Bill I have a story which illustrates the opposite side of the coin...
My son used to be an apprentice glazier......the crook he worked for is now in prison.....he did not pay insurance or tax for any of his employees...yet deducted it from their pay and pocketed it...he did not obey any health and safety regulations and was an accident waiting to happen...it did.... my sons pal, he was early twenties at the time, fell through an asbestos roof onto a concrete floor...my son thought he was a goner but he narrowly avoided death...he had horrific injuries which took years to get over...he still walks with a limp....none of the safety regs which we have by law were enforced....no crawl boards no hard hat no safety harness or ropes etc etc etc the list went on and on.
Whilst you as an individual think you have the right to disobey safety regs......they are put there for a very good reason....to stop these kind of accidents happening...just common sense.
OK the guy who cited you may have been over zealous...but by negligence and not obeying safety precautions you could have been dead or seriously injured.
No company should be able to take shortcuts by disobeying health and safety regs....no matter how silly they seem....you simply cannot do what you like and put lives at risk.
I am of the opinion that companies do unethical things even during boom times......so the point about leaving America because of bad regs and too high wages or the need for survival is lame....
Companies have a habit of passing off extra costs onto the consumer...but CONVENIENTLY forgetting to lower these when costs come down......
When oil prices go up the petrol pump prices immediately rise.....when the oil cost comes back down the pump prices stay the same....so they can make even more profit.
I once read a book called The Seven Sisters...it was about the seven oil companies who between them owned the monopoly on oil.....strangely all of a sudden each company put prices sky high whereas they had battled with each other on price....it seems that all the CEOs were on a golf holiday at Gleneagles in Scotland.....they did not play golf but mad a pact to maximize profit....so much for fair trade and a free competetive market....you may want to read it it is very educational.
http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Sisters-Great-Companies-Shaped/dp/0553242377

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