Last Thursday, May 16, a veteran worker at the sprawling Ford Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan, collapsed and died on the shop floor after his shift at the body shop somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. The deceased worker was identified as Darius Williams. Co-workers on the afternoon shift told the World Socialist Web Site that Williams was one of the highest seniority workers in the plant with 33 years at Ford.
His team leader reported that Williams had said good night before walking toward the exit with no sign of pain or discomfort. Workers nearby saw Darius crumpling to the floor unresponsive just before reaching the exit door.
An emergency response team attempted to revive Williams with a defibrillator but their efforts failed. As of this writing, there has been no report of a medical diagnosis to explain the sudden death of Darius Williams.
Over the last few years there have been scores of deaths at the Rouge complex. The company is systematically intensifying the rate of exploitation, laying off entire shifts and doubling and tripling the number of jobs an individual operator must perform. Many report that older workers are especially targeted for the grueling treatment in a deliberate effort to force them into early retirement, disability or death.
Workers at a recent factory meeting called by management reported that a co-worker defied intimidation to denounce this deliberate policy. He said:
They just double up jobs for the people who have high seniority—make them do two jobs and wait for them to drop dead. The speed-up is pervasive and many workers do not speak out, because the union has done nothing to defend their co-workers who have.
If a person were to have been the direct cause of someone’s death, “the law” has a fit.
But companies and corporations are overlooked and excused when they kill people.
What is the point of having a union if youre going to let union members drop dead on the shop floor?
The union doesn’t have control over your personal health. There is no cause of death mentioned in the article.
The article also mentions how much they have increased each employee’s workload, on purpose, to basically punish them.
My personal health chart says I have carpal tunnel. Factory work is why I have carpal tunnel.
There is a direct correlation between working environments and employee health. There are hundreds and hundreds of environmental factors, whether working with heat, carsonogenic materials, heavy lifting, any kind of mining, risks are everywhere in the workforce.
If a company overworks employees, and maintains unsafe working environments, employee lives and health are increasingly placed at risk within sich environment.
The article is clear the company is overworking it’s employees on purpose.
An engineer asked me to run two machines over covid. We normally had three people to run two machines. I was running one, and the only operator on that day. Two machines is not safe to run with one person, nor is it possible without risking material quality on the line I was focused on. I can make good material on this line, or scrap on two lines. Fuck in my work, I could easily get degloved, 3rd degree burns, lose a finger tip, tear my rotator cuff, break a bone …all events that did happen over the years at these machines from people not paying attention to safety, something I’m not willing to risk so this engineer can “try something” on a machine he cant run himself. I told him to fuck himself in so many words. But that’s employee ownership, and my boss had my back.
Shame on the Union for not standing up for these people. Shame on you for taking the corporate side.
He may have died from heart attack from poor diet- but the environmental factors within a workplace, a place you spend most your waking hours, absolutely have a correlation to ones personal health. Your comment really seems to ignore that, and I’m sorry, definitely pissed me off.
“The canary in the coal mine” saying has a literal and tangible origin, it’s not just some saying.
I care about my fellow workers health and safety, whether I like them as people or not, I still want all fellow workers to be safe. I hope you do too.
While I’m sure they’re overworked and underpaid, the guys at my factory with 30+ years are all heavy smokers and drinkers. Every year there’s at least 1 person that has a heart attack. Unions can fix work conditions but they can’t fix health conditions.
See this other person’s comment: https://lemmy.world/comment/17139785
Here Here Absolutely. Also see: expensive healthcare “insurance”. Being overworked can have a person too exhausted to work out, or do much of anything outside of thier labor hours. When healthcare is too expensive and you can’t get a day off to go anyway, when your whole body hurts from repetitive exhaustion, add in poor sleeping, and yeah, poor habits form.
Night shift folks have it the worst too. Most still have families, and sleep very little so they can spend time with them.
So many factors are at play. To ignore them, is to concede to smug ignorance. I know these people in these factories. I know these men. I’ve worked for years along side so many.
I can see how its broken them, especially the men. I had to beg my position in a male dominant position, because ten years prior a woman got degloved, and for a time, they didn’t let women into that department, because it’s fucking hard. I got in and did the job very well, but damn yeah, the work was hard. Even just ten years of that shit will change your entire body and habits to cope. Something as simple as getting fast food for lunch, because you’re too tired to prepare anything outside of work, repeat that habit daily for 20 years, it adds up.
RIP to this man. He is one of but many, yet his impact is not lesser on my heart. Stay safe out there folks
I work the same exact job as my coworkers and don’t smoke and drink. If work conditions lead to smoking and drinking, then why is it only the old people outside at break time smoking?
They picked up bad habits in their youth, not because of job conditions, but a lack of education into their dangers. Where I live, 30 years ago restaurants asked customers “smoking or non-smoking?” It ain’t the work conditions that’s causing them to smoke a pack a day.
Not every person reacts to stress in the same ways. Good on you for not smoking or drinking! But why do you need to shame these people who, as you mentioned, grew up in a different time and without the knowledge of the dangers involved? Knowledge that was actively suppressed by the tobacco industry.
I’m not shaming anyone! I’m just saying the working conditions at my plant aren’t the reason my coworkers smoke and drink.
The idea in the linked comment seems to be that poor working conditions, leads to poor life decisions, leads to poor health, leads to early death. Therefore, early deaths are caused by poor working conditions.
My point is that poor life decisions aren’t necessarily caused by poor working conditions. Poor life decisions can be caused by other things, for example, lack of education.
I’d really like to know your experience, if any, with working in manufacturing or any other labor work.
While you’re right with poor education being a factor, there are many other factors also.
I’ve pulled 12 hour days in 110°F factories, where y’all pray for the sun to go down, and management to go home, so you can finally open the back door and catch a breeze.
Even with all the education in the world, you dont want to go home and cook… a meal… after a day like that, never mind weeks or years.
I’d really just like to know what was your hardest labor job. Sometimes we think we know about something, even with education, but in practical life, it’s not what you expected.
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There are two stories here. One is that a middle aged man in poor health unexpectedly died right after finishing his shift. That’s the story you read. The other is that there is a systemic abuse of power by management to overwork higher seniority workers until they quit or are in too poor health to work. That’s the story I read.
Also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtScpL5o7cg
Well, it’s your own damn fault you’re so damn fat
Shame, shame, shame
All the food on the shelf
Was engineered for your health
So, you’re gonna have to take the blameI love Jesse Wells, thank you for linking this song, it has an important message.
Dude is a wordsmith.
Time is not a mirror
It’s some distorted view
Of the way you thought you was
And what you thought they thought of you
Your employer deliberately runs you into the ground because you’re overweight? How strange…
Came here to say this. I wouldn’t be surprised if he became obese because of the 33 years he put into the job, always working and not having enough time to himself to self-care.
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tl;dr: I 100% agree with you
As quality of life declines, addictions will rise. Anything to stave off the cortisol and get a little more dopamine. Anything to make life a little less miserable. And the most socially acceptable addiction, the one they engineer daily to be more effective?
Food
And it’s totally fine to eat what you like, to have a big dinner with friends, to treat yourself. Until it isn’t. Until you cross an abstract threshold from socially acceptable to being a glutton. You wake up one morning and you’re a fat piece of shit draining resources and injuring nurses with your giant obese ass. Why didn’t you exercise a little self control? Why didn’t you go for a jog? Just exert a little willpower you lazy bastard. You deserve this. Actions have consequences.
You deserve to die on the factory floor before you can collect a pension, you selfish asshole
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So judge all you like, and you do seem to like it
Oh, sorry, my tone is difficult to read over text. I forget that sometimes. I was, in fact, speaking against condemning people for their dietary decisions. Processed food is engineered to be addictive and not provide long term benefit, and obesity is like the one sin people can still condemn others for indiscriminately. But yeah, easy to read my post as the opposite of that, my bad
And man, yeah, weight fluctuating despite consistent caloric intake because of stress? Oh yes! Add to that the fact that a person has less mental bandwidth to give to dietary needs and it can become a negative feedback loop. I’m living that reality right now. Plus changes in metabolism from middle age. It sucks
