It will be interesting to see if incoming Labor Secretary—an avowed opponent of employment regulations— allows this lawsuit to go forward.
On Thursday, the Department of Labor sued John Bachman, owner
of Lone Star Western Beef.
Here are the facts as reported by Fox News (quoting in red):
The lawsuit said that when a band saw severed part of a
worker’s right thumb in July 2014, (Chris Crane’s) co-worker applied pressure
to the wound while using her cell phone to call 911. But before responders
could answer, Bachman allegedly ordered her to hang up, and she was fired two
days later.
Instead of calling an ambulance, Bachman collected the
severed part of Chris Crane’s thumb and told a supervisor to take him to an
urgent care clinic. Crane was ultimately transferred to a hospital, where
efforts to reattach the thumb were unsuccessful, the lawsuit said.
The co-worker, Michele Butler-Savage, told a U.S. agriculture
inspector later that day that Bachman did not fully clean or sanitize the area
of the plant where the accident happened. She also mentioned a lack of personal
protective equipment. After she was fired, she filed a complaint with the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which found the company violated
federal whistleblower protections for workers who report violations of the law.
OSHA regional administrator Richard Mendelson said
Butler-Savage’s effort to show “basic human decency” was protected under
federal safety and health laws.
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