Posted with permission from Confined Space, a newsletter of workplace safety and labor issues.
The Tampa Bay Times has published a fascinating and tragic investigative piece on the June 29, 2017 incident where five workers at Tampa Electric — Michael McCort, 60, Christopher Irvin, 40; Frank Lee Jones, 55, Antonio Navarrete, 21, and Amando J. Perez, 56 — lost their lives at the Big Bend Power Station after management forced them to do a procedure that they knew was hazardous. You need to read the article, but I will summarize here and identify a few lessons that can be learned.