I've been lurking here for some time, figured I'd share this story with you guys.
About a decade ago, I walked out of a health insurance job as I had had enough, they called later asking if I quit, and I said no, I'll just come in when I feel like it (learned this from Office Space), so they sacked me, I got my termination notice and was able to then claim unemployment. Having always worked in an office up until that point, I got a job in a factory making products related to fire retardants.
Anyway, there was no regard for safety at all, the dust extractor didn't work, so I puchased my own mask much to the amusement of the other guys working there who were breathing that shit in on a daily basis, same deal with glues and other chemicals, they were basically huffing that shit all shift and the boss didn't give a fuck to enforce safety standards, so I had to do it myself until.
The installers would take our product out to install, and bring back the old product which contained asbestos inside. To save money, the boss would have the younger guys take this across the road to dispose of in a large bin at another business (it was in an industrial area), and I assume this stuff ended up in land fill. The installers would bring this stuff back and dump it on the curbside. It wasn't dust, but often this stuff came back broken and you could see the abestos on the inside, and I wouldn't go near it.
One day the boss asked me to use the forklift and take the stuff across the road to dump it. Keep in mind I didn't even have a forklift licence, and another guy had already been hit in the leg by it and was on some kind of back to work compo scheme, but obviously they didn't give a fuck. I refused to do it telling him it's fucking abestos, and he told me ” it's no worse than smoking”. I don't smoke mind you, and it's not like smoking is fucking harmless either.
I stewed on this for a few hours and eventually got my bag, and just walked out never to come back. About an hour later the recruitment agency called me asking why I had just abruptly left and that I couldn't do that, but I explained the situation. They must've called the business as they called me back saying what I claimed was untrue, but I told them if you go and look at Google Street, you can see the fucking stuff on the curbside. They didn't bother contacting me after that, but I was just so shocked cavalier behaviour regarding our safety, and a lot of the younger guys either didn't care or were too stoned to care.
I thought about reporting it, but some of the guys there needed their jobs, so I didn't want to rock the boat and potentially cause them problems, so I let it go, but still to this day I am shocked at just how little they cared about our health.