“Nobody uses water,” one man in a Dodgers cap said in Spanish when Maria Cabrera approached, holding flyers about silicosis, an incurable and suffocating disease that has devastated dozens of workers across the state and killed men who have barely reached middle age.
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The disease dates back centuries, but researchers say the booming popularity of countertops made of engineered stone, which has much higher concentrations of silica than many kinds of natural stone, has driven a new epidemic of an accelerated form of the suffocating illness. As the dangerous dust builds up and scars the lungs, the disease can leave workers short of breath, weakened and ultimately suffering from lung failure.
“You can get a transplant,” Cabrera told the man in Spanish, “but it won’t last.”
In California, it has begun to debilitate young workers, largely Latino immigrants who cut and polish slabs of engineered stone. Instead of cropping up in people in their 60s or 70s after decades of exposure, it is now afflicting men in their 20s, 30s or 40s, said Dr. Jane Fazio, a pulmonary critical care physician who became alarmed by cases she saw at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. Some California patients have died in their 30s.
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Ah yes because it’s the worker’s responsibility to ensure that they are aware of all safety issues and health hazards and all safety equipment first, exists period, and second, works perfectly at all times.
It’s actually an OSHA violation if the employers don’t make the workers aware of all that. All hazards have to be clearly communicated to the workers. If they don’t know the safety issues and necessary safety equipment, the employer fucked up. There’s practically no way for the worker to ever be at fault here unless they are willfully disobeying the employer to do something they know is unsafe.
Even then you could argue the employer should’ve known better than to hire them lmao