In a cringe-inducing article, Ian Urbina of the New York Times takes us through the environment of workers exposed to extremely toxic and dangerous chemicals for pay. That is, they work in factories making furniture. However, the workers are the ones paying the real price to produce these goods. Workers exposed to chemicals, like the nPB described in the article, surrender their bodies over for a measly hourly wage. When they cried out for help and reached out to OSHA to fix conditions, they were ignored. Workers in a position like this cannot afford to walk away, as they convince themselves that providing for their children and putting roof over their head is more important than the use of their body, and, in many cases, their lives. We now look to see how Intelligent Trial and Error could have helped in their dilemma between work and well being. Many parts of the Intelligent Trial and Error schematic are missing from the situation described by Urbina in the case of nPB in Carolinian furniture factories. Since there are so many, we'll work methodically down the schematic presented to us in the textbook, starting with Effective Deliberation.
Effective Deliberation may be one of the parts most strongly present in the nPB debacle, although that does not say much. The participants were absolutely informed as to how bad the work was and what exactly they were getting themselves into. That does not make it their fault or dismiss liability from the company for their injury or death. Although the discussion on dangerous and hazardous chemicals in the workplace harming workers was probably not started as early as it should have been, there is no reason to say that it was not brought up early enough to save some lives. The diversity of the concerns were decently well represented, however that never allowed any real public decisions to be reached or implemented. Overall, there is a looming knowledge of the problem and an even larger presence of apathy towards fixing the issue.
There is certainly no Fair Decision-Making Process as described under ITE present in the case of the workers affected by nPB. The workers were not fairly represented, because if they had been, their voices and lives would be worth as much as the CEOs damning them to an early grave. The process may be semi-transparent in that it is clear to see how decisions are made and reasoning behind the continued use of nPB. That said, the burden of proof was absolutely placed on the workers who were slowly but surely turned victims. The workers proved that nPB kills by demonstrating the act itself in a real human anatomic theatre. With all the workers give up for their paycheck, none of their sacrifice could buy them the authority to decide their fate, as dictated by ITE. They were sentenced to death under the "reason and logic" of profit over people.
Going back in time to before all the despair caused by the nPB flumes coating workers lungs, we can examine the Prudence suggested by ITE. There were obviously not enough, if any, sensible precautions taken to avoid harming workers with the chemical. The suggested $18 gas masks would have been a good start, but apparently the lives of hundreds of workers is not worth the $1800 price tag to outfit the factory with simple respirators. There was no erring on the side of caution or a very gradual scale up of the use of these chemicals. They were implemented and as workers dropped like flied, they wheeled the old ones out and the new ones walked in, essentially getting tagged in by the corpses passing them in the reception area. No flexibility was built into these factories as a foresight. We see complaints from companies that replacing the equipment would simply cost too much. They obviously do not value the life spent to keep their factories running.
No Active Preparation for Learning from Experience was made by companies subjecting workers to the nPB fumes. No one seems to understand why we need to stop using the glue, or rather they do understand but don't have the humanity to do what is right. I don't call that recognition under any circumstance. Although the chemical companies obviously ran tests on nPB, some even ceasing production, there doesn't seem to be any sort of recognition of the safety levels suggested from the testing. What good is testing without learning from the results. The companies certainly pay the price of settlements with these workers and their families to the tune of some half-million dollars paid out, although I don't believe they were set aside ahead of time as suggested by ITE's forth tenant. The real tragedy here is no strong incentive for these businesses to do what is right. When faced with the decision of profit or humanity, CEOs obviously can't make the correct and humane decision, so why are they not being coerced to the tune of government subsidy. Perhaps the lack of OSHA funding described by Urbina explains the lack of learning from the dead.
Giving tenant number one a run for its money, the fifth and final guideline of ITE outlines a need for Appropriate Expertise. Based on the amount of data and statistics used by Urbina, there are obviously experts at hand to analyze the situation, but unfortunately these experts may not be the kind required to actually do something about the nPB. You don't need tests to see what happens to the workers of companies like Royale. The studies and substantial advisory assistance didn't stand a chance against good old southern greed. There is no protection in place to protect against the conflicts of interest present in making the CEOs of these businesses choose between their careers and companies and their workers lives. The kind of experts needed for that would be OSHA regulation that actually bans ALL risky chemicals like nPB, not just specific ones, forcing the CEOs to move to a more hazardous alternative. Even past this, there has not been more than a few seeds of coverage from the media. Urbina's article is the first and only time I, myself, have heard of these indecencies to human life. Perhaps a more vocal mass-media presence would be more effective in helping free these workers and put these CEOs in jail, but if history serves to tell us anything there will be no justice here.
In conclusion, nearly all of the 20 suggestions of ITE are not present here. Any that are are not truly implemented. Between the lack of incentives and protection against conflict of interest and the lack of actual action to protect the workers from the nPB fumes, such as the filters proposed in the article, we see that ITE could most likely improve the situation for Carolinian furniture factory workers. Intelligent Trial and Error as a mental tool, or guide to a desired perspective would save lives and perhaps the souls of the CEOs and managers at Royale and other companies, although something tells me it is too late for them now.
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