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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

#451

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #446
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The mechanism you described only really works with short term safety issues. The mechanism I described works for employment issues, because employees can choose not to take a job and more dangerous jobs carry a risk premium that both employers and employees have the incentive to reduce when reasonable safety measures are available. With leaded gasoline and CFCs the victims have no option to refuse, and it's complet…

> jobs carry a risk premium For some reason you’re making the assumption that most employees are as capable of estimating this premium as well as their employers and/or that it’s even possible to estimate this risk in advance?

If it's not possible to estimate the risk in advance then how is the legislature supposed to do it? If only the employers and not the employees know of the risk then who is going to advocate for a law? And in the latter case the employer would presumably have liability for knowingly exposing people to something harmful without informing them of the risk.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#452

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #443
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they could hardly work any other way without laws restricting “right to work” Well sure they could. The workers who agree with the strike go on strike and if that's enough of them to put pressure on the employers to meet their demands, their demands get met. If it isn't, you've failed to convince your fellow workers that the light is worth the candle and if you don't want to work under the terms that they do, you c…

> that's enough of them to put pressure on the employers to meet their demands, their demands get met. Or your employers can hire some thugs to disperse you and the other strikers. When you resist the governor will just use that as a justification to send in the national guard to “maintain law and order”. At least that’s how it often worked in the good old days.. > Well sure they could. In an imaginary world maybe. I…

> Or your employers can hire some thugs to disperse you and the other strikers.

Now we're back to "everyone agrees that violence should be illegal."

> In a society with no safety nets and and where any meaningful accumulation of savings is infeasible? Not so much.

But then what difference does it make if you go on strike with 75% of the other workers or 100%? Either way the boss just waits two weeks until you all need to buy food.

Which still assumes that the employer is a monopoly. Otherwise you go on strike by taking some gig work in the meantime, which maybe sucks, maybe even sucks more than your current job, but it lets you make rent for as long as it takes for the employer to feel the need to meet your terms.

> Labor has an inherently weaker bargaining position (due to certain pretty obvious factors) compared to business owners. Unless you have some external regulation or societal pressure and employers are behaving fully rationally (i.e. maximizing profits) that will always be the case for the majority of the workforce.

There is no law requiring employers to pay anyone more than minimum wage and yet >98% of people make more than minimum wage. What explains this other than that employers have to compete with each other for labor?

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#453

Post by jmvoodoo »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #118
jmvoodoo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't talking about cake though. We are talking about inexpensive highly processed foods made predominantly from ingredients that are subsidized specifically because of their caloric density. I.e. corn. High caloric density is what you want if you need to be able to feed your country in war, so we subsidize these foods. No one wants to eat just plain corn though, so companies process it into other foods that are…

> Knowing all of this, it makes perfect sense to tax the living crap out of highly processed foods that are made from subsidized ingredients. The consequence of this would be that the subsidized food gets exported to a country that doesn't tax it, at which point you're subsidizing some other country's food. The US is also a large net exporter of food, implying there is more than enough domestic production for wartime…

Don't disagree, but eliminating the subsidy is much more challenging politically than taxing junk food.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#454

Post by WalterBright »

mfitton wrote: post #415
WalterBright wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I buy 12 oz bags of ground coffee for $7.99 last time I bought it, which is up from $5.99 it used to be.

That'll last for a couple weeks, at 12 cups (actual cups) a day.

Coffee is my cheapest vices. I love coffee. When the pandemic hit, I stocked up on coffee.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#455

Post by rainbowzootsuit »

eropple wrote: post #257
rainbowzootsuit wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got one of their FF400 face shield respirators to do lead paint removal and spent dozens of hours in unconditioned spaces with a tyvek suit. They are extremely well designed and never fog because the inhaled air passes first through the face mask area and then through one-way valves into the mouth/nose section and is exhausted downward at the front of the mouth/nose area.

Yeah - this is why it wasn't a good idea to use those during COVID, but it's amazing for doing work.

I used it during the beginning of COVID to protect myself up until I was vaccinated and went for about 18 months before getting infected. Definitely got some odd looks at Costco.

Maybe you are meaning for medical staff? Yeah there's a fully unfiltered exhaust stream blowing downwards.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#456

Post by eropple »

rainbowzootsuit wrote: post #455
eropple wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - this is why it wasn't a good idea to use those during COVID, but it's amazing for doing work.

I used it during the beginning of COVID to protect myself up until I was vaccinated and went for about 18 months before getting infected. Definitely got some odd looks at Costco. Maybe you are meaning for medical staff? Yeah there's a fully unfiltered exhaust stream blowing downwards.

I mean that if you have COVID, the blow valve means you can readily expose other people. N95 masks are safer all around.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#457

Post by nikolay »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #435
nikolay wrote: post #404

I have a friend in this business and his workers always wear N95 masks and his machines are sprayed with water to greatly reduce the dust particles in the air. If workers refuse to wear masks, then whose fault is this?! If employers do not provide the PPE necessary of this job, then they should be sued and put in jail! My friend was buying 3M N95 masks before COVID-19 at extremely low prices in small quantities - som…

> If workers refuse to wear masks, then whose fault is this?! It doesn't matter whose fault it is; it remains the employers responsibility to ensure that it does not happen, if necessary by dismissing the worker concerned.

Just saw today a worker in a cloud of soil dust with a machine that, I guess, breaks the hardened soil - right next to a busy road. Anyway, next article would be about these workers getting Candida auris.

Anyway, do you expect their employer to watch them all the time when they work? If they have passed instruction and cannot be supervised all the time, then it's employees fault.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#458

Post by albert_e »

will5421 wrote: post #177
albert_e wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everything in my studio would accumulate a thin layer just a week or so after cleaning I wish I ONLY had to clean the surfaces once a week. In my country and city unfortunately -- even though I dont live near a major road or construction site -- dust is everywhere. Within 24 hours or less of wiping clean, you can see a visible layer of dust on any horizontal surface in home.

Do you know what dust this is? Is it natural? May I ask what country you’re in?

Bangalore India

dust is everywhere ..haven't learnt to classify it into types :)

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#459

Post by pydry »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #253
pydry wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What do you suppose the chances are of 100% of other countries imposing a similar tax Quite high. Agricultural dumping is typically frowned upon even more than regular dumping. Half of the reason for the WTO's existence was to get countries to stop being so trigger happy about doing this.

You think the chances are "quite high" of all other countries doing this? There are several countries that inherently have to import food because they don't have enough arable land to feed their population.

Yeah, and they already buy plenty of shit food from America. They aren't going to buy more oreos to these countries just because America can't sell them to America any more.

Re: Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

#460

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jmvoodoo wrote: post #453
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Knowing all of this, it makes perfect sense to tax the living crap out of highly processed foods that are made from subsidized ingredients. The consequence of this would be that the subsidized food gets exported to a country that doesn't tax it, at which point you're subsidizing some other country's food. The US is also a large net exporter of food, implying there is more than enough domestic production for wartime…

Don't disagree, but eliminating the subsidy is much more challenging politically than taxing junk food.

Taxing junk food seems pretty challenging politically, considering that businesses hate it as you're taxing their junk food, conservative voters hate it as government nanny state, liberal academics hate it as a regressive tax and a thing that lessens support for actually removing the subsidies, and anyone paying the tax hates it as a tax they have to pay.

At least for removing the subsidies you only have to fight the businesses.

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