Blasts

By Sniffles

We cats are mystified as to why Americans aren't more outraged by workplace safety scandals.

After all, most of us are employees and not bosses. Most of us take for granted that, barring terrorist attacks, we'll come home in the evening from the factories and offices that we've gone to in the morning. So why isn't the nation up in arms about the violations committed by the fertilizer plant in West, Texas?

Is it because we're hopelessly indoctrinated in the Republican ideal of nonexistent regulation? Or is it that we all aspire to be owners, not workers?

Whatever the explanation, it's a mystery to us. We thought that all workplace safety issues would have been laid to rest after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911. But it appears that more than a century later, Americans still have a learning curve when it comes to employees — not to mention first responders and area neighbors — being screwed, or displaced, or killed, by negligent business owners. We cats HISS.