he fertilizer plant in West, Texas that exploded on Wednesday night killing 14 people was last inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1985
Read Morein September, one of the workers, who was not following procedure, damaged a safety valve on a container of UF6 gas. Now, UF6 gas is highly toxic. A couple puffs of it, and you’re dead. By not following procedure, he damaged a safety valve, and it released some traces of UF6 gas into the plant. Now, had that safety valve failed completely—there was 10,000 pounds of UF6 gas in that canister, and had that been released, it would have killed everybody within a six-mile radius of the facility in Metropolis, Illinois.
Read MoreKoch Industries and other corporations, thanks to Citizen United Supreme Court decision are now legally allowed to apply political pressure on their workers. An election packet obtained by The Nation for Washington State and distributed to almost 50,000 workers “included a cover letter from its president and COO, David Robertson; a list of Koch-endorsed state and federal candidates; and an issue of the company newsletter, Discovery, full of alarmist right-wing propaganda”.
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