re: #113 jaunte

Walmart’s fighting it tooth-and-nail, because if they pay the fine, they’re pretty much admitting that they should have foreseen something like this could happen and that they were liable; that sets a precedent for more OSHA regulations for those sort of situations.

However, that’s not even the most disturbing part about all of this, this is:

But Walmart hadn’t exhausted its legal options. In 2011, the company appealed the fine to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, an agency wholly independent from OSHA that can choose to consider appeals. The case remains there to this day. Until a penalty is affirmed, a company doesn’t have to pay the fine or technically even fix the problem.

“It can take 10 years,” said Randy Rabinowitz, a lawyer, work safety expert and former counsel on the Senate’s labor committee. “The average length it takes to complete a case is obscenely long. And the longer [Walmart] appeals this case, the longer they get a pass.”

Melik Ahmir-abdul, a spokesman for the review commission chair, said the commission is sometimes hobbled by the Senate not confirming nominees; for several months this year, the body lacked a quorum and couldn’t decide cases. Ahmir-abdul said the Walmart case isn’t on this year’s remaining docket, meaning the earliest it could be decided is 2014.

Fuck you very much, GOP and your enablers and moneymen.