An employee of a local business had his hand crushed when it was caught in a trash compactor. Your employer has two older model compactors similar to the one that caused the injury, so you propose replacing them with newer, safer models. The owner refuses to buy the new equipment citing the expense, stating “We can’t afford to replace one compactor let alone two. Do some safety training and make sure that nobody operates them alone. There’s no way we can afford to make the workplace totally safe for everyone.

It’s impractical. Where would we stop? Are we supposed to go paperless so we people don’t get paper cuts?” Discuss the ethics of his view. What place do economics have when discussing employer safety?