I’m sure most of you are familiar with this case of food poisoning in which 9 people died.
This probably should be in the pit, but I just don’t have the energy. This sort of thing is one of my personal fears.
I put a lot of trust into food processing companies. I feed this stuff to my loved ones. If I fed tainted peanut butter to one of my grandchildren and it killed them, well, let’s just say, the guilt I would feel, even though I shouldn’t feel any, would magnify my grief by a large amount.
I mean, it’s not just the higher ups. If I understand this correctly, every person who worked there knew how horrible the conditions were. Mold and rat droppings everywhere. Did these people ever eat any of the product themselves?
The most anomalous thing about the whole situation, from what I read, is the length of sentence imposed on the executive. This is almost unprecedented. I think focusing all the blame on just the players in the market takes things out of context a little bit. For example, it is not uncommon for restaurants to have few health code violations - which may include some of the things you mention in your OP.
Furthermore, where were the inspectors, is there not some blame to be placed there if things were so bad?
Even though I think there is a larger context in play, I do think the CEO got what he deserved, but I don’t think he is necessarily evil.
The asshole had his people lie about positive tests for salmonella and ship tainted product. The asshole complained that delays were costing him money.
If chasing profit at the expense of human health (and lives) isn’t evil it is pretty fucking close.
What executive anywhere has not bent rules for a profit? Executives have a lot of things weighing on them and a responsibility to shareholders etc., and as I said in the last post, the sentence shocked most observers.
AFAICT little people (myself included) are quick to condemn and point fingers at CEO’s and executives, yet nobody makes food safety an issue until the line is pushed further and further back forcing people to make tough choices to maintain profitability. It doesn’t seem like you’re interested in engaging in a more detached intellectual conversation though, so I’ll just leave it at this.
The reason why you ask that and likely are defending this asshole is because this kind of sentence is unprecedented. It should be the other way around. CEOs and executives should regularly get long jail sentences for harming the public and only occasionally should they be able to get out of punishment. That should be the norm
I’m not defending him. If you read my first post I explicitly say I agree that the long sentence was deserved.
I’m adding more nuanced layers to the discussion by alluding to the fact that our socio/legal/political system as a whole has created a standard that, although it does not condone, also does not adequately deter such behavior.
CEO’s and other leaders arrive at there position to some extent through a process of evolution. What that means is that the market shapes behavior more than individual choice or preference. Fault, blame could be spread around more broadly. The long sentence is a good precedent and hopefully reflects a more serious consideration of these issues.
Also, remember that the OP his holding everyone who worked there accountable, not just the CEO - so my statements also are meant to address that was well.
No, probably not. I’d agree if you said “management personnel”, but looking at CEOs and executives is kind of pointless. Many companies are big enough that something that blows up may not have even been something that was brought to the attention of the CEO’s first-level underlings.
It’s about as dumb as holding say… Dwight Eisenhower directly responsible for the massacre at Canicatti. He likely had no idea that it ever occurred, and had certainly issued orders against that sort of thing. McCaffrey is the guy who should have been court-martialed for the crime.
I think CEOs have skated by with little or no punishment for far too long for far too many crimes. I don’t mind if the pendulum swings the other way for a while.
Judging by some of the posts in the other thread about the greedy CEO who raised the price of a drug from a buck a pill to $700 bucks a pill, I’m pretty sure someone will be along shortly to blame government food safety regulations for the poisonings.
Why didn’t they prosecute the others? It took a lot of people to facilitate this crime. A lot of people looked the other way and ignored the filthy conditions. Knowing this product would be sold nationwide.
I wasn’t talking about this guy in particular, but rather YogSosoth’s rather blanket statement that CEOs ought to do jail time and be held responsible for anything their companies do, whether or not they have any idea that it happened, and regardless of whether the issue is in violation of policies the CEO may have instituted.
My point was that justice ought to be done, not just some sort of ritualistic witch-hunt to imprison the CEO, some kind of fines against the company, and then business as usual. In other words, determine each individual’s culpability, and which, IF ANY, criminal laws were broken, and then try them accordingly.
In this case, more than just the CEO and a couple others should have been sentenced, IMO. In others, the CEOs ought to be off the hook if they weren’t culpable; merely being CEO doesn’t necessarily make one criminally culpable for the actions of your company.
Just remember that as a result of the “three strikes” rules, suckers are getting life for stealing a loaf of bread. Compared to that, this guy got off easy. He is guilty of murder. Why is this sentence over the top? Fuck him.