[HN Gopher] Ford's battery flagship socked by mold sickness, wor...
___________________________________________________________________
Ford's battery flagship socked by mold sickness, workers say
Author : Michelangelo11
Score : 121 points
Date : 2024-04-12 18:38 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (labornotes.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (labornotes.org)
| duxup wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| I will say I find the writing a little off putting. Felt like
| they wanted to rope in every name, company and person involved
| here.
|
| "medieval hazards" I don't even know what that means but mold is
| a thing in the modern area too.
|
| Clearly this publication is pro labor unions
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Notes), but it is strange
| that they push this narrative and note how people in the labor
| union were working in these poor conditions:
|
| "many have required their union workers to build on 12-hour
| shifts, seven days a week. Despite months of worker concerns,
| managers waited until early February to take basic precautions
| against the mold--precautions that might slow construction"
|
| Gee thanks labor unions for helping out?
|
| This article is all over the place.
|
| There's a story here that IMO could have been told, and
| accomplished the same goals without the internal weirdness of the
| article sort of pointing back at itself.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Think your response is similarly all over the place.
|
| "Despite months of worker concerns, managers waited until early
| February to take basic precautions against the mold"
|
| Doesn't this indicate that the union was raising concerns and
| needed to push for action?
|
| Mold is no joke. I knew a guy that died after working in moldy
| conditions. He was old, and pneumonia.
| duxup wrote:
| I wouldn't assume that.
| darby_eight wrote:
| ...why not? The article seems to clearly imply it to my
| eye.
| duxup wrote:
| I would think a publication would have explicitly said so
| in order to as they say "advocates for a revitalization
| of the labor movement".
|
| I got no problem with that goal, it's just a strange
| article to try to do that with.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Not sure why that is - you can see from the first
| paragraph that there are problems that are the result of
| poor workers rights.
| replygirl wrote:
| the NLRA/B don't cover managers, and union leadership is a
| separate role from on-the-job management. for the
| readership of a magazine targeting current or prospective
| union members and leadership, this is fundamental
| knowledge, so it won't ever be spelled out in an article
|
| it's also worth clarifying that labor notes is _pro labor_,
| not necessarily _pro union_, and especially not _pro one
| specific type of union (e.g. industrial vs craft)_. when a
| labor union fails its members, this is one of the canonical
| publications covering it
| duxup wrote:
| If the article only works if you approach it as preaching
| to the choir ... maybe it does make sense.
|
| But it certainly makes it a poor article if they're
| "advocates for a revitalization of the labor movement"
| beyond the the rank and file union choir who would assume
| the union took action. You'd think they'd want to appeal
| to others too.
|
| For the record, I don't so much care what the union did
| or didn't do, my comment was more about the article
| itself.
| replygirl wrote:
| right, i'm not taking a side either, just saying your
| comment showed you lacked the context to understand what
| you were reading. as you stated and defended. you made a
| misinterpretation that can only happen if you _don't know
| the basics what a union is_ -- important context for
| reading a labor publication targeting labor people.
| Animats wrote:
| Right. It's also assuming knowledge about the auto
| industry. Ford is building what they call "Blue Oval
| City" near Glendale, Kentucky, an all-new complex of
| plants.
|
| [1] https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-glendale-ky/
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| I think what you are missing is that Labor Unions are
| people that are generally trying to do the right thing. So
| were probably working for awhile with the mold, and raising
| concerns, but as time goes by, and issues are ignored, you
| have to start complaining louder and louder. Then by the
| time someone listens, it seems like you are screaming about
| nothing.
| arrakeenrevived wrote:
| The article directly says the opposite, and reinforces
| what GP comment was saying about the union not being
| helpful:
|
| > Although Dugan, Shaffer, and other members say their
| union stewards on site helped press their concerns to
| management, they say that local and international IBEW
| officers who visited the facility scoffed at their
| concerns. Dugan says a local officer refused to file a
| grievance on his behalf about the mold in January. One
| worker requested to stay anonymous out of concern that
| union officials might withhold his future job placements
| if he spoke out.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| A reminder to the audience that Ford's labor unions voted
| to reduce their wages by like 30% back when Ford was
| struggling in 2009. A labor union WANTS to work, so they
| can make money. They aren't going to strike the second
| the first moldy crate comes in, because they want money.
| They will do their damndest to work within the system to
| solve things, because they worked very hard to build
| those resolution systems into their working contracts
| during the previous negotiation cycle.
|
| Union laborers didn't want to stop working, they wanted
| to stop breathing in mold.
| davorak wrote:
| > "medieval hazards" I don't even know what that means but mold
| is a thing in the modern area too.
|
| A definition from google "medieval" -> primitive or very old
| fashioned. The implication is that those running the operation
| have an old or primitive mindset or safety standards.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > The implication is that those running the operation have an
| old or primitive mindset or safety standards.
|
| What? That isn't at all what it said.
|
| > But under all the high-tech green fanfare, several
| construction workers, including some who wished to be
| anonymous, say the site has been gripped by mold and
| respiratory illness--medieval hazards that workers feel
| managers neglected in the pressure to quickly open the plant.
|
| They were contrasting the high tech and modern nature of the
| plant to the medieval hazard of mold. The assertion being
| that mold isn't a modern day problem. Mold, insects, vermin,
| and disease were common everyday problems in medieval times
| that were overshadowed by the more pressing needs around food
| scarcity and clean water.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| It's a medical hazard, but the editor is as illiterate as the
| author.
| arrakeenrevived wrote:
| FWIW I agree with you. The title hardly makes sense to me as
| well.
|
| "Ford's Battery Flagship" - even after reading the article I'm
| still not sure what this is. "flagship" is used only in the
| title and nowhere else. Based on my knowledge of Ford, I would
| assume their "flagship" would be the F150, but this article
| seems to be talking about some sort of battery factory that a
| South Korean company is building?
|
| Similarly, "socked by mold sickness" is a weird phrase. Feels
| like an inappropriate use of "socked" here. If the project is
| delayed because workers are getting sick, just say that.
|
| The title strikes me as a failed attempt at clickbait, and
| immediately makes me distrustful of the rest of the article,
| which is confirmed by the "all over the place"ness that you
| mentioned as well.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| "Flagship" means important.
|
| The press release seems to indicate it's importance.
|
| https://corporate.ford.com/articles/electrification/blue-
| ova...
|
| ""FORD TO LEAD AMERICA'S SHIFT TO ELECTRIC VEHICLES WITH NEW
| BLUEOVAL CITY MEGA CAMPUS IN TENNESSEE AND TWIN BATTERY
| PLANTS IN KENTUCKY; $11.4B INVESTMENT TO CREATE 11,000 JOBS
| AND POWER NEW LINEUP OF ADVANCED EVS FORD TO BRING ELECTRIC
| ZERO-EMISSION VEHICLES AT SCALE TO AMERICAN CUSTOMERS WITH
| THE LARGEST, MOST ADVANCED, MOST EFFICIENT AUTO PRODUCTION
| COMPLEX IN ITS 118-YEAR HISTORY""
| stuaxo wrote:
| Yes, flagship is pretty normal usage, very strange quibble
| to have.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I don't think the word "flagship" is the issue. The issue
| is that no other noun follows. If this was "flagship
| factory" or "flagship truck" it would be much clearer. To
| me the headline wasn't clearer do to "flagship" being
| followed by "socked" which I am most commonly used to
| seeing as a noun rather than a verb, especially in a news
| article rather than a conversation in a pub.
| theodric wrote:
| ^correct
|
| As a Car Guy, when they said 'battery flagship', I
| immediately understood that to mean the F150 Lightning:
| the top-of-the range version of their most popular
| vehicle, which also (now) runs on batteries. (The
| Lightning used to just be an obnoxiously-fast V8 truck.)
| Therefore: "Ford's F150 Lightning is moldy." Ew, nasty!
|
| Finding out that the author _didn 't_ intend "flagship"
| mean the truck, but a factory, is baffling.
| zdragnar wrote:
| It's a descriptor, not a noun (since we aren't discussing
| an actual flag ship).
|
| The title doesn't actually say anything meaningful.
| zo1 wrote:
| It's not normal usage at all, as it's missing the main
| "thing" that is the flagship. Flagship What?? Imagine it
| applying to any other thing to see what we mean.
|
| Google's flagship?
|
| Samsung's flagship?
|
| Apple's flagship?
|
| What it should be:
|
| Google's flagship product
|
| Samsung's flagship feature phone
|
| Apple's flagship iphone
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Maybe because it is a simple typo, with order of words.
|
| It is obviously an article about a factory that makes
| batteries, and it is important to Ford.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Ford's battery "Important" socked by ...
|
| Makes no more sense.
|
| What they wanted to say was "Ford's flagship battery plant"
| or something else. Flagship is an adjective unless it's
| meant to denote a ship that carries an admiral's flag.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Interesting. I understood it immediately, but I'm a
| pretty smart guy and can comprehend things without them
| being explicit, so I asked Claude.ai to see if it could
| do it.
|
| > Prompt: _I saw a headline titled "Ford's Battery
| Flagship Socked by Mold Sickness, Workers Say". What do
| they mean by "flagship", a literal ship?_
|
| > Claude Opus: _No, in this context, "flagship" is not
| referring to a literal ship. In business and marketing,
| the term "flagship" is often used to describe the most
| important or leading product, location, or division of a
| company._
|
| > _In the headline you mentioned, "Ford's Battery
| Flagship" likely refers to the company's primary or most
| advanced battery manufacturing facility or division. This
| facility or division is considered the "flagship" because
| it plays a crucial role in Ford's strategy to develop and
| produce batteries for their electric vehicles._
|
| > _So, when the headline states that the "Battery
| Flagship" is "Socked by Mold Sickness," it means that
| this important battery facility is facing issues related
| to mold growth, which is reportedly causing health
| problems for the workers._
|
| But Claude Opus is a remarkable LLM. Very powerful.
| Mixtral 8x7B quantized down to 4 bits is also a
| remarkable LLM, but much smaller and runs on my laptop. I
| gave it the same prompt.
|
| > Mixtral 8x7b: _" Flagship" in this context refers to
| the main facility or center of operation for a certain
| activity or product. In this case, it refers to Ford's
| main battery production plant._
|
| That was generated in 1.2 s. Not bad. Checking the actual
| article, it appears that is what the article is about. In
| a world-modeling and text-comprehension sense these
| models appear to beat many human beings on meaning
| inference in ambiguous contexts. Quite cool! One can
| imagine a future where humans without this inference
| skill can use a rapid-response text model to auto-
| translate things down to their comprehension level.
|
| After all, this entire discussion tree is a discussion
| about communication breakdown. It would be entirely
| obviated if these LLMs were placed in the comprehension
| path. Then we'd be operating at a higher level of
| discussion: talking about the referent rather than the
| reference, so to speak!
| Pamar wrote:
| While I understand fairly well what "Flagship" means in
| business context... my immediate assumption would be "top
| EC model", considering that Ford is an automotive brand.
|
| To give you another example: if I read "Uniqlo flagship
| in Berlin is plagued by mold" I immediately understand
| the implied term (flagship STORE) but if the title say
| omits "in Berlin" I would try to figure out if maybe
| there is a new type of mold that destroy... what?
| Heattech? Pima cotton?
| arrakeenrevived wrote:
| I think my original comment about "flagship" was worded
| poorly, and has led this thread down a path I didn't
| intend.
|
| I know what "flagship" means, and I did correctly assume
| that the article was trying to convey importance of
| _something_ related to Ford (my first thought was a
| flagship car model, but after reading the article I can
| infer it's about some sort of factory). My gripe with the
| title is that the article doesn't actually explain why or
| how it is important, and just assumes you will take the
| "Ford's Flagship..." description at face value and trust
| the author that it's important. It's unsurprising to me
| that an LLM would interpret it this way, because you
| asked it to just interpret the headline, which it did.
|
| However, in _my_ reading of the article, I'm skeptical of
| the "Flagship" claim in the article because 1) it is
| never really explained and 2) the article seems to be
| going extra hard (too hard) to imply this is a big deal
| by attaching a bunch of other names (Joe Biden,
| Department of Energy, Inflation Reduction Act, multiple
| contracting companies, a SK investment company, state of
| Kentucky) to the project, but again never really explains
| why or how. It's almost like the journalistic equivalent
| of an appeal to authority, I guess.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I normally don't like AI quoting comments but I think
| you're fine here.
|
| Complaining that "flagship" has to be an adjective unless
| it's literally a ship is silly.
|
| I have some issues with the title, but not flagship-as-
| noun.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yeah, I know the forum dislikes LLM-posted comments but I
| thought it was a pretty good opportunity to show how it
| could improve human-to-human comms. I think if we'd like
| we could each get a lot more information extraction
| ability from the world with this new machinery.
|
| We think about the technology as accelerating development
| of other stuff purely through generation: code, images,
| video, sound. But it could actually accelerate
| comprehension of text because in many cases its skill at
| teasing out value outstrips ours.
|
| The future is bright!
| refulgentis wrote:
| It's dumb:
|
| - OP didn't say they didn't know what it meant
|
| - it doesn't help improve human-to-human comms to have
| someone:
|
| -- take up 80% of my screen
|
| -- with a copy-and-pasted obvious take
|
| -- unedited
|
| -- from a text generator
|
| -- that has been RLHF'd to chain of thought
|
| I love LLMs and quit my job to work with them, but this
| ain't it, or an opportunity to extol about bright futures
| and stuff.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| It seems to be clearly a typo.
|
| My brain automatically disambiguated it to be "flagship
| ford battery factory".
|
| Because it is obviously an article about a factory that
| makes batteries.
|
| Maybe a sloppy typo. But the negative feedback about the
| article because of this is pretty extreme.
| refulgentis wrote:
| It's HN, things that are clear cruel nitpicks elsewhere,
| are signal to be remarked upon, we're highly sensitive,
| in ways good and bad.
|
| You're right, once is a typo. But the consistent pattern
| is quite rare in good writing.
|
| Also, you make a good point re: OP's comment was not so
| much focused on grammar --- they had an interesting
| observation re: style I'm, and I wanna see I'm familiar
| with from labour-focused news publications. Which I
| support!! But, in a sentence, there's a sort of forced
| first-person, emotional, lengthy narrative that is quite
| appealing, but you're also not quite sure what actually
| happened.
| arrakeenrevived wrote:
| Yes I'm aware that "flagship" indicates importance, but I
| stand by my comment that the article does a poor job of
| explaining it. It only says "flagship" in the title, and
| also the title is the only place where it really even links
| the factory to Ford to explain why it's important to Ford.
| Also from reading other sources, the factory mentioned in
| this article is only 1 of 3 factories that are being built
| as part of the project.
|
| Other than that, the article calls the factory a "banner
| project for Joe Biden", as well as saying it's an
| "unprecedented" project for Kentucky", mentions investment
| by the Department of Energy, and also that it is being
| built for "SK On, a South Korean company". The article
| seems to be going out of its way to try and imply that this
| factory is some huge deal by name-dropping a bunch of
| people and attaching grand sounding adjectives, but doesn't
| actually explain why. It is, as the GP comment said, "all
| over the place".
|
| It seems there's a story here about mold that needs to be
| told, but in the best case this article is just bad
| writing, and in the worst case it seems like it's actively
| being clickbaity/deceitful.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| "Shocked by mold sickness." would have been better.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Socked here is just "hit or struck" which isn't that weird of
| a phrase to use in the context. We use it all the time for
| natural disasters, cities are socked by a hurricane.
| arrakeenrevived wrote:
| I've literally never heard "socked by a hurricane" despite
| living in an area where hurricanes hit the coast every
| year. I just did a google search for "socked by a
| hurricane" and there were a mere 8 results. Seems like a
| stretch to say this is used "all the time".
|
| I know I'm being pedantic and it doesn't really matter that
| much, but I stand by my original comment that the headline
| phrasing was offputting to me.
| serf wrote:
| https://www.dictionary.com/browse/sock--in
|
| it's not generally used past-tense, and it's not that
| common -- but i've heard it my whole life on the west
| coast US.
| bavell wrote:
| Must be a west coast thing, never heard the phrase living
| in the coastal southeast.
| sarlalian wrote:
| Not a west coast thing ... lived all over the west coast
| for almost 50 years.
| refulgentis wrote:
| I will attempt to bridge this gap by noting that "not
| that common" is both true and underselling it, like,
| heard this 5 times in 35 years.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Must be regional then I've heard it several times and
| read it many times before this article.
|
| It's definitely much less popular than hit by but that's
| not shocking. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?conte
| nt=socked+by%2Chi...
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I think part of what's going on is that it's a bit of a
| regionalism.
|
| I know what it means in that context, but I would never
| choose to use that word. It's just not very prevalent where
| I live.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I kind of get the impression that it's another EV hit piece.
| The fact that the factory will be making EV batteries has
| nothing to do with the mold problems, yet the reader is
| constantly being reminded of it.
| elevaet wrote:
| I've been noticing a lot of these "EV hit pieces". What's
| going on with that? Is it organic? Are there nefarious actors
| (ahem ... oil?) trying to stem the tide? What's going on?
| duxup wrote:
| I'm not in on the hit piece theory here but I do think that
| anything novel-ish often gets mentioned no matter how
| relevant it is to a larger topic.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| BRICS/OPEC has a very vested interest in making sure EVs
| never achieve deep market penetration.
| wobbly_bush wrote:
| BRICS and OPEC are two very different things. Except one
| country in BRICS, the remaining ones are oil importers.
| They would gladly get rid of that dependency for national
| security reasons alone.
| natch wrote:
| I have no inside info but it stands to reason that big oil,
| legacy auto, and short sellers of EV-associated stocks
| would not be opposed to negative coverage of EVs.
| gruez wrote:
| Given the pro-union affiliation of this publication that
| the parent commenter mentioned, as well as the fact that
| EVs take less labor to assemble and maintain, my guess
| would be that they're trying to protect their jobs.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Yes. UAW, the US auto mfg union, has come out publicly in
| wanting to slow down the EV transition and soften
| emissions regulations. They care about their jobs first,
| climate change and efficiency somewhere else down the
| line.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/uaw-wa...
|
| 'The United Auto Workers union on Friday called on the
| Biden administration to soften its proposed vehicle
| emissions cuts that would require 67% of new vehicles to
| be electric by 2032.
|
| The UAW, which represents workers at General Motors, Ford
| Motor, and Chrysler parent Stellantis, said the
| Environmental Protection Agency's proposed standards
| should be revised to "better reflect the feasibility of
| compliance so that the projected adoption of (zero
| emission vehicles) is set to feasible levels, increases
| stringency more gradually, and occurs over a greater
| period of time."'
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/uaw-wa...
| zo1 wrote:
| If you ask me, it's the natural "immune system" taking it's
| course to a drastic change to it's host body (society).
| There is a lot of momentum, jobs, money, insurance, loans,
| real-estate, etc all tied up in all-things mechanical and
| car that along with the ICE engine. Yes, EV cars have some
| of it too, but no where near the same levels. Not to
| mention that the top or favorite or most-well-known or most
| controversial EV company happens to bypass dealerships
| entirely, thereby threatening their entire existence.
|
| I'd go further and take a guess that this same EV company
| is anti-union, threatening them too on some level. Haven't
| confirmed this, but it fits the pattern so I'd bet it's
| playing a part too.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Yep:
|
| - EV hit piece: for sure.
|
| - Assigned to an intern or perhaps farmed out to mechanical
| turk or similar: almost certainly.
|
| - Written entirely or mostly by an AI: probably.
| araes wrote:
| Generally in the same place, just not for the same reasons. A
| lot of journalist writing is inherently sensationalistic,
| because the metric has become an ambulance chasing and gross
| out horror metric.
|
| Personally, have more issue with the automaton-like reactions
| of the workers. 1000 workers, who are holding fundraisers to
| help each other find other work, and recover from illnesses,
| smell mold so strong it "hits you when you walk _by_ the plant,
| and yet almost no personal responsibility.
|
| Have to be forced to wear masks. Don't just buy bleach and nuke
| the area into oblivion. Boxes had large Do Not Bring Inside,
| boxes are brought inside. Obviously illegal behavior. Where's
| the documentation of provable illegalities? Every phone's got a
| camera with timestamps. (also a serious issue with the military
| barracks situation. You went home to this every night? Took
| years and a Reuters expose? [1]).
|
| However, still sympathetic. "Electrical workers complained to
| foremen." Objects replaced just prior to safety inspections.
| Months of mold complaints, largely ignored. 12 health or safety
| investigations, half closed, half limbo. Must be infuriating
| working in technician industries. Reuters investigation of
| SpaceX was basically a deja-vu story. "Bad safety results? Stop
| reporting." [2] These days it seems better to go to a
| journalist, than the safety agencies, they're far too
| financially motivated. "Good for Kentucky business. Die of
| mold? We'll give you a plaque somewhere, in a decade or two
| once the money's extracted."
|
| [1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/02/16/military-
| fami...
|
| [2] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-
| report/spacex-m...
| TylerE wrote:
| Yes, this sort of writing is very common from heavily
| slanted/borderline propaganda sources. Strongertowns is the
| same way. Lots of scare words, minimal substance.
| samirillian wrote:
| a) I like the language use. The title is punchy, and it makes
| you check it out just because you want to know what it means.
| Medieval hazards sticks with you.
|
| b) there's not a lot of money in being a commie journalist so
| this is probably some volunteer.
|
| c) I live in Kentucky and had not heard about this.
|
| d) re Kentucky, this place is _wet_
| h0l0cube wrote:
| > "medieval hazards" I don't even know what that means but mold
| is a thing in the modern area too.
|
| Maybe. But the situation sounds unlike any modern workplace I
| know of:
|
| > Worker complaints piled up until, on December 8, Abel
| management hired the firm Environmental Testing & Consulting of
| Kentucky to take "limited samples" for mold. Their report, sent
| to Abel less than one week later, found seven types of mold
| inside the wooden crates, including three in "heavy"
| concentrations. It also noted an "intense mold odor" inside the
| containers.
|
| > To limit exposure, the report included a recommendation for
| handling the wooden boxes: "DO NOT PUT INSIDE."
| cptskippy wrote:
| > "medieval hazards" I don't even know what that means but mold
| is a thing in the modern area too.
|
| The author was just trying to convey that these days we
| remediate mold issues, where as in medieval times mold was just
| something you lived with because you had bigger issues.
|
| They were trying to juxtapose the fact that the this was
| suppose to be a modern state of the art battery manufacturing
| facility with the fact that they were being told to just live
| with the mold.
|
| Imagine they popped open a crate and it was infested by rats.
| Would management have just told them to work around the rats?
| myaccount2131 wrote:
| The comment here is out of place, as the general point of the
| article is sufficiently said.
|
| I'm not sure why this is top comment, it's detractive of
| discussion.
|
| A better solution would be to summarize your findings, and
| state that the article was poorly written. 'Socking' the author
| is clearly anti-discussion, distracting, and not worth the
| toxicity other than a quick offhand remark to accompany an
| opinion that talks of the main topic at hand
| jtriangle wrote:
| Doubly unfortunate, being that mold remediation on an item isn't
| terribly complicated or difficult, but mold remediation in-vivo,
| or in a structure, is much more complex.
|
| That's not to say hosing down hundreds of crates with biocide is
| great, it's not, but, it's certainly far better than what they're
| doing here...
| duxup wrote:
| Seems like the factory wasn't even complete yet, so access to
| clean / deal with it should have been maybe a little easier at
| that point rather than later.
|
| Good opportunity get to every nook and cranny and etc.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Totally, or paint them in fungal resistant paint from the
| factory, or ship them in steel containers...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > or paint them in fungal resistant paint from the factory
|
| Then you'd have to stop buying from the lowest bidder.
| Because it turns out sometimes the higher bids are paying for
| important stuff.
| duxup wrote:
| I recently did a big home remodel. Discovered the same
| thing. I chose far from the cheapest, but what they do
| standard was "extra" for a lot of other contractors.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Can mold cause a bacterial infection? Or are they trying too hard
| to connect the dots? Similarly, it seems like the rest of the
| article is filled with numbers that may sound significant on
| their own but I would like to see how they compare to normal. A
| certain number of people will get sick whether they were exposed
| to mold or not, with thousands of workers on site the number of
| illnesses will always be a good bit greater than zero.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| No, bacteria causes bacterial infections. Mold causes lots of
| other problems, and can be deadly
| datavirtue wrote:
| It's attitudes like this that perpetuate injuries and death on
| job sites around the world. By all means, pontificate from your
| cozy,filtered and climate controlled environment.
|
| If a slight mildew issue broke out in your office all hell
| would break loose. All work would stop until everyone was
| remote and a hazmat mitigation company would be brought in by
| management after a few emails got around.
|
| Go on, explain to us why these workers should just suck it up.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > It's attitudes like this that perpetuate injuries and death
| on job sites around the world.
|
| I assure you, the safest industries in the world got that way
| because of data-driven solutions, not emotion. Go ahead, get
| angry from the comfort of your office, yell and scream about
| the injustices of the world. That's how we got to be so
| incredibly divided, so it must be the right way.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| The mold itself doesn't cause a bacterial infection, but it can
| encourage the conditions for a bacterial infection. Pneumonia
| would be the most well known example.
|
| Anecdotally, my understanding is the flu itself isn't what's
| dangerous to at risk populations. Its' the pneumonia that
| you're much more likely to get.
| whycome wrote:
| Did Ford figure out their "unspecified quality issue" and
| actually resume production yet? Last I saw was it was halted in
| February. Is it possible it was related to this issue in terms of
| their battery production?
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-s...
| Animats wrote:
| Different plant. That's in Michigan. The one with mold is under
| construction in Kentucky.
| stuaxo wrote:
| America needs some basic rights for workers, no sick leave you
| are just out.
| solardev wrote:
| It's a bit surprising to me that the labor unions couldn't
| negotiate this, as some of the biggest / most powerful unions
| out there already.
|
| If even they can't, what chance do the rest of us have :/
| wumeow wrote:
| After a honeymoon period, labor unions usually become just
| another middleman.
| rokkitmensch wrote:
| The major labor unions are just as corrupt in their own ways
| as the capital unions one'd expect them to be working
| against.
| darknavi wrote:
| > Dugan and scores of others now believe they are in the midst of
| a health crisis at the site. "We don't get sick pay," Dugan said.
| "You're sick, you're out of luck."
|
| There was a post yesterday slamming the CHIPS act for having too
| much D&I in which they referenced the "huge" costs of forcing
| construction firms to give full healthcare coverage (and more) to
| employees. This is a perfect example of how the market does not
| meet the bar without intervention.
| sanderjd wrote:
| The slightly confusing thing to me is that there is already
| intervention here: it's a unionized workplace. Seems like the
| union should be doing better for its members here.
| solardev wrote:
| Can we maybe change that title to something clearer? eg "Ford
| workers say they're sickened by mold in new battery factory"
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Struggling to parse this title.
| proee wrote:
| Certain types of plywood are a magnet for mold growth. The
| natural oils in the wood (like birch) plus certain types of glues
| that contain organic compounds are the perfect environment for
| mold to thrive.
|
| From my understanding, marine-grade plywoods are more resistant
| to mold growth, and of course, you could paint the plywood with
| mold-inhibiting paint.
|
| This is a supply chain issue that needs addressed at the source
| (supplier level).
|
| There are well known charts that define safe operating
| environments for temperature and humidity. If you go outside
| these bounds, its easy to calculate the number of days until an
| object develops mold.
|
| https://energyhandyman.com/knowledge-library/mold-chart-for-...
| verteu wrote:
| > Although Dugan, Shaffer, and other members say their union
| stewards on site helped press their concerns to management, they
| say that local and international IBEW officers who visited the
| facility scoffed at their concerns.
|
| Why did their own union scoff at the safety concerns?
| spaceguillotine wrote:
| union leadership, esp the IBEW have a history of not actually
| caring about safety but of making sure they get their due, AFL-
| CIO affiliated unions were part of keeping communism out of
| america at any cost and that was it.
|
| https://inthesetimes.com/article/left-wing-union-afl-cio-imp...
|
| The CIA helped them rise to power and retain it while also
| taking away from the workers.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| From the perspective of someone who's done formal mold abatement
| projects everything about this is deeply frustrating. PPE to work
| in a mold contaminated environment safely is inexpensive and
| ubiquitous. Likewise, the equipment and materials required to
| safely segregate mold contaminated materials from the larger
| working environment are inexpensive and simple to install. This
| could have been avoided.
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| _When Dugan walked in, huge wooden boxes containing battery-
| making machines, largely shipped from overseas, were laid across
| the mile-long factory floor. Black streaks on those wooden boxes,
| plus the smell, immediately raised alarm bells for workers._
|
| Has anyone thought about nefarious foreign actors introducing
| biological agents to stymie the build ?
| NEETPILLED wrote:
| The absolute state of American manufacturing
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