$600k Fine Over Data Center Death (datacenterdynamics.com) 169
judgecorp writes: UK contractors Balfour Beatty and Norland have been fined £380,000 ($580k) after an electrician was electrocuted while working on a data center owned by finance firm Morgan Stanley. The fine follows mounting concern that safety is being compromised because of the need for data centers to remain online non-stop. This leads to pressure for contractors to work on live power supplies.
The fine won't hurt the DC owners. (Score:4, Insightful)
How about a mandatory downtime for the data centre of say, 24 hours?
Hit 'em in the hip pocket - which is what a fine is supposed to do, but rarely, in the case of corporations, achieves its desired affect.
Re: (Score:2)
Downtime? That would be when the work doesn't automatically switch to the other data centers, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, but an unscheduled 24-hour outage is still going to look bad on *someone's* quarterly report.
The workload might switch elsewhere, but fixed costs don't.
Re: (Score:2)
If they are doing high-frequency trading, the extra milliseconds that the other datacenter is taking will kill their profits.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Someone made the call to have live circuits worked on, despite this being illegal. That person should be tried for manslaughter. It's about time people stopped hiding behind the corporate veil and are made accountable for their decisions, just as you or I would be.
Re: (Score:1)
There's a degree of incompetence from the engineer's side too. The first rule of electrical engineering is "turn it off". If it absolutely positively can't be turned off, don a Faraday suit and wear isolating gloves.
Re: (Score:2)
But to know to turn it off, you have to know it is on. And that appears to be the problem here - people didn't know what was on.
Re: (Score:2)
The second rule is "treat every circuit as live, even if you know it is not" So yes the electrician was not taking the proper precautions if he was not treating the circuit as live.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming that there's no asshat turning on the power while you are working because they needed the power NOW.
Re:The fine won't hurt the DC owners. (Score:5, Informative)
This is why (at least in the US), standard (and required) practice is to place a lock on the source of energy, and retain the only key to said lock. If multiple workers are all working on the same circuit, each worker has his (or her) own lock on the circuit.
It's called lockout/tagout, and there are SEVERE fines for removing somebody else's lock (and if somebody gets killed, due to your removing his lock, that would be considered manslaughter)
Re: (Score:2)
This is why (at least in the US), standard (and required) practice is to place a lock on the source of energy, and retain the only key to said lock. If multiple workers are all working on the same circuit, each worker has his (or her) own lock on the circuit.
It's called lockout/tagout, and there are SEVERE fines for removing somebody else's lock (and if somebody gets killed, due to your removing his lock, that would be considered manslaughter)
It's mandatory in the UK too. Often ignored by independent electricians working by themselves, but hopefully less so by those working for large companies....... UK Health and Safety Executive page on the topic: http://www.hse.gov.uk/safemain... [hse.gov.uk]
Re:EEW Permit for hotwork required (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the case appears to be improper Energized Electrical Work (EEW) Google EEW hotwork. There are many cases where EEW is performed. Common applications include linemen replacing cutouts, changing insulators, installing new cutouts for new home construction, etc. EEW hotwork requires special permits and tools and protective clothing.
Death and resulting fines was due to the failure of following proper proceedures for EEW hotwork. LOTO is preferred over EEW, but there are reasons to do EEW.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it works for the main switch in a computer hall, but often power is only cut off on a circuit breaker for the circuits where the work is done, not the whole data center.
Unfortunately way too common. Often because the installation shall be cheap.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You should be able to lock the breaker out and take the key with you so they can't turn the power on.
Re: (Score:2)
Or a BOFH or his PFY thinking the worker is in fact a member of Management or perhaps Accounting ...
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming that there's no asshat turning on the power while you are working because they needed the power NOW.
That should be controlled by appropriate Lockout-Tagout [wikipedia.org], hard to turn something on when the switch is padlocked and the key is in your pocket.
Re: (Score:2)
This is what lockout-tagout isolators are for. YOU turn off the power on the circuit which YOU are going to be working on, and YOU put a padlock through the isolator locking it isolated ; and that padlock is normally a combination lock which YOU and ONLY you know the number for.
This is not rocket science. It is designing safety into the system from day one. These days it is actually getting hard to find isolators which don't have the
Re: (Score:3)
The second rule is "treat every circuit as live, even if you know it is not" So yes the electrician was not taking the proper precautions if he was not treating the circuit as live.
Coincidentally, last night I was talking to my father who worked as an electrician/electrical engineer for over 30 years. He said that back in the day, it was quite common for sparkies to work on live kit....they knew the cables were live and knew how to respect them and what precautions to take. This wasn't just restricted to the standard 240V supply (c.f. the 110V used on the other side of the Pond) but also to distribution kit, running well into the kilovolt range. For example, bare end of armoured ca
Re: (Score:2)
Except live line working is still common practice and has lower incidents of fatalities than dead line working.
Re: (Score:3)
Turn it off, then do a short circuit to ground at the work position as well so if someone turns on the power then the fuse will blow. If they are unlucky then the main fuse will blow and that's going to make a mark in someone's report.
If it's really bad the UPS will die - and that will definitely make a mark in the budget for that year.
Re: The fine won't hurt the DC owners. (Score:1)
The official rules in Switzerland are:
- turn it off
- secure against accidently turning it on (e.g. a lock on the switch)
- test for voltage
- ground the wires
- work
Its a pain in the ass and a lot of workes disrespect the rules.
But advice like "treat every wire as live" is pretty useless. What do you do with a live wire?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Someone made the call to have live circuits worked on, despite this being illegal. That person should be tried for manslaughter. It's about time people stopped hiding behind the corporate veil and are made accountable for their decisions, just as you or I would be.
No, companies are people now, better to charge the company with manslaughter and figure out how to send it to prison.
Re: (Score:1)
Just require it to shut down all operations. However, people will still be entitled to their paychecks while the corporation is in prison, just as we still require child support payments from fathers in prison who are unable to work.
If the corporation can survive being completely shut down for 2-3 years while paying its employees, creditors, lawsuits from breached contracts, etc from savings, then it can resume operations afterwards. I'm not sure many could survive that though, outside of maybe Apple and
Re: (Score:2)
To paraphrase what happens when programs do something bad: "The company has executed an illegal operation and will be terminated".
Re: (Score:2)
Someone made the call to have live circuits worked on, despite this being illegal.
In the UK - where this happened - it's not illegal to work on live circuits. The HSE has this in the FAQ:
When is it safe to work on live electrical equipment?
It is never absolutely safe to work on live electrical equipment. There are few circumstances where it is necessary to work live, and this must only be done after it has been determined that it is unreasonable for the work to be done dead. Even if working live can be just
Re: (Score:1)
Reading the article, it appears that it is not that "somebody made the call", it is that communications between the teams working on the project, from two companies, was so bad that one crew didn't realist that people would be working in the area, and the other crew didn't realise it was live. Incompetence, not risk-taking.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, and a competent electrician always assumes a circuit is live, even if he knows otherwise. You never know when some idiot is going to flip the switch back on that you turned off to kill the circuit, or if you simply flipped the wrong switch or clear forgot. If you're working on an electrical circuit you *always* assume it is live, no exceptions!
Re: (Score:2)
In your mind that might be easy.
However how do you actually connect a life power conduct to a machine?
You don't. You switch the power off.
So how exactly do you now do the 'I connect it, but assume it is still life' when actually connecting a life power line is impossible?
Sorry ... some of the posters repeating that myth are: morons.
Re: (Score:2)
...Which entirely misses the point that you always always always assume a circuit is live when working on or near it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The fine won't hurt the DC owners. (Score:4, Informative)
It happened in the United Kingdom and live line working is perfectly legal. If you read the article you will see the death occurred due to a lack of communication causing the people to be unaware they where working in the vicinity of line equipment.
Here is a link to the Health and Safety Executive's press release on the subject which has more details. The full judgement does not seem to have hit the judiciary web side yet. At least my searches are coming up blank.
http://press.hse.gov.uk/2015/e... [hse.gov.uk]
Basically the fines where from not operating proper health and safety systems. If someone has enough patience you should be able to dig out the full judgement from the
Re: (Score:2)
$10X the "fine" must be paid directly to the victims family, Plus a mandatory Data-center full downtime of 48 hours while the "investigation" takes place.
if they find ANY problems the fines and time down multiply.
Make a death like this capable of completely crushing the company.
Re: (Score:2)
Well . . . I was wondering what the dollar value of a human life is these days. So now, I guess that it is about $600K . . . in the UK. The value of human lives might vary in other countries.
You might want to consider that when planning where to put your data center . . .
Re: (Score:2)
That might not be the full value. Note that this was a fine imposed for violations of the "Health and Safety Work Act". Maybe the UK is different, but in the USA, you could be certain that a civil lawsuit was in the works.
Re: (Score:2)
Mandatory downtime would not be punishing the DC, it would be punishing the customers of the DC would would loose far more money from loss of business than the DC itself would.
Re: (Score:2)
Live line working is standard industry practice for power distribution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I see no reason why similar procedures cannot be developed for any electrical work.
In general there is fewer incidents in live line working that dead line working. Mostly because if you know it is live then you will be treating with the utmost respect.
Re: (Score:2)
How about a mandatory downtime for the data centre of say, 24 hours?
Hit 'em in the hip pocket - which is what a fine is supposed to do, but rarely, in the case of corporations, achieves its desired affect.
Because you'd be punishing the customers, not only the DC.
Who took the decision to undertake the work? (Score:1)
Working live is recognized as an acceptable risk in circumstances where it is not practicable to turn stuff off (UPS's and backup-generators may have made this a logistics nightmare even if you DGAF about uptime.) There are qualifications you can get to prove your competence to work live, and there are some very comprehensive procedures to follow that make live working a reasonably safe undertaking (even for the boys doing live joints on HT cables)
If the guy was a "competent person" in the eyes of the law,
Re:Who took the decision to undertake the work? (Score:4, Informative)
From reading TFA it seems he didn't know it was live because there were 2 companies at work without any single person being responsible for coordination.
Re: (Score:1)
Exactly. A well managed workplace gives you tags to add to your padlocks with your name, picture, "DO NOT OPERATE", and "MY LIFE IS ON THE LINE".
The picture is really key. No matter what your boss tells you, seeing the face of the guy you might kill will make you think twice.
Re: (Score:3)
From the press release from the HSE he wasn't working on live equipment.
He was given a work permit by the site operator to route some power but the route was through other equipment that had exposed live connections. The electrician made inadventent contact (with his forehead) with one of these exposed live connections.
Worse, the site operator was aware of this risk, and was aware that whether these exposed terminals were live or not was not under their control but they had a disregard for the risks when is
Re: (Score:2)
If he was not a competent person then he had no business attempting the work.
The sad truth is, that the incompetent don't realise that they're not competent at the job.
Shame this had to happen (Score:1)
With Load balancing, fail over clusters, hot sites, all the thing that can make part of a site go offline for a while without serious impact.
Question (Score:3)
How much downtime was caused by ensuring the circuit was safe and removing the body?
If zero, SUE THEM INTO OBLIVION. Risking either this contractor unnecessarily (you could have just switched it off) or other workers and emergency workers (because you didn't switch it off after it had demonstrably killed someone).
If some downtime, then why couldn't you have done that to do the work?
Sorry, but I fail to see how the risk of a death and possible short-circuits, joined phases etc. because of working with the terminals live in any way "secures" uptime any more than scheduling proper downtime and having properly redundant systems.
You are just ask likely to bridge the WRONG circuit while working live, or causing a short, which will cause more damage and more downtime than just switching things off to do the work. And you guys have redundant power with UPS that you can bypass to work on the UPS, etc. if necessary? If not, that downtime isn't all that important to you anyway.
There's no excuse for this, hence the court fine. And you've got to be an idiot to knowingly let people work on a live multi-phase system. Hell, even a fused, RCD'd, single-phase can be bad enough.
From my experience (Score:5, Interesting)
These are the kinds of accidents proper "change control" is supposed to stop, it seems no one working there really knew the over-all implementation plan. At our local data center, we have actual licensed electricians for high DC stuff, they know to "never trust always test". Even though we contract all that out too, we try to make sure the people on the site are aware of these things via bright stickers, lock-outs, etc. I have no idea if they have required licensing and training for their "cable jointer" positions in the UK.
Re:From my experience (Score:4, Informative)
That's the kind of stop lock-out-tag-out is supposed to prevent.
I question how it was possible for someone to accidentally re-energize something.
One argument for switching to DC voltage (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
DC is just safer to work with
That depends...if you touch a live DC wire with your palm, your hand will naturally contract and grip the wire. Same thing with an AC wire, and your hand will be repelled. With enough power, both can still hurt like hell, but the latter is the better option.
Voltage vs insulation (Score:1)
The DC bus is likely at a lower voltage than typical AC circuits, therefore less able to cause electrocution.
Re: (Score:2)
The DC bus is likely at a lower voltage than typical AC circuits, therefore less able to cause electrocution.
It's not the voltage that kills, it's the current. As little as 100mA is fatal if it crosses the heart. And if you want to work with lower voltage for the same job that means the current must be higher.
Re: (Score:2)
Ohm's law, though. For the same resistance (a human body), lower voltage == lower current.
Re: (Score:2)
The DC bus is likely at a lower voltage than typical AC circuits, therefore less able to cause electrocution.
It's not the voltage that kills, it's the current. As little as 100mA is fatal if it crosses the heart. And if you want to work with lower voltage for the same job that means the current must be higher.
The higher current goes to the equipment the powerlines are connected to. But that current will not affect YOU in any way. However, if you happen to touch a low voltage line, the current through your body will be lower (Ohm's law) than when you touch a high voltage line. Hence, low voltage is safer.
Try taking the poles of a car battery (12V) in your hands and prodding your electrical outlet (110/230V) with two metal rods to feel the difference. Don't do it the other way round, chances are you won't be able
Feel bad for the guy (Score:2)
I feel bad for him, and I hope his family gets a decent settlement*, but have to ask why didn't he check the live line first? When I work on electrical stuff at home, I always check AND DOUBLECHECK that the breakers are off and that no juice is running. And, that's with voltages that won't necessarily kill me. Working with this level of voltage? Holy crap.
* As stated by some in the UK, it's not likely to be a big settlement. Too bad in this case.
Article versus summary (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
When your customer kicks up a fuss for you to "just get it done", it's not licence to just ignore your training, skills and safety procedures. Even if they threaten to cut your business, you still can't just say "Oh, let's forget all that stuff this one time because we might lose future work".
That's not how the law works, and not how it SHOULD work - the contractor shouldn't just cut corners because they're being pressured by the datacentre. They should say "We do it safely, or not at all". They didn't,
I don't understand .. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, a more apt punishment could have been to force management to touch a 300V power line.
Re: (Score:2)
Should be a 600kV line. That would be more stunning.
Re: (Score:2)
600k is nary a blip on MS' radar. That's not a punishment.
Agreed, it's not even a rounding error to those guys.
Re:600k? (Score:4, Informative)
Except that I am sure that MS is not on the hook for this at all.
That's WHY they use contractors.
Same thing with cell tower owners like Verizon... they own the them but they contract out all the work on them and are not liable for any accidents...
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but if TFA is correct and the person who died was not informed of the live circuit status, you can add two zeroes to the end of that number when the wrongful death lawsuit is filed.
This was not in the USA, so those kind of damages won’t be given out.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't it sad that data center downtime is far more expensive than permanent downtime for a human being? This is just absolutely ridiculous and unjust. Someone needs to go to jail for this type of negligence.
Re: (Score:2)
HFT Kills.
Yes, it's sad.
Re:Nothing Wrong with Non-Stop Service! (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't it sad that data center downtime is far more expensive than permanent downtime for a human being?
What's sad about it? Downtime creates downtime for other human lives too. At some point, you have to acknowledge that this is a trade off, a person assumes risk to their own lives in order to make other peoples' lives better or more productive.
The mideast called - the said you were the ideal candidate for their new landmine detection program.
Re: (Score:3)
Isn't it sad that data center downtime is far more expensive than permanent downtime for a human being?
What's sad about it? Downtime creates downtime for other human lives too. At some point, you have to acknowledge that this is a trade off, a person assumes risk to their own lives in order to make other peoples' lives better or more productive.
The mideast called - the said you were the ideal candidate for their new landmine detection program.
Because what I wrote was an appropriate if mild response to what you wrote, oh brittle and pathological person.
So tell me, are you willing to have a person die for some database that you find important?
Your post at top tells us you are perfectly fine with people dying so that other peopple can have some file stored in a dat center. Uptime to you is more important than someone else's life.
And the better question is - are you willing to cease existance for some file someone else finds important?
Pro
Re: (Score:2)
making middle-class living while risking your life for maximum profits of others is pretty grotesque, and should be illegal.
Point to someone who's doing that and we'll see if you know what you're talking about.
Re: (Score:3)
making middle-class living while risking your life for maximum profits of others is pretty grotesque, and should be illegal.
Point to someone who's doing that and we'll see if you know what you're talking about.
Why do you want them to kick off so you aren't inconvenienced?
Re: (Score:2)
What I find sad is that shutting down one of the power sources would cause downtime, who designs a data center with a single power network?
There are power line load balancers for hardware that doesn't allow multiple power input, but most equipment allows for multiple power sources to decrease downtime. Why would this guy need to work on a live circuit?
Re: (Score:2)
Balanced PDU's are very expensive when compared to standard units.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Didn't RTFA but if companies want 24/7 99.9999% up-time. Then they better have paid for the all the stuff to do it safely including line techs trained and certificated for live work. If they cheaped-out they deserve the an even bigger fine. Yes, live work happens and sometimes for no good reason then trying to save a few bucks. But even power companies do live work on their critical infrastructure and even with best tools and training a life is lost here and there.
In my experience, the most likely person to pull a dangerous stunt like working on a live high-voltage feed is someone who's got all the certs and experience in the world and is working on top-flight gear - thus meeting your "paid for the all the stuff to do it safely" requirement - but they get careless "just this once" for whatever reason.
Why?
Because they're certain they know what they're doing, and they're certain the equipment is safe.
But they don't, and it isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if they don't know what they're doing, they are at least getting hazard pay.
Re: (Score:3)
The five nine uptime is not counting planned stops. So you can at a datacenter have a planned stop for a month and still conform to the contract. But it wouldn't make sense.
There is a reason why clustered systems are used - one node goes down another takes over. That's good enough to provide decent uptimes in most cases.
But today with virtual servers it's often one huge single server, and that's a single point of failure system even if the server itself may have built in redundancy there are always somethin
Re: (Score:3)
Infrastructure availability should be 4-5 9's for a tier IV facility-- planned and unplanned downtime. Unfortunately, the project in question appears to be a 2N upgrade, which tend to be the most risky projects if done online. A Tier III or Tier II system cannot be safely upgraded online, especially at 400V. It is marginally more practical to do at 208V, but proper safety procedures are essential. You use insulating blankets to safe off any live parts, gear up in the space suits, etc... and it can be done.
I
Re: (Score:2)
Not working directly in a data center, what the hell is 2N or 3N?
I am wondering how the hell a datacenter like this could possibly not have redundant power to allow for one of the power sources to go down for maintenance.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem being, apparently, that nobody made "the decision". Due to lack of communication, one crew thought that status was A, and the other that it was B. Should you sent to prison the person who allowed live power in an area he thought there was nobody working, or the person who sent people to work where he thought the power was off? Or the bosses in the two different companies involved? Or the bosses in the employing company, a bank, the only place the chains of command met, who though they were emplo
Re: (Score:2)
Both those people had people on site at the top of the totem pole. They might not have realized that no one was in control, but they were certainly paid to be.
Pull their certs.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The problem being, apparently, that nobody made "the decision". Due to lack of communication, one crew thought that status was A, and the other that it was B. Should you sent to prison the person who allowed live power in an area he thought there was nobody working, or the person who sent people to work where he thought the power was off?
Did the company have a lockout procedure? If yes, was the procedure followed and if not, why? If the answer to the first is "no" or the second is "employees weren't trained or improperly trained" then that company is liable for the worker's death.
Re: (Score:2)
The company was certainly liable, and has been fined. The question is, was any person liable, to the extent that the could be imprisoned for manslaughter?
Re: (Score:2)
The facility had a single power feed, and the routine maintenance and supervision of the electrical system in the building was outsourced to a building management company. The provision of a second supply and associated switching system was being performed by a spe
Re: (Score:2)
This is no different than any murder investigation and the police should find out who exactly made the decision and make them pay for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Medium voltage electricians are expected to be able to perform work under such conditions. He fucked up, now he's dead.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. First of all he wasn't an electrician, he was something called a cable jointer; it doesn't require a license and normally they don't work on live stuff. Secondly, according to TFA he wasn't aware the line was live, which means someone in a supervisory position screwed up.
As to whose fault it is, that depends. If the company in charge of the site has a proper lock out/tag out policy and training program, it's probably some supervisor's fault -- unless the worker went into an area specifically
Re: (Score:2)
oh, so he did an electricians job, not being one, and killed himself
Re:Really... (Score:5, Informative)
The 600k was the fine for non-compliance. You'd get that whether or not someone was killed. (some fines will get a bumper for injury, but not many have a bump for death for some reason)
Ret assured, there will be a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by the family that will get settled out of court for an "undisclosed amount". (around 4 million is par) The fine was just the wakeup-call for the board to find a scapegoat to be the focus of the PR crucification and actual painful monetary loss for the impending lawsuit. The way things like this usually go, if the press doesn't dig up any real pattern of misconduct, there will probably just be someone issuing a public apology. If they do find a pattern, someone will get the axe.
Unfortunately, these places rarely get a fine unless someone is injured or killed, because nobody knows or cares about the noncomp until it hits the papers. Then the regs look bad if they don't step in and issue a fine like they ought to have done several times in the past to have, y'know, prevented this from happening in the first place.
But regardless of what happens, hopefully there will be changes made. From the looks of it, the tech that got killed was unaware that the wire that got him was energized, due to poor communication from his management, which appears to have been the result of poor communication from upper management and whoever was coordinating the work with the other group that was in charge of the deadly wire. So it's a bit early to be blaming the tech. Heck, he may have opened the box and tested it and found it wasn't connected yet and was safe to leave open, got to work, connecting it to something else, and half an hour later someone in another building lit the box up and the tech never knew what hit him. Things like that can happen when two different groups are working on connected systems and are unaware of each other and not keeping in communication as shared circuits are cut and energized.
Re:Really... (Score:4, Informative)
"Ret assured, there will be a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by the family that will get settled out of court for an "undisclosed amount". (around 4 million is par)"
Very unlikely, it was in the UK, we don;t get settlements anywhere near that level
Re: (Score:3)
Neither do we for the most part, at first the sympathetic jury awards the big-bucks, which is then paid out as say 4 Million over the life of a 30 year structured settlement. Later after the elections are over, and the emotions die down the award is reduced on appeal.
Re: (Score:2)
Any competent, licensed, journeyman or master electrician would take responsibility for his safety in a number of ways: often, by disabling power to a box and applying a padlock so no other worker could reenable that po
Re: (Score:2)
Back around 2000, I worked for a company doing power distribution software. One of the EE-type guys there told us that, in Britain, the electrician is supposed to go by what he's told as to whether a line is hot or not. (This was motivation to do our job well, since it kept track of things like lines and what was powered.) In the US, if we screwed up, the electrician was going to take his or her own precautions.
Re: (Score:2)
As stated above, my scenario is it was dead when he started, and someone cut power back in during his work. I'm going on the assumption the tech was following good practices and that management/communication was where the fault occurred, based on the background provided in the article.
But the correct way to address that particular risk is to tie said source wires to ground with heavy cable. That way if some clown does light up the wires while you're working, the worst you're going to get is a bath of copp
Re: (Score:1)
You are an idiot and are COMPLETELY missing the point. The amount is not for just any death. The amount is for enforcing/encouraging or even just allowing a work environment that is unsafe just so that the bottom line doesn't get affected.
That kind of negligence needs to hurt. $600K doesn't even cause a twinge of pain. I am sure the amount of money they were trying to save by not allowing the work to be done safely was a lot more than that.
Re: (Score:2)
It's even sadder than that: The extra cost of hiring people who were competent enough to recognise and mitigate the risks, would've likely been less than $580k. In these harsh economic times, it's really a race to the bottom.
But now the Holy Dollar rules everybody's lives
Gotta make a million, doesn't matter who dies
Re: (Score:3)
He didn't sign a contract which said "you indemnify us even if we appoint a moron to direct your work which allows circuits to be energized completely willy nilly without a care of his workers". We don't allow contracts like that to be signed.
Re: (Score:2)
Trolling?
I tend to doubt that the terms of the job stated that there would be bare wires running through the data center. Nobody hired to work as a maintenance person would reasonably expect that such a hazard existed. The idea that he was completely aware of these risks and took the job anyway is speculative nonsense.
Furthermore, if you RTFS, this was a FINE imposed on the company, not the result of a lawsuit by the deceased's family. I'm sure that the UK has workplace safety regulations which prohibit
Re: (Score:2)
Not to mention non-contact voltage sensors plus a live voltage check with a voltmeter once that is done. Shutting off the wrong breaker is why you have safety procedures and MOPs in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
There might have been a more complex set of circumstances leading up to this. According to TFA, the job involved installing a second source of power to the servers. And one source was kept live to maintain data center operations while the other was under construction. There was also a live test being conducted on the new gear and some mis-communication with regard to the system status.
Parts of the system were hot at certain times per their plan. But this appears not to have been communicated to everyone in
Re: (Score:2)
The UK has victim surcharges for most crimes. Those go directly to the victim and/or those who are victim of the same or similar crimes.
And it's a statutory fine for noncompliance in H&S. Now that it's been established by a court that the companies were negligent, the FAMILY can individually sue on that basis to receive compensation for their particular consequences.
The fact of law for these exact circumstances has been established by a professional body in court. Now the family don't have to pay law