economy

When tragedy strikes a business
by Eric Jackson, from other media

There still may be criminal charges of negligent homicide coming down, but there might not be. The civil and administrative nightmares are well underway. All that is minor compared to what the several employees of the Super Xtra supermarket and their families have suffered --- two dead with families uncertain about their future, four injured, two of them very seriously.

And what does it look like at a glance? It appears that a weekend supervisor who wasn't so well trained made a fatal blunder and employees who are not so well treated expressed certain grievances, news media and government agencies were attracted somewhat in the fashion of piranha schools, and the company had to quickly get its act together after a missed step or two.

On Sunday, September 14, some time after an electrical outage, there were foul odors coming from the waste treatment plant behind the Super Xtra store in the La Doña shopping center in Panama City's corregimiento of 24 de Diciembre. The supervisor on duty at the time, Expedito Sanjur, called several workers from around the store to help with the problem. Precisely what happened next remains to be clarified. Sanjur himself was critically injured from inhaling the toxic methane gas from the plant's septic tank and janitor Benigno Mojica was overcome by the fumes and died at the scene. Mojica had either descended or fallen into a pit with the filters that were supposed to keep the septic tank gases out of the environment. A call for help was made and one of those who responded, butcher Edgar Pittí, was killed by the fumes and four other employees were injured, one of them critically.

As the bomberos and ambulances and cops came, families and colleagues of those affected gathered outside the store and complained to reporters and investigators about contracting issues and working conditions at Super Xtra. A company spokesman assured reporters that Super Xtra uses specialized people to clean its septic tanks and did not order any of its store workers to do that job. Some of the relatives of those killed or injured interpreted that to mean that the company was denying responsibility and would leave the victims to fend for themselves.

Some of the ensuing investigations came to rapid conclusion. It's not hard to identify pulmonary edema in an autopsy, and that inflammation and filling with blood of the tiny membranes where the blood exchanges carbon dioxide for oxygen is the classic sewer gas inhalation death. The Institute of Legal Medicine quickly established the cause of death.

But who ordered whom to do what?

The company, stung by the bad publicity, issued a clarifying statement and said that it didn't know some of the details in part because the person who would know the most, supervisor Expedito Sanjur, was unconscious in an intensive care ward. But Super Xtra, now represented in person and showing its human face by way of director Murad Harari, promised to cooperate with all investigations. Meanwhile, the company offered groceries and other assistance to the affected families while everything was being sorted out.

Health inspectors descended upon the 24 de Diciembre and other Super Xtra stores, finding this or that fault in some of the locales but nothing grossly out of the ordinary as such things go. Citations were written and warnings were made of padlocks to come if the specified problems weren't cleaned up, and alleged recurrences of previously cited problems at the store in Ciudad Radial are likely to result in an administrative fine that could but probably won't go as high as $100,000.

Harari, with the company's lawyer and personnel director in tow, showed up at the Ministry of Labor Development and the Social Security Fund with all the files of the affected people. What has not been made public is the status of the affected employees --- what happens a lot in the Panamanian retail industry is that people are hired on 90-day contracts, never qualify for the benefits of permanent employees, are laid off, then are rehired on another 90-day contract. But as far as the government is concerned who is and who is not a permanent employee at a private business is confidential information.

In some of the newspapers there were headlines about possible six-year prison terms for negligent homicide, and the Ministry of Labor Development said that from its administrative perch the matter looked like a case of negligence. There were also some citations about such deficiencies under the labor laws as insufficient employee restrooms.

Occupational health authorities from the Ministry of Health ordered a temporary closure of the 24 de Diciembre store until it installed proper equipment to monitor the functioning of the waste treatment plant and other improvements were made. These things were done and the store reopened.

Benigno Mojica's family filed a lawsuit against Super Xtra and, without taking a dismissive or disparaging stance, the company said that it would deal with that legal matter.

The criminal investigation continues with no charges yet filed and what appears to be only an outside chance of a formal accusation of negligent homicide.

However, a supermarket chain that relies on public confidence in its reputation for its survival and prosperity doesn't go unpunished for incidents like this, regardless of what public officials decide to do. Moreover, whether or not the criminal law is invoked and notwithstanding the "anything goes" propaganda that sometimes goes out to potential foreign investors, Panama does have labor and health laws and regulations. If the norm is that these usually are not well enforced, there's nothing like a well publicized tragedy to prompt well publicized exceptions to that trend.

And the biggest underlying issue that few people will publicly acknowledge in this case? Panama has a defective educational system at all levels and it's hard for companies to get truly qualified people for skilled and low-to-middle management positions. Some people who should have known that the problem with the supermarket's waste treatment plant was potentially deadly and required the attention of trained people in gas masks and special protective suits apparently did not know this. This nation's business leaders have for many years been warning that our schools and universities are giving us a work force with insufficient skills and knowledge, and here we have one of the rudest possible reminders.