The buildup of combustible aluminum dust, as well as other worker safety violations, was due to the negligence and corruption of factory management and local officials. The Chinese government has begun prosecuting 15 city officials and 3 factory executives that are to blame for creating the conditions that led to the explosion.
It comes as no surprise then that RepRisk has named the Kunshan Zhongrong Metal Plating Factory explosion as the #1 project on their 2014 Most Controversial Projects Report. This report was developed when RepRisk systematically screened big data from a broad range of public sources in 14 languages in order to identify, filter, analyze and quantify environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks related to companies, projects, sectors and countries
In half of the projects that ranked in the 2014 Most Controversial Projects Report five are due to major workplace disasters caused by hazardous working conditions, which subsequently led to hundreds of deaths and injuries as well as widespread environmental pollution. Even more worrisome, in most of these disasters the workers had warned management about the issues, and these warnings had been ignored or dismissed.
While the RepRisk report shows the worst offenders, a lack of worker safety is a widespread issue globally, and one that needs to change. The International Labor Organization estimates that 2.3 million people die EACH YEAR from work-related accidents and illnesses, and over 300 million workers are injured non-fatally.
The United States has organizations such as the NFPA and OSHA that can work to create and enforce regulations to keep workers safe, but these regulations are often overlooked or ignored. As the world turns into a global economy it will be important for standards of worker safety to be created and followed. The Chinese plant created the explosive aluminum dust when they were manufacturing wheels for General Motors, Volkswagen and Mitsubishi. The plant conditions where these wheels were manufactured would never be allowed in the United States, where the wheels were headed, yet the companies allowed conditions to reach these deadly levels.