Tesla worker injured [in 2021] by robot that 'pinned' him to wall with its claws at car company's Texas factory
news.sky.com
given the scrutiny around Tesla, it's interesting this story doesn't seem to have come out sooner since this is a fairly novel workplace accident
You are viewing a single comment
Lock out procedure wasn't followed properly. You're supposed to check that equipment is in a safe state before you go into a dangerous area like that.
Yes but if for example management is pressuring employees to make repairs in X amount of time that causes them to have to rush, its the company's fault. Similar to Norfolk Southern giving train engineers 45 seconds per train car to do safety inspections.
This is absolute nonsense. Every worker is and should be pressured and monitored to ensure they're working efficiently. That doesn't give them carte blanche to disregard safety protocols.
the latter will necessarily follow from the former in almost every situation, because "inefficient workers" often get fired or are led to believe they will be fired and they have to make up the difference in that perception somewhere. this is still the company's fault
no, it will not and does not.
"over-stressing workers and pressing them to be as efficient as possible, causing them to cut corners with safety" is such a universal point of failure that it's frequent in every modern industry and a contributing factor in a huge number of workplace incidents and industrial disasters. respectfully, you would have to actively ignore reality to hold the position you currently do, and if you think that's the worker's fault and not the company incentivizing them to do unsafe things to keep their jobs, i can really only describe you as a corporate apologist or bootlicker
Keyword in your statement is "over".
I presume you have evidence that you'd like to present to back up the idea that this is indeed what's happening? Or are we just assuming that's what happened?
Trust me, they don't want you to get hurt. It costs them a whole lot more than any perceived increase in productivity when you get hurt. I've worked at corps that were on my back all day long about safety, to an annoying degree, and it wasn't out of genuine concern, I promise.
Well that's incredibly rude and unnecessary. Is this how you treat everyone you have disagreements with?
FWIW I've been a mechanical engineer for decades and they are right about this. Trust me instead. They're probably reacting with hostility because you're way out of line here; what you're arguing is anti-labor.
There is a profitable balance between productivity and safety, and they'll say one thing while firing people who are too unproductive.
What does you being a mechanical engineer have to do with anything? Are you a mechanical engineer at Tesla? Do you have evidence you'd like to provide to back up your claims?
What I'm arguing is pro-sense. Being objective and not making assumptions does not make me anti-labor. Jumping into the deep end and just piling on anyone accused of abuse with zero justification is a bad look and you're shooting yourself if the foot when you do it.
Of course there is. So why are we just instantly assuming that they're not walking it? That every accident is the result of management pressure and not employee negligence of safety protocols?
Could very well be either/or but you and this other clown are the only ones making definitive statements without any evidence.
Oh so your experience matters, but mine doesn't? I've presented the same quality of evidence that you have. There isn't a worse "look" than tirelessly arguing that labor is at fault for what we're de facto forced to do.
...what experience? Where did you see me present an anecdote about my personal experience? Why don't you answer the question I asked instead of deflecting?
You've provided zero evidence. Literally nothing except appealing to your profession and then refusing to explain anything about how that qualified you to speak on the topic.
I don't need evidence, because as I just said in the comment you've just replied to, I haven't made any claims.
...what? I think you replied to the wrong person.
Huh? No one is forcing you to labor, that's called slavery, and it's very illegal. You have to contribute something to society before you take from it but I'm not really sure what that has to do with any of this.
Yes but sometimes an employer's idea of efficiency and the real world do not line up. They won't tell employees to disregard safety protocols or urinate in bottles explicitly. It becomes the only way for the employee to meet their quota and keep their job.
It’s almost like they have some systemic issue with safety and procedures or something…
Average is one in 30? Wild. The P&G plant near my house was at a few hundred days with no incidents recently. For Tesla to be doing even worse than 1/30 tho? Yikes
The Tesla factory in Germany has roughly 3 times as many reportable incidents as comparable factories.
Another way to look at it is that the average manufacturing worker has a safety incident every 30 years.
It could also be that they are better about reporting incidents than other employers. I'm also curious what they mean by "the industry" if they mean automotive manufacturers or manufacturing in general. I work at a plant that makes parts for heavy equipment, which is similar to automotive, but obviously not automotive. We've had 2 recordable incidents this year. One of which was due to someone not wearing their issued cut resistant gloves while handling metal scraps and then needing stitches. There wasn't any reason for them not to wear their gloves except for laziness or complacency.
Over here in Aus we like to have a “as few maiming’s as possible” policy. You say laziness and complacency, I call it a national disregard for worker safety, an underfunded & toothless OSHA and union-busting, all caused by unchecked capitalistic greed.
But let’s get back to this particular incident. For a start, here’s an article from 2021 about a system to allow robotic arms (and others) to sense human presence and not cause injury to them. So what, Mr. Elon “Autopilot” Musk couldn’t have designed a similar system for his factory? Hah, no, he just doesn’t give a fuck. This article goes into it in more depth. The Fremont Tesla factory had an even higher 1 in 12 injury rate last year. Also, yeah nah, they failed to disclose dozens of injuries. And these two rates don’t account for them. Still don’t believe me? Here’s a paper comparing Tesla to the automotive industry average. It cites it’s source as the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But you should absolutely congratulate your colleagues. Assuming there’s more than 41 of them, you did better than Tesla! 👏
CW: first four links contain fake gore
Occupational hazard. Doesn't mean said engineer isn't owed compensation though. On the contrary.