Confronting Blame-the-Worker Safety Programs

[Omaha Steve]

http://labornotes.org/2010/05/confronting-blame-worker-safety-programs

Nancy Lessin | May 19, 2010

In a Missouri food warehouse, 150 workers load and unload trucks, lift boxes, drive fork trucks, and move endless pallets. Each month that no one reports an injury, all workers receive prizes, such as $50 gift certificates. If someone reports an injury, no prizes are given that month.

Last year, management added a new element to this “safety incentive” program: if a worker reported an injury, not only would co-workers forgo monthly prizes but the injured worker had to wear a fluorescent orange vest for a week. The vest identified the worker as a safety problem, and alerted co-workers: he lost you your prizes.

Blame-the-worker programs like this are flourishing, and they are harmful for workplace health and safety. Why are employers implementing them?

For decades, employers have brought in work-restructuring programs such as Lean, Six Sigma, and kaizen/continuous improvement. The result has been understaffing, work overload, long hours, job combinations—and therefore increased stress, repetitive strain, and other injuries and illnesses.

Increased injury rates brought higher workers compensation premiums and meant a higher risk of OSHA inspections. Supervisors lost bonuses, and facilities faced the loss of safety awards that had helped them win investments and contracts.

But instead of rethinking their work restructuring, employers came up with a different plan: hide the injuries. Enter “behavior-based safety.”

FULL story at link.

[Goldstein1984]

1. In interesting, but biased, look at behavior-based safety

Probably based on situations where employers implement behavior-based systems without meeting the obligations that management has to employer employees and address safety concerns.

Providing incentives for not reporting work-related injuries isn't how BBS works, but it is how BBS is often implemented.

The author of the article is incorrect when stating that the relationship between unsafe behavior and injuries is a myth, because it's a well established principle based on good data. However, when BBS is implemented badly, and safe behaviors by employees are not matched with an investment in safety by management, then the system fails.

I'm normally very much on the side of labor, promoting union hire on every job. But the perspective of this article is very biased. That said, I know employers, especially in the oil industry, that focus on lagging indicators and have safety programs that are largely an illusion. BP is an example of a company that talks a very good line but cuts corners on critical programs like Process Safety Management (e.g. Texas City Refinery Explosion), corrosion control (North Slope Transfer Pipeline Spill), and the BP Gulf Spill (Well design and testing). Large companies frequently pay contractors to cut corners for them, or force contractors to compete so aggressively and cut cost so much that safety is compromised. The facade of safety is always there, though.