Penn. man was worked to death on 14-hour shift, court rules

[jpak]

Source: Bangor Daily News

A three-judge panel in Pennsylvania has agreed with a widow who claimed her husband was worked to death, awarding her death benefits after he collapsed during his 14-hour shift working for a municipal water department.

Robert Dietz, 48, died of a heart attack while performing hard physical labor in 2007 for the Lower Bucks County Joint Municipal Authority, a water department based in the historic Philadelphia suburb of Levittown, according to court papers.

It was not immediately known what he was doing during his final 14-hour shift, but he typically operated a jackhammer, repaired water main breaks and dug up tree roots during his 20 years on the job, court papers said.

Judith Dietz and her minor child sought a standard death benefit amounting to 60 percent of her husband’s wages and up to $3,000 for burial expenses. Her lawyer declined to disclose Dietz’s salary.

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Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2015/08/18/news/nation/penn-man-was-worked-to-death-on-14-hour-shift-court-rules/

[wildbilln864]

1. Guess that old saying I've heard all my life...

about hard work never killed anybody was BS like I thought. Sad thing to happen.

[Liberal Veteran]

4. Hard work kills lots of people.

Over 100 died building the Hoover Dam.

A couple of 100 died building the transcontinental railroad.

96 building the Grand Coulee Dam.

5609 building the Panama Canal.

[HubertHeaver]

13. It was said that while they were building

the Illinois Central Railroad there was "a murder a mile on the IC."

[wildbilln864]

17. yes but I mean the work itself didn't kill them but

accidents happened. Not the work itself.

[PeoViejo]

23. Who ever said that being Pretzildent is "Hard work,"?

Building the American Corporate Empire; one cannon fodder unit at a time.

[tblue37]

36. I remember reading a long time ago that the Japanese have a word for

sudden death from overwork, because long hours are fairly common there (I don't know if that has changed since I first heard about the word).

Ah, yes--here it is (from Wikipedia, but for something like this I think Wikipedia will suffice):

Karōshi (過労死 , which can be translated literally as "death from overwork" in Japanese, is occupational sudden death. The major medical causes of karōshi deaths are heart attack and stroke due to stress and a starvation diet.

[yeoman6987]

2. I know many that work those hours for the overtime pay

And sometimes it is hard to get extra hours if you are new. I don't know his circumstances were but the extra money was probably good until he died of course. RIP.

[closeupready]

7. Years ago during the 90's tech boom, I'd work 80 hour weeks routinely.

Yes, double shifts during the week, and then another 10 hours on either Saturday or Sunday. The money was good, but at some point, I burned out. And in retrospect, I regret not living it up more in those younger days.

I'd NEVER do that now, unless I absolutely HAD to. (Even if I had to, that kind of overtime isn't available anymore.)

[SoLeftIAmRight]

3. There is no limit to how hard they will push us

It is long past time for us to take back some power

[Laffy Kat]

9. There was a good NYTs article about Amazon.

They work everyone to the bone and brag about it. No wonder most countries in Europe think we're crazy.

[Recursion]

30. What, rebel against the unfettered greed of municipal water authorities?

[Faux pas]

5. This is insane!

The new slavery is alive and well and living in the good old usa.

[staggerleem]

6. Does anyone else find it strange ...

... that the source for an article about a Pennsylvania man being worked to death is a Maine newspaper?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

8. We should expect this from Maine Stream News. :) nt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

11. I see what you did there.

Not at first....

[Demit]

18. The source was a Reuters wire story that the Maine paper picked up.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/17/usa-pennsylvania-work-idUSL1N10S1YC20150817

Word for word.

Did you think the Bangor Daily News has the staff to do original reporting on national stories? All the papers use wire services these days.

[Jim Lane]

22. It even went international

An editor in Calgary chose to pick it up.

And, no, that's not Calgary, Pennsylvania.

[PADemD]

19. Yes, strange.

What's also strange is that there was a Bangor Daily News in Bangor, PA.

[whatthehey]

10. Was this overtime mandated?

[Indydem]

14. Probably not.

But don't let a little fact like that get in the way of a good story.

[tabasco]

26. What is the purpose of your idle speculation?

[Indydem]

28. People choose to work overtime all the time.

There are financial benefits to time and a half.

As a city employee, replacing broken water mains, he may have been driven by a sense of service to his community.

My point was, that he likely chose to work those hours. I don't know for certain, but he was likely a union member. No one put a gun to his head and told him he had to work extra hours.

But on a message board like this one, the worker is always the hero, the boss the villain, and the employer the evil conspirator.

[LanternWaste]

33. "Probably not" doesn't quite rise to the level of fact.

"Probably not" doesn't quite rise to the level of fact.

[tabasco]

25. Why does it matter?

[whatthehey]

31. Because whether he chose to work 14 hours or was made to determines agency

We must assume he was aware of the physical demands of his job and his own health and stamina better than anyone. There are only 4 options here really.

He was forced to work against his will despite the company knowing this would be a health stressor. The company/dept is at fault.

He was forced to work against his will with no known indication either of his own health risk or generalized risk of workers of similar health and age. A tragic accident but a wake up call to the company and union to review overtime and work assignment procedures with this risk now known.

He chose to work overtime knowing that his seniority would ensure an assignment that was risky to his own health. A willfully taken risk on his own head.

He chose to work overtime knowing (this one's a given in all 4 cases) the strenuous nature of the job but fully confident he was capable of the strain. A tragic and common accident that might especially if not isolated prompt the same review as in option 2.

[tabasco]

34. Ummmmm....no.

For worker's compensation purposes, it is irrelevant whether he was "forced" to work OT or was doing so voluntarily.

Why don't you read the court's opinion, in which that issue is not discussed.

[whatthehey]

35. I'm not giving a judicial opinion but an ethical one, hence terms like agency

He knew the job. Did he ask for 14 hours of it or not?

[tblue37]

37. When people are not making enough money to deal with increased cost of living and the need to

save enough for their future, for future expenses (like college for their kids, since college has been priced out of their affordable range), or in case of being laid off, since our safety net has been shredded, "optional" overtime often feels mandatory as a matter of survival.

[packman]

12. Speaking of overtime - my son got a pay decrease promotion

Last edited Tue Aug 18, 2015, 08:13 PM - Edit history (1)

Just promoted to Supervisor and told me his paycheck is going to be $500 a month short because now he cannot qualify for overtime or double time (given on rare occasions). Says he is going out to look for a part-time job in addition to his new position. When I asked him if he considered refusing the promotion, he said the benefits -outside of the pay- were too great to ignore and the company would frown on his turning down the offer.

[lonestarnot]

21. Geeze, you knew him?

Poor dude.

[Cleita]

15. And the Republicans want to extend the retirement age to 70 before anyone can

collect Social Security. If a 48 year old man can't do hard labor anymore how can anyone at 69?

[whatthehey]

16. Lots of moving parts here

Mandated overtime on physically demanding jobs with no or little employee pushback allowed or consideration for age/fitness could be a definite abuse of employer power.

Voluntary overtime is another issue. Not that "I want overtime" and "I want to die of overwork" should be considered synonymous, but, assuming municipal water departments in the NE are unionized, it becomes less clear. Most union contracts say overtime must first be assigned to the people who ask for it with the most seniority. There is no room in these clauses for saying 20-year employee X is less physically able to withstand the strain than 5 year employee Y so Y gets it instead. This then would be out of the hands of employer choice, and its surely not news to a man working overtime that his job is already physically draining after 8 hours so 14 will be much more so.

People rarely accept their own limits however, and it would be better if HR, contract negotiators, and labor law at least considered this a bit, having some guidelines around overtime (or heck regular time) in physically demanding jobs other than just seniority rules and to hell with risk.

[alphafemale]

27. I average about 5 hours overtime a week. Completely voluntary.

Nice little bump in the paycheck without being too tiring.

Four weeks paid vacation a year after five years plus the normal holidays.

Some times workplaces do care about employees.

[whatthehey]

32. Yes. Voluntary overtime is a win-win

But both workers and employers, and unions too, should be aware of potential health risks in agreeing on overtime limitations and assignments. Seniority rules in unavoidably heavy jobs ensure that the oldest workers undergo the most stress and are completely on their own in determining workload, with neither companies or colleagues able to say no to overtime claimed on a seniority basis.

[tblue37]

38. If worker wages/salaries were keeping up with inflation, then most people

would not grab all the overtime they can get. But when people are stretched financially, they will trade of quality of life for a chance to build a financial cushion against hard times. Most American workers are only one major medical or car problem or 1-3 paychecks away from catastrophe.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. Poor guy was digging his own grave.

[tabasco]

24. Well, as George AWOL Bush would say ...

"that's uniquely American."

[DBoon]

29. Under Stalin he'd be a hero worker

a "Stakhanovite"

Now who won the cold war again?