Black Friday
lborkowski | December 3, 2013In May 2010, an explosion at the Black Mag gunpowder-substitute plant in Colebrook, New Hampshire killed employees Jesse Kennett and Don Kendall. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigated and issued 54 citations with penalties totaling $1.2 million. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Health and Safety, said at the time, "Even after a prior incident in which a worker was seriously injured, and multiple warnings from its business partners and a former employee, this employer still decided against implementing safety measures." Safety…
lborkowski | November 29, 2011Although the news of a shopper using pepper spray was disturbing, I was glad that Black Friday 2011 passed without the kind of tragedy that happened in 2008, when 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was killed by a stampede of shoppers at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, Long Island. OSHA cited Wal-Mart for a serious violation of the General Duty clause, and Chief Administrative Law Judge Covette Rooney upheld the citation and $7,000 penalty (which Wal-Mart challenged at an estimated cost of $2 million), issuing her decision on the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
Since Damour's…