Worker Death Results in First US Criminal Conviction 1985

In 1983, a 59-year-old Polish émigré working at the Film Recovery Systems plant outside Chicago, collapsed and died after inhaling cyanide gas produced in the chemical leaching of silver from used film. The Cook County medical examiner termed his death a homicide following an investigation that revealed that neither he nor his mainly Polish-speaking coworkers had been provided with adequate protection from the gas or properly warned of the dangers of cyanide. In the course of the investigation into the death, it was discovered that under orders from the plant managers, the skull-and-crossbones warnings on the side of the cyanide gas container had been scraped off the barrels containing the chemicals used to create the toxic mixture. The company had already been subjected to numerous fines for code violations found by state and federal safety and health inspectors. Furthermore, sick and vomiting workers were a common sight around the plant, undercutting company officials' claim that they did not know that the fumes surrounding the workers day in and day out were dangerous. This is from David Rosner's excellent article, When Does a Worker's Death Become Murder? Read the entire article at http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/90/4/535.pdf . This clip is from the 1989 video, Hazard Communications for Business Professionals, from the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Category:

Education

Tags:

• OSHA
• worker
• death
• fatality
• NIOSH
• criminal
• manslaughter
• cyanide
• film
• recovery
• EPA
• hazwoper
• hazardous
• materials
• hazcom
• memorial
• day

[mackdaddy0731]

Awareness...that's the key. Thanks for posting this video.