Originally published at: Chocolate factory fined $44,000 for not evacuating workers before explosion that killed 7 | Boing Boing
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How can that fine be so low? Even relatively minor OSHA fines are significantly higher. My former employer incurred $76k in fines in one visit (haha!) with no history of injury related to the fines.
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Tempted to make a Willy Wonka reference, but no. This just sucks.
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We need to have real consequences for this kind of thing, not charge them what amounts to fucking pocket change…
40 years of Reaganism, that’s how…
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As I recall from an analysis video, that was only the part of it. They also had large amounts of sugar dust build-ups that when the gas explosion hit them, they were mixed with air and ignited, creating a larger chain-reaction explosion.
That long-term neglect to do proper cleanups should have increased the fine by quite a bit. 
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OH yeah. I forgot about this. Palmers makes horrible “chocolate”.
That fine - is it from 1900 when it would be an actual consequential fine? WTAF? That’s nothing! We need some fucking teeth with these sorts of things.
I hope they sue their asses off in civil court.
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Wow. Well, knowing something about how each state may be setup may make a difference in starting to understand wtf happened and the fees/citations. I know in michigan, and about ~20 other states, have their own version of osha program. States that do have their own program must at a minimum meet the federal standards, but may be stricter than the fed. Also, states with their own program can choose to cover state/public employees. On the other hand states that don’t have their own program only public employees are covered, and are assigned a person(s) to cover the state/region.
My old boss could tack on up to 7k as a deterrence for fatal incidents, on top of the findings.
Michigan has dolled out hefty fines for non-fatal incidents.
Combustible dust is a thing.
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Next up: seven wrongful-death lawsuits from the families. I hope the company loses its collective shirt.
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The judgement was missing a few zeros there. I mean my life insurance is higher than this.
What an insult to the victims and their families!
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The low value American capitalism places on human life is revolting.
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Of course and as they absolutely should, but that’s not going to play into what OSHA fines a company. That’s gonna be set by OSHA policy. I believe it’s an ongoing problem with OSHA fines, that it’s mostly pocket change for companies, so they generally violate regulations with impunity.
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If Palmers were the only ‘chocolate’ available, I simply would stop eating chocolate.
/ same goes for Hershey’s
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If the chocolate factory had insured its workers, they could have made a profit even.
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yeah but the big chocolate eyeballs are great for Halloween and we’ve been giving those out for years because they are not available in our area for some reason. I used to have them shipped. Kids come by and are so happy they have something else besides Hershey stuff.
Now we have to give out…KRABBIE PATTIES. And that’s the REAL tragedy.
/s
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Roger that.
As if I needed another reason to never purchase Palmer chocolate in this lifetime.
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