cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5594826
By the time emergency responders arrived, the teenager was already dead. The scene was one of horror and trauma, with visibly shaken workers gathered outside the facility. Tina’s Burritos--a budget frozen food brand which markets its products with the slogan “Made in California”--has issued no public statement on the death of its employee.
That a teenager was sent into a confined industrial machine to clean it without elementary safeguards is a damning indictment of the conditions faced by millions of workers, especially the youngest and most vulnerable. These basic safety procedures have been known for decades. That they were not in place indicates that speed, cost-cutting and disregard for human life took priority. The absence of emergency kill switches, proper LOTO systems, or basic operational oversight suggests not just management negligence, but an entire economic system built on criminal disregard for workers’ lives.
The case at Tina’s Burritos follows a similar pattern as the Esparto fireworks explosion earlier this month, which killed seven workers—many of them young, low-paid laborers. Both incidents occurred in California, which despite its immense wealth and resources ranks second only to Texas in the number of workplace fatalities in the United States.
At the same time, the administration launched a campaign to normalize and expand child labor. Republican-led states across the country, emboldened by Trump’s return to power, have rolled back child labor laws and legalized the employment of minors in hazardous industries. The goal is to prepare young workers early for lives of brutal exploitation. The death of a 19-year-old janitor in a meat processing plant is not an aberration. It is a preview of what this system has in store.
When I was slightly older than this kid I worked for a Mail sorting facility. When stuff would jam we sometimes had to climb into the machine to clear the jam, doing so meant you could not hold the kill switch. We kept asking for kill toggles, not a switch you have to hold.
The dude who ran the feeder for my team was a complete idiot. He never checked to see if he could see all of his team before starting the machine. One night there was a guy clearing a jam, and idiot boy started the machine while someone was in it. It destroyed his hand, it was a scene from an 80s horror flick. They moved everyone else to other machines and that was that. I found a new job very shortly after that.
To anyone in that scenario: it is your moral duty to sabotage that machine. If cost is all that matters, make doing the right thing the least expensive option.