Main Street

Locked In

Tim Eriksen performs “Granite Mills.”

The song tells the story of a mill fire in which workers were killed because they were locked in. It’s a story that’s been lived out too many times—and, as Tim Eriksen and Riley Baugus noted while playing the song in a recent concert, though this song is historical, the practice of locking workers in is unfortunately not left far enough in the past. They pointed to the 1991 Hamlet chicken processing plant fire as an example, but in many more recent cases workers have reported being locked into other workplaces. Wal-Mart employees, for instance, were locked in overnight until very recently (assuming the store’s claims to have stopped the practice are truthful). They had one single fire door, but were forbidden to use it and in several cases, a needed trip to the hospital was delayed. And that fire door they were forbidden to use? Wal-Mart used to keep fire doors chained until an employee died because paramedics couldn’t get in.

And it’s a pretty safe bet that somewhere in America, there are still workers in a building where there’s no exit even in case of fire.

Tags: occupational safety and health