Robert Reich points out that the CEO involved in the egg recall is a serial offender

[ProSense]

Corporate Rotten Eggs

Friday, August 20, 2010

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Thirteen years ago when I was Secretary of Labor, DeCoster agreed to pay a $2 million penalty (the most we could throw at him) for some of the most heinous workplace violations I’d seen. His workers had been forced to live in trailers infested with rats and handle manure and dead chickens with their bare hands. It was an agricultural sweatshop.

Several people in Maine told me the fine wouldn’t stop DeCoster. He’d just consider it a cost of doing business. Evidently they were right. DeCoster’s commercial egg business has a record that would make a repeat offender blush.

In 2003, DeCoster pleaded guilty to knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants (who don’t complain about unsafe working conditions, below-minimum-wage pay, and unsanitary facilities). DeCoster paid a record $2.1 million penalty for that one.

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In 2002 the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission fined DeCoster’s operation $1.5 million for mistreating female workers. The charges included rape, sexual harassment, and other abuses.

Earlier this year, DeCoster paid another fine to settle state animal cruelty charges against his egg operations in Maine.

In other words, the current national salmonella outbreak is just the latest in a long series of DeCoster corporate crimes. He’s fostered a culture that disregards any law standing in the way of profits. Along the way, DeCoster has abused the environment, animals, his employees, and his customers.

Corporations that play fast and loose with one set of laws are likely to cut corners on others. Look at Massey Energy Company, which owned the mine where 27 miners were killed several months ago. Massey also had a long record of law breaking, and had racked up an even longer list of alleged violations and settlements. Or consider BP, whose malfeasance even before the Gulf spill, included workplace safety violations, deaths, and other environmental disasters.

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They need to make the fines larger and impose a three strike rule on corporate criminals. Seriously, why the hell is this business owner still in business?



Edited to clarify.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Serial

or cereal ?

[izquierdista]

2. Does anyone know?

When was the last time a corporation had their charter revoked, their assets seized and liquidated, and their officers convicted on criminal charges? Even Enron and Adelphia Communications have been allowed to do voluntary restructurings, as they unwind their litany of crimes.

[sabrina 1]

4. ACORN?

Didn't quite go through all the formal steps, but Congress sure helped put them out of business.

[eShirl]

3. As soon as they said the name DeCoster on the news, DH and I both said "No wonder!!"

that unbelievably Dickensian dickweed

[mzteris]

5. WTH isn't this business owner IN JAIL?? n/t

[LatteLibertine]

6. If paying a fine

doesn't phase these sort of people then the fines need to be made larger. Obviously, this corporation and its management has no moral compass.

The fines should be large enough that these people would not want to endure them. It would be nifty if you could level them at the folks making these decisions rather than the entire business. IE bill the CEOs and folks handing down these decisions.

If a person violates regulations enough they ought to be jailed.

Of course another problem present in all these things are corrupt government officials and regulators.

Our nations history between management and labor has been horrid. Make no mistake, if they could get away with having indentured servants and slaves today, they'd still be around. When you think about it, in a fashion, they certainly still exist. The plight of the migrant worker and the poor is not enviable.

I'd suggest we all stop eating things that are easily contaminated. God knows what we're consuming.

[depakid]

7. "He’s fostered a culture that disregards any law standing in the way of profits"

I have news:

What fosters this culture is administrations like Bush's and Obama's that wilfully fail to hold these types of people accountable.

Even where, as with Peanut Corp., there are mountains of evidence (much of it in their own words) that they intentionally violated federal laws and knowingly distributed contaminated food products.