uCalifornia Authorities Cite SeaWorld San Diego For Not Properly Protecting Employeesr

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  (Bob Reck)

  Another wave of controversy is washing over SeaWorld, as the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health has handed the company’s San Diego park four citations for not making sure employees who work with killer whales are properly protected.

  Three of those citations are categorized as serious, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune, and says SeaWorld failed to put in place an effective “injury and illness prevention program” designed to spot workplace hazards that could result in serious injury or death.

  In two of the citations officials said that the park doesn’t have procedures to protect workers “rode on the killer whales and swam with killer whales in the medical pool” and “who were present on the slide outs with killer whales in various pools.”

  A Cal/OSHA spokeswoman told the Union-Tribune that the agency’s investigations and the resulting citations were kicked off by a complaint, though SeaWorld wouldn’t identify the source of the complaint.

  “All employers are required to have a safety plan that looks at all of the jobs and duties, looks at any hazards related to those duties and takes the appropriate steps, whether it’s specific work practices or protective equipment in order to keep employees safe on the job because the goal is to have people go home safe and sound,” the Cal/OSHA spokeswoman noted.

  The investigation found that SeaWorld doesn’t have procedures for responding to “imminent hazards,” including a way to get personnel away from the area with the hazards. And the park doesn’t have an effective safety plan, Cal/OSHA’s report says, as it requires trainers to sign a confidentiality agreement that the agency said discouraged them from informing their employer of “hazards for fear of reprisal.”

  SeaWorld San Diego said it has put in place safety precautions like fast-rising pool floors and personal emergency air systems for those in the water with the whales. The park says it will appeal the citations, which come with a total fine of $25,770.

  “There is no higher priority for SeaWorld than the safety of guests and team members and the welfare of our animals,” the park said in a written statement Thursday. “The citations issued by Cal/OSHA today were not precipitated by any workplace incident, accident or injury, and they reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the requirements of safely caring for killer whales in a zoological setting.”

  SeaWorld has been the subject of much criticism since the documentary Blackfish came out in 2013, chronicling alleged mistreatment of orca whales by the park as well as accusing it of violating Occupational Safe and Health Administration laws.

  The documentary looked at the death of SeaWorld Orlando trainer Dawn Brancheau, who was killed in front of park visitors when an orca named Tilikum pulled her into the water and kept her under it during a performance. The documentary created quite a public relations headache for the marine park, landing it in Consumerist’s Worst Company In America contest for the first time in 2014.

  Just recently, Mattel confirmed it had stopped making all SeaWorld-branded merchandise, including SeaWorld Trainer Barbie.

  State cites SeaWorld for safety violations [San Diego Union-Tribune]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uTesla’s Worst Kept Secret Is Out: It’s Making Solar-Based Batteries For Homes, Businessesr

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  Tesla unveiled its new battery products Thursday night, including the residential Powerwall.

  For months Tesla CEO Elon Musk has subtly (and not so subtly) hinted that the company’s next big foray wouldn’t be another car, but a battery system aimed at homeowners, businesses and utilities. On Thursday night, he finally made the announcement most of us saw coming.

  The New York Times reports that Tesla’s next big move will be in the solar storage market with two distinct battery products: the Powerwall home battery and the business system Powerpack.

  As Consumerist previously reported, the new batteries can be used with things like solar panels to collect and distribute electricity as needed, especially in developing parts of the world or in areas where it’s impractical to run electrical wiring or operate a gas-powered generator.

  Both of the battery systems, which will be connected to the Internet and can be managed by Tesla remotely, will allow customers to connect up to nine battery packs to store larger amounts of power over time.

  The slim paneled Powerwall, which will run about $3,500 and must be installed by a licensed technician, stands roughly four feet by three feet and uses much of the same lithium-ion battery technology that Tesla puts in its electric vehicles.

  The device – most likely to be mounted in garages – allows solar panel customers to store energy in order to have power in the event of a failure, or when utility rates are high.

  “If you have the Tesla Powerwall, if the utility goes down, you still have power,” Musk said. “The whole thing is an integrated system that just works.”

  As for the business system, Powerpack, it’s already being tested in pilot programs with several companies, including 11 Walmart stores in California.

  The tests are in conjunction with Tesla’s sister company SolarCity, which already provides residential energy-storage units for about 300 customers.

  The system, which is expected to sell for $250 per kilowatt-hour of storage capacity, is designed to help businesses lower the demand for electricity from their solar grids, which Musk says in turn can lower costs.

  Walmart isn’t the only big company gearing up for more Tesla-powered batteries: The NYT reports that Amazon Web Services is set to begin the pilot program soon to assist in achieving its goal to derive all of its energy from renewable sources.

  “Batteries are important for both data center reliability and as enablers for the efficient application of renewable power,” James Hamilton, an engineer at Amazon Web Services, told the Times through a spokeswoman. “They help bridge the gap between intermittent production, from sources like wind, and the data center’s constant power demands.”

  Powerwall is expected to be marketed by a new division called Tesla Energy, with deliveries set to begin later this summer, the Los Angeles Times reports.

  “We are talking about trying to change the fundamental energy infrastructure of the world,” Musk said at the conference.

  Tesla expands from electric cars to energy storage for businesses, homes [The Los Angeles Times]
  Tesla Ventures Into Solar Power Storage for Home and Business [The New York Times]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uConsumerist Friday Flickr Findsr

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• Here are eight of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last two weeks, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness.

  

  (elnina)

  

  (Coyoty)

  

  (Matthew Hunt)

  

  (John Hanley)

  

  (Chris Blakeley)

  

  (Mark Turnauckas)

  

  (Nicholas Eckhart)

  

  (Brian Kelly)

  Want to see your pictures on our site? Our Flickr pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uThis Independent RadioShack Isn’t Going Anywherer

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  (Nicholas Eckhart)

  If you don’t happen to live near one, you may have never heard of RadioShack dealers and franchisees. They’re locally-owned stores that happen to sell merchandise from RadioShack. However, they aren’t part of the RadioShack that declared bankruptcy in February and is in the process of closing down most of its stores. The owner of one of these Shacks in Virginia wants to make sure that customers know they’re staying open.

  The curious thing, of course, is that remaining RadioShack stores are now part of a joint venture with mobile carrier Sprint. Sprint’s branding is more prominent, or will be once the stores have their new signage. If the new owners don’t win the bidding for the brand name in next month’s auction, they will no longer have the right to call the new stores RadioShack at all. For now, though, the franchise and dealer stores get to call themselves “RadioShack,” and that may be why people are getting confused.

  “I want to reassure people that regardless of what happens with RadioShack (corporation), we have no intentions of going anywhere,” explains the president of Kittronics, the local company that owns the store. The store is even going to some effort to assure customers that they’re staying open: they’ve placed ads explaining how they plan to stay open, and also out signs out front and on the sidewalk.

  Thank you for your concern!

  This store is an independently owned and operated location.

  Although we display the name Radio Shack, we will not be closing. Please contact us directly with any questions.

  The company also sells DirecTV subscriptions, Exede satellite internet access, and metal detectors, which are arguably more popular than fuses and wires, but the store will continue to sell most of the same merchandise.

  RadioShack of Warrenton continues as independent [Fauquier Now]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

u1-Hour Photo Shops Are The Disappearingest Business In Americar

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  (Erin Nekervis)

  
  If you think that video stores are the business category that has disappeared the fastest, you’re wrong. If you found an exposed roll of film in a drawer and wanted to find out what was on it, where would you take it? Most likely, your local photo store is gone, and you might have a drugstore or other business that still does a few rolls of film every week.

  Let’s look at just shops that bill themselves as one-hour photo developers: analysis by Bloomberg Businessweek shows that there are only 190 of them left across the country. That’s a 94% decrease over fifteen years ago, the final years before digital photography started to become mainstream. In the same time period, 85% of video rental stores closed. Yes, there are still some video-rental stores.

  As a person who studied archives and preservation, I’m obligated to point out that while our digital photos are plentiful and portable, they are only as permanent as the cloud service we’ve uploaded them to or the hard drive they’re stored on.

  Twilight of One-Hour Photo, America’s Fastest-Fading Business [Bloomberg Businessweek]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uArbitration Fairness Act Would Reinstate Consumers’ Right To Sue In Courtr

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  (Brian Turner)

   

  Companies have been taking away your right to sue them when they screw up for years, using small, hidden clauses to require mandatory binding arbitration instead. After years of consumer groups voicing their concern over this anti-consumer practice, there’s finally a new bill in congress that proposes to bring back your right to sue.

  The Arbitration Fairness Act of 2015 [PDF], which was introduced by Minnesota Sen. Al Franken and Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson, would eliminate mandatory arbitration clauses in employment, consumer, civil rights and antitrust cases by amending the Fair Arbitration Act to its original intent.

  The use of arbitration clauses has skyrocketed by companies since 2011, when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that it was perfectly okay for companies to take away a consumer’s right to sue or their ability to join other wronged consumers in a class action case by inserting a paragraph or two of text inside lengthy contracts.

  To add insult to injury, most consumers are unaware that they’ve signed away their right to be heard in court. A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report from March found that 75% of consumers surveyed did not know if they were subject to an arbitration clause in their credit card contract. And among consumers whose contract included an arbitration clause, fewer than 7% recognized that they could not sue their credit card issuer in court.

  “There is overwhelming evidence that forced arbitration creates an unaccountable system of winners and losers,” Sen. Johnson said in a statement. “Unlike America’s civil justice system, which has evolved through centuries of jurisprudence and social progress, forced arbitration does not provide important procedural guarantees of fairness and due process that are the hallmarks of courts of law.”

  According to a statement from Sen. Franken’s office, the Arbitration Fairness Act would restore the intent of the original Fair Arbitration Act (FAA) passed by Congress in 1925.

  When FAA was passed it made it was intended to target commercial arbitration agreements between two companies of generally comparable bargaining power. Over the years, however, the Supreme Court boarded the reach of the law to include consumer and employment disputes, effectively superseding all other federal laws protecting consumers, workers and small businesses.

  Under the newly introduced Arbitration Fairness Act of 2015, agreements to arbitration of employment, consumer, civil rights and antitrust disputes could only be made after the dispute has arisen.

  To be clear, the Act doesn’t prohibit companies and consumers from going to arbitration to settle a dispute, it simply mandates that the decision to go into arbitration not be made before the dispute has actually taken place.

  The Act seeks to ensure transparency in civil litigation by protecting the integrity of Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and others that are frequently skirted by companies using forced arbitration.

  Additionally, the Act would continue to allow pre-dispute mandatory arbitration to continue in business-to-business agreements, and does not apply to collective pardoning agreements.

  “The Arbitration Fairness Act, is a commonsense reform to our justice system that will restore Americans’ right to challenge unfair practices by corporations and ensure meaningful legal recourse when everyday Minnesotans and small businesses are wronged,” Franken says in a statement. “It’s clear that we’re at a point where big corporations can write their own rules and insulate themselves from liability for wrongdoing—this can’t continue.”

  Consumer groups, many of which have called on regulators to revise forced arbitration rules, applauded the Act’s introduction.

  Both the National Consumer Law Center and the National Association of Consumer Advocates say they support the new measure, calling on Congress to follow through restoring consumers’ Constitutional rights.

  “We should never have to give up our Constitutional rights just to do the everyday things in our lives,” NACA’s legislative director Ellen Taverna said in a statement. “The Arbitration Fairness Act stands up for consumers, servicemembers, workers and all Americans and restores our right to hold corporations accountable when they break the law.”

  Sen. Franken, Rep. Hank Johnson Lead Charge to Protect Legal Right to Day in Court [Al Franken]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uHey, AT&T Customers: If You Plan To Grab A Slice Of The Cramming Settlement, Do It Right Nowr

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  (So Cal Metro)

  A friendly reminder to AT&T wireless customers: as a result of their $105m settlement with the FTC, the company has to pay refunds for cramming. The application deadline for refunds is May 1 — that’s tomorrow. You can visit the settlement website to see if you’re eligible or to submit a claim.
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by Kate Cox via Consumerist