#Coronavirus has America showing its ass in so many ways. A small example re: how we treat workers—look at this picture, from an American industrial laundry plant. You won’t see it elsewhere in the world. Why not? 1/n 
These are “soil sort” workers. Trucks bring in 1/2 million lbs/week of linens contaminated with blood, feces, sharps, etc. These workers sort it all into bins, and THEN it gets washed. 2/n
In other countries, they wash it first, THEN sort it. This avoids exposing workers to pathogens. Sure, it wears down the machines a little faster, but it avoids risking the health of workers. In the US, we’ve decided the machines are more important than the workers. 3/n
The OSHA statute, btw, says it's the boss's responsibility to provide a safe and healthy workplace, full stop. But years of cost-benefit models w/ bogus estimates of the “value of a human life” have allowed calculations like this—weighing worker life against depreciation costs 4/
PS: Thanks @dulabr for the FB host highlighting laundry workers as hidden essential workers of this crisis that prompted this.
