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Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

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Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#411

Post by jcampbell1 »

corndoge wrote: post #392

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does a respirator not solve this problem? The article and many comments here seem to blame people wanting cheap countertops as either part or all of the issue, but if it's safe to cut them with a respirator or wet saw, the focus should be on making companies give their workers respirators/wet saws and enforce their use.

According to a California advisory, respirators should only be used as a last resort.

https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/dosh_publications/Engineered-sto...

In New Jersey which also has lots of stone cutting, doesn’t allow dry cutting and has entirely different advice.

https://www.nj.gov/health/workplacehealthandsafety/documents...

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#413

Post by analog31 »

asdefghyk wrote: post #343
pseudosavant wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scenario I have encountered many times is having someone doing work for me, they don't bring some basic safety gear like earplugs or masks. I have plenty of earplugs and masks though. Buy I can never get them to actually use them. They'd rather hear that jackhammer at full volume apparently? As a musician, it especially kills me to watch people destroy their ears. These workers are often too young to appreciate goo…

Why does music volume, not just get reduced to safe level?

Safe is a matter of intensity and exposure time. There can be a volume thats ok for occasional exposure, and desirable to the audience, but not safe for repeat exposure by musicians. I wear earplugs when I play in a "quiet" jazz band. I don't wear them in the audience at the symphony.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#414

Post by failuser »

IngvarLynn wrote: post #387
Verdex wrote: post #309

Omon Ra [1] is probably the most important book I've ever read. The wikipedia page suggested to me that it would be a surreal alternate history comedy about the Russian space program. There was however no comedy ... or at least nothing that was comedic to me. The point, at least as I interpreted it, was that society is very good at building callous machines that throw away human lives for no reason and then the same…

Double bollocks. First, you're striping agency from those workers blaming abstract society instead. There is no such thing as "collective guilt". Those particular workers are free to leave such an unsafe industry at any moment, probably even more free than, say, smokers who choose death from respiratory complications. I have exactly zero empathy for either. True that sometimes workers are not exactly free to leave th…

The choice of often being homeless or that. And then you’ll berate them for being lazy.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#415

Post by mfitton »

WalterBright wrote: post #345
CalRobert wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to trade all the fancy shit I don't need for a ten hour work week and more time to do what I want, but annoyingly we've made artificial scarcities of essentials like housing, and codified forty hour weeks as the norm, making this hard. You're right that it's more common in Europe. When I go back to the US life feels so insanely gluttonous. Driving a studio apartment three miles to get a coffee is lunacy

> Driving a studio apartment three miles to get a coffee is lunacy It sure is. I have a cheap drip coffee maker that I drink from all day, at a cost of a few cents a cup. Dirt cheap.

A few cents a cup?! Where do you buy your coffee? I buy coffee at about 12 bucks a pound. A pound makes about ten carafes of 4 cups (tbh, I use the term cup loosely, because a mug for me is more like 1.5 to 2 actual measuring cups) each. I get to more like 30 to 40 cents a cup. It seems like there might be potential for major cost savings.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#416

Post by Eisenstein »

alex_lav wrote: post #333
nickff wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many workers resist using safety equipment, even when it is provided to them, and they are shown how to use it. This is common for fall protection too. Safety regulations requiring provision of equipment may not get the job done. For all we know, safety equipment was available.

Yeah, it's really wild how many tradespeople prefer "safety squints" to legitimate eye protection. Nobody that ever lost an eye on a jobsite thought they were going to lose an eye that day, so I'm not sure why "I know that this will be fine" continues to beat out "I'll take 15 seconds to put on eye protection". And yet, jobsites all over the place skip this and many other very basic, extremely obvious safety precauti…

> so I'm not sure why "I know that this will be fine" continues to beat out "I'll take 15 seconds to put on eye protection"

Complacency. When you have done something a hundred times and nothing has hit you in the eye (some things might have gotten close) then the statistics go to favor 'I won't get hit in the eye this time'. What is usually not factored in 'if I continue to do this constantly I will get hit in the eye eventually'.

This is the nature of complacency and is kind of a flip of the gambler's fallacy.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#417

Post by haldujai »

francisofascii wrote: post #369

Looks to be the same disease as "black lung". (common with coal miners)

They are both types of fibrotic pneumoconiosis (inhalational lung diseases) which also includes other entities such as asbestosis, berylliosis and talcosis.

Not the same disease per se as there are slight differences but coal workers pneumoconiosis and silicosis are very similar given that they have a very similar inhalational dust profile.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#418

Post by IngvarLynn »

failuser wrote: post #414
IngvarLynn wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Double bollocks. First, you're striping agency from those workers blaming abstract society instead. There is no such thing as "collective guilt". Those particular workers are free to leave such an unsafe industry at any moment, probably even more free than, say, smokers who choose death from respiratory complications. I have exactly zero empathy for either. True that sometimes workers are not exactly free to leave th…

The choice of often being homeless or that. And then you’ll berate them for being lazy.

There is definitely an abundance of low-skill jobs... so far.

So the choice is between different shops, not about homelesness.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#419

Post by cryptonector »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #411
corndoge wrote: post #392

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does a respirator not solve this problem? The article and many comments here seem to blame people wanting cheap countertops as either part or all of the issue, but if it's safe to cut them with a respirator or wet saw, the focus should be on making companies give their workers respirators/wet saws and enforce their use.

According to a California advisory, respirators should only be used as a last resort. https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/dosh_publications/Engineered-sto... In New Jersey which also has lots of stone cutting, doesn’t allow dry cutting and has entirely different advice. https://www.nj.gov/health/workplacehealthandsafety/documents...

There's not as much difference as you say. The NJ page says

> New Jersey law (N.J.S.A. 34:5-182) requires that employers provide workers with full-face air-purifying respirators when engineering controls cannot be used. Use of respirators should be part of a complete respiratory protection program.

While the CA page says

  Respirators should only be used:
   • As a last resort for
    protection when local
    exhaust ventilation or
    water controls are not
    feasible or do not
    adequately control
    employee airborne
    exposures.
  • Where exposures
    exceed the permissible
    exposure limit (50 μg/m3,
    8-hour TWA) while installing or implementing feasible
    engineering and work practice controls.
  • When the employee is in a regulated area.
I.e., both say that other measures must be applied first.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#420

Post by withinboredom »

alex_lav wrote: post #401
withinboredom wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the fines. Where I am, simply doing 11+ gets an automatic suspension of your license. When I was in the US, it was a joke in that you had to "get pulled over" to get a fine. Here it is automated all over the place.

It's funny. This discussion keeps getting pulled in different directions. Are you advocating that we automate PPE use in the workforce? Otherwise, what's the point of this comment?

> Are you advocating that we automate PPE use in the workforce?

No, I'm saying fine the company out of business for not enforcing the wearing of PPE and then actually do it.

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