Bay City News Service—The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health has fined Chevron nearly $1 million for worker safety violations related to a massive Aug. 6 fire at the company's Richmond refinery. The fines are in the form of 25 citations issued against the company.
"Ensuring worker safety is the employer's responsibility," said Christine Baker, director of the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees Cal/OSHA.
"Refineries must take the steps needed to prevent incidents like the August Chevron fire," she said. "Failure to do so can pose great dangers to workers, surrounding communities and the environment."
The proposed fines are the maximum allowed under state law, according to Cal/OSHA.
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A million bucks? Ridiculous. They'll cover it out of the coffee fund and then lobby for -- and get -- a million dollar tax break next year just like Amgens $500 million tax break after getting a $750 million dollar fine.
The bigger problem is that fines are set up in such a way that they don't affect these large companies' risk calculations. A million dollar slap on the wrist can be written off as a minor expense. It will never enter into the process of plan design and management, which is driven by much much larger costs and profits. If we expect major industrial companies to operate their plants safely we have to make fines larger and more routine and predictable.