ECN Forum Forums Safety Discussion and News Occupational Safety Discussion How do you ensure safety of staff?

heh~
Good one Bill, exactly what is posed to those in critiques when participants bemoan a problem...

solution?

First off~
We have a minset that is fundamentally flawed if safety continues as an Us-Them premis.
The cookie jar mentality of violation/fine via the upside down managerial triangle educates us to what?
A good example would be the many safety protocals held as overkill, or un necessary.

Secondly~
Corporism holds the concept of safety in the same light as liability . It merely equates to cost effectiveness, nothing more for most.

Third~
Unfunded mandates aren't worth the paper they're written on, laws, codes, and whatever else that may in fact be a good idea unenforced speak for themselves.

The end user(s) become a cyclical victim of isolation, and the object of litigation.

Safety, IMHO, should come from the bottom up as well as the top down.

A position of responsibility, as we are to be safety applied, should also come with some authority

Joe worker, with his heart in it, and mind on it,not some drone to protocal, would make more of a dent in the overall concept via sheer numbers.



[This message has been edited by sparky (edited 05-12-2003).]

Sparky,

I am not debating or commenting on anything you said, but it just seems that complaints are incomplete, or non-constructive without a suggestion of how to improve things.

Don't bite me, ok?


Bill

Bill,
there was no offense taken or projected.

The critiques i mention are formal meets that take place after volatile incidents

asking for solutions is a proven technique, especially for those of tenacity

Answer to OSHA's problem of not making enough head way in safety...

A fellow safety professional was rambling on one day after a long hard day during a shutdown. He made a statement that will stay with me for ever; "Kill a fish and you go to jail, kill a worker and you pay a couple of thousand dollar fine and you are back in business before the end of the day".

When OSHA has the teeth that EPA now has and as Sparky points out - employers actually give a darn about their employees, then we can just begin to scratch the surface of this solution. Until then, we will see cold and calous companies run by greedy billionaires, who have the biggest parachute for when they are run out of town, only after killing some employees and laying the others off!

No I am not bitter, just down right disgusted as to what I have seen happen to companies in my VERY short career!

Bryan

One of the biggest safety problems is the unfunded mandates put out by the many idiots with degrees in our goverment agencies. And thier corporation wannabes. All of these individual have one thing in common- they do not pay for the costs for thier rules. It does not matter if the rule is a good or bad one. As a small business owner I cannot afford every piece of safety gear on the market 98% of which will not be useful for 92% of the work we do. Yet I have been told that I must have climbing harness for all employees who could be over 4' of the ground wether there is a place to tie off or not. I have been told that I must have "hot work" clothing and protective equipment for all employees on a job site- even when no powre has been run to the job site.
The two examples I gave are part of the reason that those who can afford corporate lawyers and safety directors have all sorts of paper work written up and promptly use it to fire an employee who gets hurt " for violation of compant policy".
We will not get individuals to respect safety rules untill believable education and a very LARGE dose of common sense become the accepted norm.
We have a lot of very good and caring people who have made safety thier life's work. But we also have those who cannot do the work who moved over to the safety office. Until all of the safety enforcers/educators are percieved as not profiting or not bieng a little tin god they will not make any real difference.
I personally have worked in many different type of buildings. I have done residential, commercial and industrial jobs. I have been on jobs that took from a few minutes to 3 years to complete, from jobs that 1 man can do to a job with 500 electricians and over 2000 of other trades. All have those who are careful and careless, those who have good ad bad days, none want to be hurt eventhou some just do not care.
Almost all do not want to be bothered by some - pehaps well meaning- non worker interupting thier job with a sermon that may but usually does not apply to them AT THAT TIME. To often this applies to required classes that the individual does not want or in far too many cases need.
Also those big companies too often have some of the best scapegoat hunters as middle managers. I overheard a "safety manager" tell a guy who had been hit by a piece of blown trash during a sudden thunder storm. " You should not have been hurt. You went to the 10 hour OSHA course."
Untill attitudes like that and regulate,regulate,more regulation, more forms, more safety equipment needed or not more B/S changes AND is generally percieved to HAVE changed little if any futher progress will occur.
By the way those companies who told me the above safety junk got what they diserved. The only company who does thier electrical work doubled his charges to them. I know of several contractors including me who will not bid to them. We won't even look at thier plans.

What i have alwyas seen as a fundamental flaw in OSHA regs, is the inability of the employee to make the call.

NESPARKY,

Such bitterness! Some of what you said is oh so painfully true; BUT ONLY some! I am not sure who you have been getting your info from, but it sounds like you have been impacted by the contractor safety programs of big corporations. Now I am in no way siding with the big boys in this case, but to even the playing field let shine some light on the other side of the fence.

One day their was this snot nosed college graduate with a BS and MS in safety enigneering who stopped some work that he felt was unsafe. He of course got the sermon that the workers, "certified in the trade" has been doing their jobs safely "long before he was a thought in his daddy's pants" and that he should use some "common sense" and let them do their jobs. He walked away, only to have two workers fall 8 feet, that's right just 8 feet! One is now a "veggie" and I might add a very wealthy veggy!!!!! Of course he does not know this as he is still unable to speak or control his bodily functions. After the host company was cited by OSHA thousand dollars for not enforcing those silly OSHA standards, the civil lawyers took over the serious sums of money began to be tossed around, say around $55,000,000.00. So you can imagine what the response from the company was...a contractor safety program. It all goes back to those five workers not wearing their fall protection as required by OSHA, as required by their own company policy, as required by the host employers policy and requested by that snot nose, college educated safety professional who had asked them to compply just days before.

So if you ask me, what's common sense to you, will most likely be greek to me and what's common to me, will most likely be greek to you; so the ONLY answer is for both sides of the fence to work together and learn from each others. No one has all the answer and no one can do it all, but TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFEFENCE!

Bryan Haywood www.SAFTENG.net

Brian
I have no arguement with a well run and realistic safety program. My experience especally with some large companies "incompentents moved to safety dept to keep them employed" is very frustrating. I hoped that all of those idiots get sued preferably every day.
My point is that untill those type of individuals are removed from safety or supervisory positions, no effective change will occur.
We all can find incidents of people making mistakes that cause injuries,death and damage. Our goal should be to cut this down. We will never stop all of it- people do make mistakes, equipment does fail. To be effective a safety program MUST be realistic. The more B/S thrown in the less the worker will respect it or the ones profiting from safety positions.
Yes I have had too many experiences with these idiots. Some of whom were placed in thier positions to drive off any one who did not bow down to the management. Especally if you asked to be paid for work completed.
One time the big boy's accounts payable was 45 days late. When I asked where's my money and got the usual run around from management and sudden high intrest from the corporate safety people. We could not even walk into the work area without harassment from safety/security. Until I had to ask for my money, we never saw or heard from those clowns. Yes abuses like that and others refered to in my previous post are the reason I sound bitter. I am. But I am also disgusted with a system that permits this and encourages those types of abuses because of the volume of the paperwork. Wether that paperwork has any meaning of not does not seem to matter.
I hope that we can change this system and make it more effective. I never want to have to knock on a wifes door and tell her that her husband is dead again.

Bryan,
Please enlighten us to where in the OSHA regs an employee may decline a job on grounds that s/he feels it unsafe.
~Steve

Here is a link to OSHA 1977-11 and -12 which explains the rights of employees.
http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owa...art_number=1977&p_text_version=FALSE

Dave