Fines levied against Kleen Energy, the company responsible for the fiery deaths of six workers in a pipe-cleaning accident in 2010, were quietly lowered by 88%:

After six workers were killed in a massive gas explosion at the Kleen Energy plant in Middletown four years ago, federal investigators tallied hundreds of violations at the site and issued $16.6 million in penalties against more than a dozen companies — the third-largest workplace-safety fine in the nation’s history.

“The millions of dollars in fines levied pale in comparison to the value of the six lives lost and numerous other lives disrupted,” U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said at the time. “However, the fines and penalties reflect the gravity and severity of the deadly conditions created by the companies managing the work at the site.” [Courant]

The fines were lowered because Kleen convinced OSHA that many of its “willful” violations should be downgraded to a less-expensive category of infraction because Kleen was relying subcontractors to tell them how clean their pipes. 

[Photo credit: danmachold, Creative Commons.]

Hillman judge Harold Meyerson explains what’s at stake in this week’s historic unionization vote at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. 

[Photo credit: A VW plant in Germany, by roger4336, Creative Commons.]

The Best of the Week’s News

• If they look like decrepit relics from the 19th Century, that’s because they are! New York City’s rustic-looking rooftop water towers are unregulated vats of filth.

• In a historic vote, Volkswagen workers in Tennessee will decide next week whether to join the United Auto Workers.

• 1 million Texans have fallen into the Medicare coverage gap because their state refused to expand the program under Obamacare.

• How a substandard abortion provider exploited his patients and endangered their health.

• The Koch Brothers left a confidential document at their last donor confab, now Mother Jones has it.

[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]

Social justice journalist Beth Schwartzapfel has an important piece on juveniles sentence to life without parole (LWOP) and the legal fight to eliminate LWOP for young offenders:

A common perception is that these kids are “the worst of the worst,” and indeed, many juveniles sentenced to life have done terrible things. But HRW estimates that a quarter of them were, like Jennifer, convicted of “aiding and abetting” or of felony murders. Almost 60 percent had no prior criminal convictions. More than 70 juveniles were just 13 or 14 years old at the time of their crime — some so small when they arrived in prison that all the uniforms were too big for them. Anecdotally, many, like Jennifer, had been subjected to abuse and neglect, their childhoods marred by instability, poverty and violent or criminal behavior by the adults in their life. [AJAM]

The Supreme Court has already declared mandatory LWOP for juveniles to be unconstitutional and a handful of states have eliminated it as a punishment for young offenders. 

[Photo credit: shingst, Creative Commons.]