Comment on a colleague’s work #1

U.S. Government Blog is right in their post, “Ignorance That Lead to The Death of 25 Innocent Lives.” In West Virginia 25 mine workers were killed mainly due to people looking the other way when there were issues about safety. Safety is number one and shouldn’t ever be ignored.

When lives are at stake everything that is possible to prevent accidents from happening. There were plenty of violations that had been reported and no one had taken care of them, as they should have. That isn’t acceptable at all. These workers have families and they are just trying to pay their bills. They should know that going to work each day will end with them going back home to their families. It’s not too much to ask for.

There are safety rules and ways to go about reporting concerns; the problem is that workers are discouraged from reporting problems. They don’t want to be “that guy” and a majority of the time they will lose their job for reporting something that looks unsafe or that could potentially be a problem. They need the job and they can’t afford to be let go, so they keep their mouths shut and go to work even when they know it isn’t safe.

They’re right, “Coal can be produced economically and safely using industry and government standards.” Safety is the number one concern and workers need to feel safe and know they are still going to have a job after stating a safety concern. They shouldn’t ignore safety violations just because they don’t want to close down in order to look into the problem.