Not Safe At Work

#putinaticket

Dollar General (DG) is the nation’s largest discount retailer. With over 18,000 stores located in 47 states, DG employs over 140,000 employees. The US Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration [https://www.osha.gov/] (OSHA) has been documenting dangerous working conditions at DG for years. Mary Gundel was recently fired from her job at DG for posting a series of TikTok videos exposing these conditions. Her videos went viral, which resulted in Mary's termination on April 1st, 2022. People may assume that DG workers are lazy when they see what some stores look like, with cluttered aisles or dirty bathrooms, but what's really going on behind closed doors? After Mary was fired, she created a movement called #putinaticket and organized a walkout protest that took place on May 2nd, 2022. Will Dollar General make the changes necessary to protect their workers?

RaDonda Vaught

On March 25th 2022, 38 year old ex-nurse RaDonda Vaught became the first healthcare worker in history to be convicted as a criminal and ultimately charged with homicide. RaDonda accidentally gave 75 year old Charlene Murphey the wrong medication over 4 years ago, which allegedly ended in her death. Not only did she lose her job and her nursing license, but RaDonda was found guilty of two charges, criminally negligent homicide and abuse of an impaired adult. RaDonda did make a mistake, but her attorney argues that there were systemic issues going on at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2017 that contributed to this accident happening. Why did the Hospital and the other people involved, suffer absolutely zero consequences? What precedent will criminalizing honest medical mistakes set for nurses and healthcare workers?

Illegal and Unethical Lab Practices

Chloe (name changed) has been working in a COVID-19 testing lab for over 2 years. The lab has been short staffed since the pandemic began, and management is notoriously toxic, setting absurd and unrealistic expectations with minimal support or resources. They had been forced to operate under conditions of having no HVAC in 100 degree labs, being screamed at, reusing disposable PPE for months at a time, getting reprimanded when refusing to participate in illegal and unethical decisions, and Chloe’s favorite, “Mandatory Volunteer Overtime,” where every person is expected to work six days a week no matter what, "voluntarily"…but if you don’t volunteer, you’ll be fired. Chloe’s mom had a medical emergency in January, 2022, and was put on life support. Chloe and her sister take turns taking care of their mom and being with her on a daily basis. After explaining her situation to management/HR, notifying them that she needs to alter her work schedule, because of this, Chloe was told by HR that her attendance pattern is unacceptable, and that if she continues "trying to make management look bad," she will be terminated.

VTA Rail Yard Mass Shooting

On May 26th 2021, 57 year old Sam Cassidy lit his house on fire, and headed to work with a duffel bag full of weapons. As a 20 year employee at the VTA Rail Yard in San Jose, California, Sam had a history of scaring employees and being difficult to work with. We hear from Kirk Bertolet, longtime employee at the VTA who watched in horror as 9 of his friends were brutally murdered that Wednesday morning. Kirk exposes the truth about why the stage was set for this disaster as a result of mismanagement by the VTA and lack of fixing the problem before it was too late.