“Them guys said he was dripping in sweat. Them guys said that guy was asking for water,” said Teamster 667 Union Chief Maurice Wiggins. “He did walk to produce a couple of times to cool off, and that’s where he ended up passing at, in the produce section on the dock in front of all his coworkers.”
His supervisor and those in charge of writing this policy at Kroger should be charged with manslaughter. In the heat we’ve been dealing with, especially this summer, limiting breaks in which a worker can cool down and hydrate is aggressively cruel and obviously deadly. A worker can’t will themselves to overcome basic thermodynamics. Workers should always feel empowered by support from their direct supervisors to take breaks when they need them, regardless of company policy. I don’t care if some jerk abused the system once, no company’s profit is worth a life.
I kicked people out of my kitchen because they weren’t sweating enough (first sign of potential heat stroke) over a decade ago. I can’t imagine not giving people breaks in this heat. And food service doesn’t have “required breaks,” which is why I made people take them.
Most legal action will not involve the direct supervisor, and it probably shouldn’t. A direct supervisor could have stepped in here and possibly made a difference. However, the idea that a direct supervisor will by design know when to violate company policy in order to safeguard an employee is not feasible… The company managers and those who are responsible for implementing state laws for protecting employees need to be held accountable. Direct supervisors should be documenting the policy issues that are a problem, and helping the union stewards to get the policies changed. In a perfect world… Unfortunately most companies hate working with unions and managers are too removed from the issues that are harming employees. The current system sucks.
This just is not true.
Any halfway competent safety policy, BY DESIGN, allows anyone to stop any work whenever they reasonably judge that work to be unsafe. If that company doesn’t have policy designed as such they should be held criminally liable for the inevitable harm that will result. There is no excuse for any supervisor to not put employee safety at the very fucking top of their priority list, regardless of policy. Anything less is just making excuses. Anyone that puts company policy above community and worker safety deserves to bear the responsibility of their decisions or lack of action when in a position of authority. No company policy is above basic humanity.
It’s 100% true. You can not count on a supervisor BY DESIGN to violate policy whenever it may become necessary. Its a recipe for a fatality. In specific circumstances the supervisor should recognize when the situation no longer is covered by the intent of the policy and act. But expecting a supervisor to violate a policy BY DESIGN is inherently flawed, and hence will not translate into actionable legal accountability.