Monday, November 23, 2009

Industrial Death and Injury


Denise Ford, 57, was killed at the Pittsburgh Glass Works factory when a lift she was using triggered the collapse of stacked glass plate.  She was crushed to death.  the preliminary cause of death was blunt force trauma.

Being a Bad Lawyer has it benefits, for one thing my work environment rarely puts me at risk of sudden death from industrial machinery.  I don't risk an amputation loss or other types of maiming from using this laptop.

Over the last 30 years I've handled thousands and thousands of industrial injury claims including injuries involving sudden death.  Trust me, while disgrace, depression, is bad, I would not trade my position with most of the men and women I've known over time who still labor in the factories and foundries, who drive the trucks and fight the fires, and who abate the asbestos.   And as I've discussed, here, I've defended the employers, factories, foundries, power plants, and trucking companies on meritorious and bullshit workers' compensation claims.  I've seen both sides.

I intend to talk about this system some more over the next few weeks.  But for now, thank your lucky stars that you don't spend your work day trying to lift plate glass on warehouse stacks with a tow-motor lift.

See:  http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/11/22/WORKER21_ART_11-22-09_B3_J0FOQBG.html?sid=101

5 comments:

  1. When I was 19, I decided I wanted to make "a little extra money," so took a third-shift job at a factory that processed school photos. My job was sitting in a cubicle in the dark, centering little Johnny's face through a huge, sventies-era viewfinder, and stepping on a pedal to save the picture. Of course now this sort of thing is all digitized--but after sitting for two days doing the exact same thing over and over for seven hours (almost)straight, the little middle class girl had had enough and quit. When I hear about people working in chicken processing plants and the like--places where people routinely get sick and injured, I'm mindful that many of them would have loved to have that job. It puts all my whining in perspective.

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  2. When I was OurState College I worked for five months printing advertising on balloons. The process involved an offset drum that spun against an ink roller; you'd inflate the balloon using a brass nozzle; press the balloon against the spinning drum that stood at about waist-high. After printing the advert (as they say in the UK)you'd place the deflating balloon on a conveyor belt that ran under a hot light to reshrink the latex.

    The factory floor was unairconditioned, and the shifts were 9 hours with a half hour lunch and two fifteen minute breaks. The pay was barely more than minimum wage with "piece-incentive" increments. This job and my co-workers from this hellhole remain my Dickensian paradigm; and, yet, I been involved in matters that were so far more egregious--as with my recounting of "Greg" who suffered electric shock painting steel structures at a job in Electrified Substations: http://badlawyernyc.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-boss-smacked-me-wtih-backhoe.html

    The benefit of these terrible experiences is that we were "incentivized" to stay in school.

    BL

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  3. Gayle, I had the same job here in Cleveland at a place called Hospital Photo Services, where we did mostly, newborn infant photos from area hospitals... unlike you, I wasted a couple of years working second shift at it... I can truly blame my success as an entrepreneur from all the shitty jobs I did in my youth and the repugnant experience of wanting it no longer. Thanks for re-anchoring why I do what I do today... Off in the morning to Tel Aviv to negotiate a multi-million dollar right-to-use license for a Patent in my new business. Sitting in Paris wondering what the hell I was doing when I ran across this blog. Now I think I'll go visit the Buddha Bar for a few hours...

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  4. hey bad lawyer great post and those who think their job stinks you never ever seen other people. and for the Injury Compensation part i would like to say that it is important that you have to know basic information regarding these lawyers so that you will be able to pick the right lawyer that will defend your right. In order to hire the best lawyer, here are some of the considerations that you can use.

    When hiring the right Miami personal injury lawyer, it is important to check out the specialization of the lawyer. There are lots of lawyers that are out there but not all of them specialize under this personal injury category. So with this, it is important that you have to determine the specialty of the lawyer.

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