A health and safety committee in which workers participate can make an important contribution to safety by identifying hazards and recommending measures to correct them. But safety committees occasionally get carried away and make unrealistic recommendations. For example, the committee may recommend large-scale safety engineering, equipment or training measures that your company simply can't afford. This article will explore the legal risks of such situations and explain how to avoid liability for failing to fulfill unrealistic committee recommendations.

What the Law Requires

In Canada, employers are required to establish a joint health and safety committee if they have a minimum number of employees. Smaller companies must designate a health and safety advisor.

In the U.S., it's not mandatory to establish a safety committee under OSHA. However, several states, including FL, MN, NV, OR and WA, do require employers to have a safety committee if they have certain numbers of workers and/or are in certain industries, e.g., construction. Many companies agree to establish safety committees in response to union demands during collective bargaining. And others create committees not because they have to but because they recognize the value of the committee in preventing incidents.

The Liability Dilemma

Unrealistic recommendations by a safety committee can create a serious dilemma for the employer. No company can afford to let its safety committee have a blank check. On the other hand, a company that rejects or, worse, ignores committee recommendations runs the risk of being second-guessed and found liable-especially if an incident occurs that the recommendation would have prevented. An unheeded recommendation can be like a smoking gun that exposes the company and senior officials to OSHA/OHS violations, fines and even criminal penalties if fatalities result.

So how should you respond when the safety committee makes a recommendation that you can't afford to adopt? Answer: By taking the recommendation seriously and writing the proper kind of rejection notice. You can use the same approach when you decide not to adopt a safety measure recommended by an outside consultant, union representative and even a voluntary standard from a non-governmental standards association like ANSI.

Conclusion

Next week, in Part 2, we'll look in more detail at what to do when a safety committee drops an unrealistic recommendation on your desk.

THE IMPERFECT GAME

The Frustrating Story of James Blackstone

By Glenn Demby

The game of bowling has been played in some form since the Stone Age. Modern bowling is played with 10 pins. The perfect score is 300. A bowler can earn a 300 by getting a strike in all 10 frames and then the two balls after that - 12 strikes in a row. Like the hole-in-one in golf, the perfect game in bowling is a rare and prestigious but not unheard of event. Likewise, many bowlers have come up a single pin short on their final turn, leaving them with the agonizing score of 299.

But what happened to one James Blackstone in Seattle on February 11, 1905 was something that no other bowler had ever experienced before or is likely to experience again.

Blackstone was 11 for 11. All that stood between him and perfection was a strike on his final ball. The delivery was perfect. The ball headed straight for the sweet spot. Nine pins crashed to the ground. But then the unbelievable happened. The tenth pin split clean down the middle vertically. One half toppled; but the other half remained standing. Blackstone was thus credited with a score of 299 ½.

It turns out that the pin had been split earlier and should have been taken out of commission. But all was not lost. To make up for the faulty pin, the manager of the alley offered Blackstone 50% off on his next bowling shoe rental.

Half off for half off. I guess there's rough justice in that.

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