• Geetnerd@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    My hometown is famous for stonework. Gravestones, mausoleums, etc. Slabs of granite weighing tons are moved around on cranes, over the heads of workers, suspended by thick nylon straps that fray over time. Straps that are not replaced until they are much too close to snapping.

    Whenever someone would get inevitably injured, or killed, the town “Powers That Be” industry agency would scramble to inform the owners of businesses to prepare of OSHA’s arrival. And most times, OSHA wouldn’t show up at all, due to “under staffing.”

    I worked in this industry briefly in my mid 20’s. I saw live wires in puddles of water, no hard hats, no steel toed boots, or respirators to avoid silicosis. My high school girlfriend’s father died from being crushed by a stack of slabs tipping over, and crushing him, from the waist down. No one knows how long it took for him to die, they found him a few hours after he didn’t come home.

    10 years after I left that nightmare, I saw a guy I worked with then missing a hand. It had to have been crushed between 2 slabs.