“OSHA wants to hold Wal-Mart accountable for a standard that was neither proposed nor issued at the time of the incident,” said David Tovar, a Wal-Mart spokesman. “The citation has far-reaching implications for the retail industry that could subject retailers to unfairly harsh penalties and restrictions on future sales promotions.”
...
OSHA officials acknowledge that the agency is seeking to establish for the first time that an unruly crowd is an occupational hazard that can cause death or serious injury — and that employers must therefore develop plans to protect workers against such a hazard.
It's a fine from a policy change after-the-fact: so it's a retroactive fine.
WalMart does everything it can to fuck over its employees just so they can make a teensy bit more profit in the short term. Oh, and if you unionize? They close the whole fucking store.
That's incredibly illegal and pretty easy to prove they shut down the store in response to unionization. Unless all the managers take a shit in the middle of the floor and declare it a health hazard or something. We've had a few companies in the local area try to promote every single employee to salary and called them management, even though they were making less money on salary. Yeah that didn't fly.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
“OSHA wants to hold Wal-Mart accountable for a standard that was neither proposed nor issued at the time of the incident,” said David Tovar, a Wal-Mart spokesman. “The citation has far-reaching implications for the retail industry that could subject retailers to unfairly harsh penalties and restrictions on future sales promotions.”
...
OSHA officials acknowledge that the agency is seeking to establish for the first time that an unruly crowd is an occupational hazard that can cause death or serious injury — and that employers must therefore develop plans to protect workers against such a hazard.
It's a fine from a policy change after-the-fact: so it's a retroactive fine.
No, it's not. Read the thread.
Edit: I'l even put the explaination here, to make things easier - OSHA is holding Walmart accountable under a regulation that has been on the books for years, which says that they have a duty to do everything they can to mitigate a known hazard. While this may be the first time that a stampeding mob is being held as a known hazard, it's not like this is just coming out of left field.
WalMart does everything it can to fuck over its employees just so they can make a teensy bit more profit in the short term. Oh, and if you unionize? They close the whole fucking store.
That's incredibly illegal and pretty easy to prove they shut down the store in response to unionization. Unless all the managers take a shit in the middle of the floor and declare it a health hazard or something. We've had a few companies in the local area try to promote every single employee to salary and called them management, even though they were making less money on salary. Yeah that didn't fly.
You're right - it's incredibly fucking illegal. The two times that Walmart did it (once in the US, once in Canada), they were eventually found guilty. But it took years for those rulings, and by the time they came down, it was cold comfort for the people Walmart shafted.
WalMart does everything it can to fuck over its employees just so they can make a teensy bit more profit in the short term. Oh, and if you unionize? They close the whole fucking store.
That's incredibly illegal and pretty easy to prove they shut down the store in response to unionization. Unless all the managers take a shit in the middle of the floor and declare it a health hazard or something. We've had a few companies in the local area try to promote every single employee to salary and called them management, even though they were making less money on salary. Yeah that didn't fly.
You're right - it's incredibly fucking illegal. The two times that Walmart did it (once in the US, once in Canada), they were eventually found guilty. But it took years for those rulings, and by the time they came down, it was cold comfort for the people Walmart shafted.
I imagine they would have to pay out years of wages though in response to that. Not only that, I'd say that future dealings with wal-mart should opt down to the employees if it's a case of unionization automatically. Just because a douchebag will pretty much always be a douchebag.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
But things like this are a problem where I work
Pictures of a pile of trash
Yes it's a pile of trash I have no idea what is going on but there are days it piles but and no one picks it up
What the fucking fuck, don't people know how to throw trash down the goddamn compactor chute?
The doors are padlocked for some reason
Really no one knows why they are or is being vague and stupid.
What I find funny is we had a rash of accidents two weeks ago {a bookcase fell on me} and they posted signed all over the place saying if our concerns about safety were not being addressed to call the ethics line. The Edoc and state labour board have a file cabinet about our store I only found this out because of a certain manager and his rather racist attitude
Yes it fell on me punched a dime sized hole in my back I thought it just bruised me but when I took my shirt off my brother pointed to the dried blood
I have heard that someone controls the temp at work Corporate level is what I heard supposedly it's -10 from what it is outside so if it's 70 something at night and that rather large parking lot rids itself of the heat it's an oven inside
That seemed the case early Friday at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, on Long Island, where the Nassau County police had to be called in for crowd control about 3 a.m., and an officer with a bullhorn pleaded for order.
Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault.
This seems like a problem of police incompetence or lack of resources, and the individual members of the mob more than anything. The police were called... where did they go?
Okay Loren, the incompetent police are nowhere to be seen and no one is controlling the unruly mob. People have been trampled on Black Friday before so you know there's a risk of it happening here.
Do you
A. Tell some unlucky minimum wage earner to go open the door
or
B. Maybe wait for the police to show up and the mob's calmed down
Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault.
Witnesses and the police said the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, of Queens, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him.
So the crowd BROKE THROUGH the closed (possibly not locked, though) doors?
That seemed the case early Friday at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, on Long Island, where the Nassau County police had to be called in for crowd control about 3 a.m., and an officer with a bullhorn pleaded for order.
Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault.
This seems like a problem of police incompetence or lack of resources, and the individual members of the mob more than anything. The police were called... where did they go?
Okay Loren, the incompetent police are nowhere to be seen and no one is controlling the unruly mob. People have been trampled on Black Friday before so you know there's a risk of it happening here.
Do you
A. Tell some unlucky minimum wage earner to go open the door
or
B. Maybe wait for the police to show up and the mob's calmed down
All of the stories I've read on this have indicated that the mob broke in through the doors. None of them have indicated that "some unlucky minimum wage earner" was told to open the door. I wonder where you get your information from. This story indicates that "just before the store’s scheduled 5 a.m. opening" the doors were destroyed by the crowd.
That seemed the case early Friday at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, on Long Island, where the Nassau County police had to be called in for crowd control about 3 a.m., and an officer with a bullhorn pleaded for order.
Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault.
This seems like a problem of police incompetence or lack of resources, and the individual members of the mob more than anything. The police were called... where did they go?
Steps were clearly taken, the police were called and were apparently there long enough to use a bullhorn.
That seemed the case early Friday at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, on Long Island, where the Nassau County police had to be called in for crowd control about 3 a.m., and an officer with a bullhorn pleaded for order.
Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault.
This seems like a problem of police incompetence or lack of resources, and the individual members of the mob more than anything. The police were called... where did they go?
Steps were clearly taken, the police were called and were apparently there long enough to use a bullhorn.
Yeah...do you understand the principle of due diligence?
Yes, its not like there haven't been serious trampling incidents on prior Black Fridays....
The question has always been about whether OSHA has the right to redraw the line of due diligence ex post facto.
If this shit is so goddamn obvious, OSHA should have explicitly stated as much before the event. You know why it didn't? Because it wasn't obvious.
Again with the silly goosery. Just because a regulation doesn't have a bright line doesn't make it ex post facto. This point has been explained several times in the thread.
And I'm sure you forsee all the totally-obvious-in-hindsight incidents that will happen in the future, too.
If there is a huge mass of people who desperately want to get in somewhere, and the doors are made of fucking glass, it is pretty goddamn obvious that the doors could easily break and someone could get trampled. This does not require hindsight. Goose.
Again with the silly goosery. Just because a regulation doesn't have a bright line doesn't make it ex post facto. This point has been explained several times in the thread.
Even OSHA says that they are seeking to establish for the first time that unruly crowds are an obvious occupational hazard regulatable under its general-duty clause. Did you even read the damn article?
Oh man, a regulatory body that lacks common sense. That's something new <---sarcasm.
Every black friday sucks because instead of stores taking steps to minimize violence (namely a ticket system), they perpetuate it by keeping people in the dark, lines that aren't managed, etc.
Again with the silly goosery. Just because a regulation doesn't have a bright line doesn't make it ex post facto. This point has been explained several times in the thread.
Even OSHA says that they are seeking to establish for the first time that unruly crowds are an obvious occupational hazard regulatable under its general-duty clause. Did you even read the damn article?
So, the first one's free?
Or maybe the concept of the general duty clause is to say that businesses are required to watch trends and incidents, and plan accordingly? And when they don't, they are liable for being negligent?
Guys at my Home Depot got pushed over and stepped on routinely on Black Friday. Luckily they weren't injured. I wasn't very surprised when I heard someone finally died in the human stampedes.
Had there been a trampling prior to this one, wherein an employee was injured? Wal-Mart or not. I'm going to assume "yes."
Why didn't OSHA address the issue at that point, rather than waiting for something so extreme as a death to occur? If OSHA was acting like "first one's free," why should Wal-Mart assume they'd be any different?
And I'm sure you forsee all the totally-obvious-in-hindsight incidents that will happen in the future, too.
If there is a huge mass of people who desperately want to get in somewhere, and the doors are made of fucking glass, it is pretty goddamn obvious that the doors could easily break and someone could get trampled. This does not require hindsight. Goose.
You and Bowen should team up to write a list of these obvious things!
And you know what? I bet you'll miss at least one, even if it has occurred before sometime in the history of modern civilization. And I think you know that you'll miss at least one, too. But you don't see the problem in expecting all employers to be goddamn omniscient?
Everything is obvious in hindsight. Christ, people, this is one of the most basic biases that our monkey brains have. Learn to recognize it sometime.
Ronya either lives in a rich ass neighborhood or has never gone shopping on black friday.
I've seen people come out with bloody faces after getting hit/elbowed at one of these events in more than one instance.
Anyone who has been at one of these crazed events (including the stores!) would know that this sort of stuff does not end well. It never does.
Maybe I'm just old and have seen plenty of stuff in my day, but I don't think it hindsight even comes into play with stuff like this. Ask anyone who has worked on black friday - it gets dangerous.
It is also notably different than a console release where you don't need to run to the aisles and be first.
SkyGheNe on
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
And I'm sure you forsee all the totally-obvious-in-hindsight incidents that will happen in the future, too.
If you've ever been to one of these door buster black friday sales you would know that a trampling was an EASILY predictable event.
I did a Best Buy in 2008 and was surprised there wasn't a goddamn stabbing on the line. The mass of people stretched several blocks by 2AM and the horde was downright fucking feral by the time the doors opened.
Deebaser on
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Ronya either lives in a rich ass neighborhood or has never gone shopping on black friday.
Valley Stream is a pretty rich neighborhood, despite it's, you know WalMart.
But yeah, Ronya has no fucking clue Re: Black Friday. this has literally NOTHING to do with hindsight. Anyone that couldn't have predicted that combining a large mass of sleep deprived people competing for maybe 3 dozen $99 BluRay players could lead to a death or two should not be taken all that seriously.
Customer mayhem at post-Thanksgiving Day sales has been a fairly common occurrence in the last 15 years, but the casualties were fairly minor. The crowd in front of the Long Island store was unruly before the doors opened and Wal-Mart had called the police. They left minutes before the stampede, leading legal experts to ask: If this was a foreseeable incident, why did the police leave?
which neatly explains why AngelHedgie's quoted account says that there were no police officers in sight, despite having used a bullhorn earlier. The police came came. Then they left!
As I said before I've worked black friday, 3 times actually before I stopped working in retail (also the launch of 2 major consoles at one of only two stores in a city of 100,000 people that carried them). The target I worked at took extraordinary steps to insure safety during events when a crowd gathered, the LOD (manager) in all cases made it clear that the store would remain closed if people were in anything other than a line and it worked
I'm not sure that's the only viable solution or if that would have worked here but, ffs the fact that there aren't trampling deaths at every wal-mart is an indication that other stores take more proactive measures and do see it as a threat
Customer mayhem at post-Thanksgiving Day sales has been a fairly common occurrence in the last 15 years, but the casualties were fairly minor. The crowd in front of the Long Island store was unruly before the doors opened and Wal-Mart had called the police. They left minutes before the stampede, leading legal experts to ask: If this was a foreseeable incident, why did the police leave?
which neatly explains why AngelHedgie's quoted account says that there were no police officers in sight, despite having used a bullhorn earlier. The police came came. Then they left!
Perhaps it was the police department's fault then, I don't know. What I do know is that it's a good thing that OSHA is finally making this an issue. Maybe Wal-Mart shouldn't be fined by them, but this definitely needs to be on the books
i remember the 24 hr superwalmarts last year basically just let people in and congregate around the sale items in plastic wrap and had employees guarding them and put in charge of handing them out when the clock turned over
from what i hear it was quite a pleasant event
dlinfiniti on
AAAAA!!! PLAAAYGUUU!!!!
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
If they aren't breaking up a keg party, Nassau County Cops know jack shit.
Perhaps it was the police department's fault then, I don't know. What I do know is that it's a good thing that OSHA is finally making this an issue. Maybe Wal-Mart shouldn't be fined by them, but this definitely needs to be on the books
Yes, it should be on the books, and as a regulation, not a "guideline" which is all the OSHA has issued on crowd control even now.
Perhaps it was the police department's fault then, I don't know. What I do know is that it's a good thing that OSHA is finally making this an issue. Maybe Wal-Mart shouldn't be fined by them, but this definitely needs to be on the books
Yes, it should be on the books, and as a regulation, not a "guideline" which is all the OSHA has issued on crowd control even now.
I weep for society that it even has to be a regulation
Fuck's sake people, saving $20 on a toaster isn't worth it
Posts
It's a fine from a policy change after-the-fact: so it's a retroactive fine.
That's incredibly illegal and pretty easy to prove they shut down the store in response to unionization. Unless all the managers take a shit in the middle of the floor and declare it a health hazard or something. We've had a few companies in the local area try to promote every single employee to salary and called them management, even though they were making less money on salary. Yeah that didn't fly.
No, it's not. Read the thread.
Edit: I'l even put the explaination here, to make things easier - OSHA is holding Walmart accountable under a regulation that has been on the books for years, which says that they have a duty to do everything they can to mitigate a known hazard. While this may be the first time that a stampeding mob is being held as a known hazard, it's not like this is just coming out of left field.
You're right - it's incredibly fucking illegal. The two times that Walmart did it (once in the US, once in Canada), they were eventually found guilty. But it took years for those rulings, and by the time they came down, it was cold comfort for the people Walmart shafted.
I imagine they would have to pay out years of wages though in response to that. Not only that, I'd say that future dealings with wal-mart should opt down to the employees if it's a case of unionization automatically. Just because a douchebag will pretty much always be a douchebag.
Really no one knows why they are or is being vague and stupid.
What I find funny is we had a rash of accidents two weeks ago {a bookcase fell on me} and they posted signed all over the place saying if our concerns about safety were not being addressed to call the ethics line. The Edoc and state labour board have a file cabinet about our store I only found this out because of a certain manager and his rather racist attitude
Yes it fell on me punched a dime sized hole in my back I thought it just bruised me but when I took my shirt off my brother pointed to the dried blood
I have heard that someone controls the temp at work Corporate level is what I heard supposedly it's -10 from what it is outside so if it's 70 something at night and that rather large parking lot rids itself of the heat it's an oven inside
Okay Loren, the incompetent police are nowhere to be seen and no one is controlling the unruly mob. People have been trampled on Black Friday before so you know there's a risk of it happening here.
Do you
A. Tell some unlucky minimum wage earner to go open the door
or
B. Maybe wait for the police to show up and the mob's calmed down
Nation & World Article.
So the crowd BROKE THROUGH the closed (possibly not locked, though) doors?
All of the stories I've read on this have indicated that the mob broke in through the doors. None of them have indicated that "some unlucky minimum wage earner" was told to open the door. I wonder where you get your information from. This story indicates that "just before the store’s scheduled 5 a.m. opening" the doors were destroyed by the crowd.
Yes, its not like there haven't been serious trampling incidents on prior Black Fridays....
Again:
Steps were clearly taken, the police were called and were apparently there long enough to use a bullhorn.
Yeah...do you understand the principle of due diligence?
The question has always been about whether OSHA has the right to redraw the line of due diligence ex post facto.
If this shit is so goddamn obvious, OSHA should have explicitly stated as much before the event. You know why it didn't? Because it wasn't obvious.
Again with the silly goosery. Just because a regulation doesn't have a bright line doesn't make it ex post facto. This point has been explained several times in the thread.
If there is a huge mass of people who desperately want to get in somewhere, and the doors are made of fucking glass, it is pretty goddamn obvious that the doors could easily break and someone could get trampled. This does not require hindsight. Goose.
Look up the BrandSmart trampling incident. Then look at when it happened.
Even OSHA says that they are seeking to establish for the first time that unruly crowds are an obvious occupational hazard regulatable under its general-duty clause. Did you even read the damn article?
Every black friday sucks because instead of stores taking steps to minimize violence (namely a ticket system), they perpetuate it by keeping people in the dark, lines that aren't managed, etc.
Preettty pretty bad.
So, the first one's free?
Or maybe the concept of the general duty clause is to say that businesses are required to watch trends and incidents, and plan accordingly? And when they don't, they are liable for being negligent?
Why didn't OSHA address the issue at that point, rather than waiting for something so extreme as a death to occur? If OSHA was acting like "first one's free," why should Wal-Mart assume they'd be any different?
You and Bowen should team up to write a list of these obvious things!
And you know what? I bet you'll miss at least one, even if it has occurred before sometime in the history of modern civilization. And I think you know that you'll miss at least one, too. But you don't see the problem in expecting all employers to be goddamn omniscient?
Everything is obvious in hindsight. Christ, people, this is one of the most basic biases that our monkey brains have. Learn to recognize it sometime.
I've seen people come out with bloody faces after getting hit/elbowed at one of these events in more than one instance.
Anyone who has been at one of these crazed events (including the stores!) would know that this sort of stuff does not end well. It never does.
Maybe I'm just old and have seen plenty of stuff in my day, but I don't think it hindsight even comes into play with stuff like this. Ask anyone who has worked on black friday - it gets dangerous.
It is also notably different than a console release where you don't need to run to the aisles and be first.
If you've ever been to one of these door buster black friday sales you would know that a trampling was an EASILY predictable event.
I did a Best Buy in 2008 and was surprised there wasn't a goddamn stabbing on the line. The mass of people stretched several blocks by 2AM and the horde was downright fucking feral by the time the doors opened.
Valley Stream is a pretty rich neighborhood, despite it's, you know WalMart.
But yeah, Ronya has no fucking clue Re: Black Friday. this has literally NOTHING to do with hindsight. Anyone that couldn't have predicted that combining a large mass of sleep deprived people competing for maybe 3 dozen $99 BluRay players could lead to a death or two should not be taken all that seriously.
Incidentally, another account:
which neatly explains why AngelHedgie's quoted account says that there were no police officers in sight, despite having used a bullhorn earlier. The police came came. Then they left!
I'm not sure that's the only viable solution or if that would have worked here but, ffs the fact that there aren't trampling deaths at every wal-mart is an indication that other stores take more proactive measures and do see it as a threat
Perhaps it was the police department's fault then, I don't know. What I do know is that it's a good thing that OSHA is finally making this an issue. Maybe Wal-Mart shouldn't be fined by them, but this definitely needs to be on the books
from what i hear it was quite a pleasant event
Yes, it should be on the books, and as a regulation, not a "guideline" which is all the OSHA has issued on crowd control even now.
I weep for society that it even has to be a regulation
Fuck's sake people, saving $20 on a toaster isn't worth it