are fixed. In non-union mines, like the one in West Virginia, workers never see the inspection reports, never learn of the safety violations (and that company received a lot of citations), and if they see a problem and complain, they get fired. For those reasons alone, it's likely you're right and those 29 would still be alive if they were unionized (and Massey execs would still be earning money, instead of facing huge fines and possible jail time).
Are there analogies to DL? I would hope not. I'd hope (and I believe?) that any DL employee or contractor can flag safety issues without fear of reprisal.