It's funny that these news only show up on HN when it's the CEO that gets hurt.

"Line worker dies because CEO decided security is bad for the bottom line. Company gets a wrist slap" is a "dog bites man" story.

When CEO dies for the same reason it's "the universe randomly hands out some justice" story, which is always a good story.

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somenameforme 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It may well be (and it certainly sounds it in this case), but I wouldn't always just assume profit > cost logic. When you're dealing with heavy machinery and machines that can kill with a half second of inattention or slip, then deaths will occasionally happen regardless of how careful you try to be.

It's all just a game of numbers. If something is 99.99% safe then that sounds great, but that means a failure rate of 1 per 10,000 which means you're going to see large numbers of those fails. This is why even in a society of perfect drivers you'd likely still see thousands of people killed in crashes each year. There's enough entropy, and a large enough sample, that deaths will always remain relatively high.

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masfuerte 2 hours ago | parent [-]

A relative of mine has managed building sites in the UK for decades. Nobody has ever died or had a life-changing injury. The site in the story has had multiple incidents just this year.

What's the difference?

The fines for safety failures leading to deaths in the UK are frequently six figures and sometimes seven. So management takes safety seriously and accident rates are very low.

It is about the money.

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somenameforme 26 minutes ago | parent [-]

The fatality rate in the UK is 2.4 per 100k workers. [1] In the US it's exactly 4x at 9.6 per 100k workers. [2] That's a large difference, but obviously it's not like a something vs nothing type scenario.

And the difference is probably caused by worker quality than anything else. In the US a significant chunk of construction workers are in the country illegally, and tend to be relatively unskilled but willing to work hard, rarely/never complain, and work for very low wages. The article mentions that 475 workers were detained by ICE for this company in a single raid.

Obviously companies should be held liable for hiring people in the country illegally, but it comes down to plausible deniability. The applicant puts forth some fake documentation, including experience/qualifications alongside citizenship proof, and even if the employer knows it's most likely fake, they now have plausible deniability of the 'gosh I just had no idea' type.

Though I have to acknowledge I am ostensibly contradicting myself here as this is easy to see as a profit > cost type thing, but it's also not easy to overcome if one wants to take a politically correct approach to things. I can all but guarantee that the machinery operator in this case produced certifications and proof of competence, and was being managed by somebody comparably qualified, according to their papers. So it's a somewhat more nuanced situation than it might seem.

[1] - https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/health-and-safety/constru...

[2] - https://www.constructiondive.com/news/construction-fatalitie...

	▲	masfuerte 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		British construction workers are like construction workers everywhere. They like to ignore safety measures and cut corners so they can get the job done as quickly as possible and make more money. They constantly need management to tell them no. This costs everyone money so management won't do it without fairly strong incentives.

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defrost 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's neither funny nor true.

eg: Tesla Doors: 15 People Have Died in Crashes Where it Wouldn't Open (18 hours ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46365597)

and a host of similar stories about worker / third party accidents and fatalities related to tech.

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zipy124 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Funny here is not used in the humerous sense, but rather the other two definitions given in any good dictionary as "used to emphasize that something is serious or should be taken seriously." and "difficult to explain or understand; strange or odd." or even the given example of the last quote as "unusual, especially in such a way as to arouse suspicion."

Replace 'funny' with 'weird' (in a slightly sarcastic tone for sure) and the comment makes sense whilst being less offensive to the reader and not diminishing someones death.

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bfkwlfkjf 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When it's the CEO or if it's about silicon valley companies. I don't remember ever reading on HN about accidents in the shoe factory or in the construction site.

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defrost 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I don't remember ever reading on HN about accidents in the shoe factory or in the construction site.

There are very few HN stories about shoe factories or construction sites full stop.

That's a whole other issue.

The hook for this story is Occ Health and Safety, many people have an interest in safety and the fact that a CEO died hasn't stirred interest out of pity or sympathy for a CEO, it's schadenfreude that lax safety standards caught someone that could have improved those standards.

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baobun 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The same reason starving children in Sudan rarely make the news: It's "business as usual".

Systemic issues make poor clickbait.

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badgersnake 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This isn’t construction site news, or shoe factory news. This article does feel kinda offtopic, so it’s not surprising we don’t see many like it.

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bfkwlfkjf 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It's a business website. Those are businesses.

	▲	OvervCW 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No, Hacker News is generally about technology and startup news, not businesses in general.

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4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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immibis 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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GaryBluto 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you don't like HN, stop using it.

	▲	immibis 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Wow, a thought-ending cliche in the wild. Did I say I don't like it?

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bfkwlfkjf 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]