Push for Criminal Safety Prosecutions Gaining Traction

The article, “Push for Criminal Safety Prosecutions Gaining Traction,” featured in Bloomberg BNA, discussed how Grassroots worker advocates are notching more wins and learning better tactics in their effort to bring criminal prosecutions against individuals responsible for deaths on the job.

Howard Mavity said, "While previous stabs at criminal justice haven't gone anywhere, this time the momentum is real."

But he also said employers nationwide needn't worry, because so far the gains worker advocates are scoring are only regional phenomena.

“So far those efforts have been pretty idiosyncratic to those communities,” Howard told Bloomberg BNA. “In New York, it's been driven by crane [accidents]. In Philadelphia, it's been driven by various cases, like the Salvation Army building collapse [in June 2013]. If I were doing anything in either of those metro areas, I would be much more cautious.”

Outside of that narrow Northeast corridor, however, Howard said the trend isn't gaining traction.

“For all the talk, we're not seeing a meaningful increase in states attorneys' prosecutions, which is partly a reflection of budgets and partly a reflection that San Francisco and Los Angeles have different traditional prosecutorial cultures than New York and Philadelphia,” he continued. “You just don't have the white collar stuff, the financial stuff, there. I haven't seen the same stirrings in Chicago or Boston.”

Howard did allow that Miami could be the next city to start pushing for criminal prosecutions, based on his experience representing employers there.

To read the full article, please visit Bloomberg BNA.