Hot Safety Topics
Safety Products
Loading ...SafetyXChange on Twitter
New blog post: The Ontario Workplace Violence Law http://www.safetyxchange.org/compliance-risk-management/ontario-workplace-violence-lawSafetyXChange Feedback
Thoughts? Let us Know
Safety Director Fired for Refusing to Over-Report Injuries
What Happened
Auto company officials were concerned that the reported incident injury rate (IR) at a Toledo plant was artificially low. After investigating the OSHA 300 logs, management discovered what it thought were unreported incidents and ordered the plant’s safety director to list them in the log. The safety director, whose job performance was based on the plant’s IR, claimed that the incidents weren’t work-related and thus didn’t have to be reported under OSHA recordkeeping standards. He met with OSHA officials who confirmed his view. But management still wanted the incidents reported, preferring to err on the side of over-reporting. The safety director refused and threatened to fire any subordinates if they listed the incidents in the log. When management found out, they fired the safety director for insubordination. The safety director sued the company under the Ohio whistleblower law, saying he had been fired in retaliation for meeting with OSHA officials.
The Ruling
The court found no retaliation and dismissed the case without a trial.
The Explanation
The whistleblower law is designed to protect employees who report illegal acts on the part of their companies. But while under-reporting injuries violates OSHA standards, over-reporting them is perfectly legal. And, since the company didn’t do anything wrong, the safety director had no case under the whistleblower law.
Citation
Herrington v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 26623 (6th Cir.), Dec. 17, 2004.
E-mail this to a friend
Print This Post
Top
Story Comments (2)
Leave a Reply
Seems to me there were two grave errors here: 1) If the company does not believe the safety director there is no point remaining employed there. Yes, a good job is hard to find, but there is no point in putting your reputation and future at risk because of ignorance on the part of the company; 2) The safety director either did not explain well enough why the injuries weren't work related or they were work related and incorrectly categorized. The safety director asked OSHA, so I'm assuming they were not work related. Apparently, Daimler Chrsyler does not know that the higher the incident rate, the bigger a target you are for OSHA inspections, especially if you are required to report injury illness rates each year. However, I can't believe that either because I've worked in the foundry industry for many years and Chrysler was one of our customers. Their safety requirements were many and dealt with all aspects of safety from the part we made for them to the PPE we wore in our plant. Something speaks fishy of this story and I don't think we know everything that happened.
It seems to me there are at least two problems here. First, the Safety Director was indeed insubordinate: that issue is not in question.
The question should be who in the company is given authority to maintain the 300, and is the company going to follow its own program?
The second problem is the passing remark in the article that "the Safety Director's job performance was based on the plant’s IR". Why? Who in that company thinks the Safety Director directly controls the injury rate? I've interviewed with two different companies and discovered they do this (one a VERY nice position), and passed on both jobs after the discussion. I refuse to be held accountable for (or be measured by) something I do not control.