Welcome to CPR's first- and only-of-its-kind Crimes Against Workers Database. Here you’ll find detailed information about state criminal cases and grassroots advocacy campaigns against employers responsible for crimes against workers – leaving them dead, maimed, seriously injured or sick, or robbing them of some or all of their paychecks. You'll also find links to Google Drive folders with source materials. Search using the tools below.
You can also help us grow the database. We plan to expand the database as we discover new cases and gather new information and materials. You can help us by notifying us of new incidents or additional information about incidents already in the database. To let us know about an incident, contact CPR Senior Policy Analyst Marcha Isabelle Chaudry.
Disclaimer: Before you begin your search below, please review the database terms and conditions.
Showing 127 results
Struck by | California | July 23, 1982
During the last day of filming 'Twilight Zone: The Movie,' explosions on set caused the pilot of a helicopter to lose control, crashing into Vic and the two children. All three were killed instantly. The children had been hired illegally, did not have the necessary permits, and did not have a licensed teacher-welfare worker.
Fall | California | January 23, 1981
7 construction workers were killed after falling 470 feet in a scaffolding collapse while building a hydropower plant at PG&E’s ‘Helms Pumped Storage Project.’ A similar platform collapse had occured two days earlier, and although no one was injured, management took no corrective action.
Fire/ Explosion | New York | October 10, 1979
A fire erupted in a six story warehouse operated by Deitsch Textile Corp. that killed one and injured 19 others. On the day of the fire, a shipment of elastic material was delivered to the warehouse. The material was loaded onto the freight elevator by Logan, together with coworkers Gerald Williams and Raymond Stanley. The […]
Fire/ Explosion | New York | November 21, 1976
Six workers were killed and at least 50 other workers were injured in an explosion and fire at the chewing-gum manufacturing plant where they were employed. A small explosion believed to be caused by the liquid nitrogen's liquefaction of oxygen set off another explosion of dust surrounding the machinery that was composed primarily of magnesium […]
Trench Collapse | New York | August 17, 1973
Ebasco Services had been hired by Consolidated Edison Co. of NY, a public utility, to perform certain management, construction, and engineering functions in connection with a project to extend the utility's Astoria Queens Generating Station. Part of this involved constructing a temporary metal boxlike structure called a cofferdam, which allows for waters to be pumped […]
Fire/ Explosion | Massachusetts | March 30, 1972
Three employees were killed in an explosion at the fireworks manufacturing plant where they worked. In the building where they were working, fireworks were primarily being dried, but the building was also being used to wrap fireworks and add the lifting charge that gives them force to rise up and be detonated, and being used […]
Fire/ Explosion | New York | March 25, 1911
One hundred forty-six workers were killed in a 1911 fire at a New York City garment factory because the doors were locked to prevent petty theft. People who did not jump from the building died from smoke inhalation, burns, or being trampled in the escape. The defendants fastened, locked, and bolted a door in the […]
Chemical Exposure | Illinois | June 8, 1908
42 employees were exposed to various hazardous substances during the coating of wire. Workers suffered headaches, hacking coughs, skin rashes, ulcers, kidney and lung failure, impotence, memory loss and deep depression. Defendants exposed employees to numerous federally regulated substances in the workplace; failed to provide necessary safety instructions and equipment and health monitoring systems; provided […]
Chemical Exposure | New York | June 8, 1908
Rodriquez suffered medical harm from mercury poisoning in the form of permanent brain damage from exposure in excess of the allowable limit due to working in an unventilated basement of a thermometer manufacturing facility, specifically from feeding broken thermometers into a glass crushing machine as part of the off-book mercury reclamation operation. Pymm Thermometer and […]