Comments on: Safety Director Fired for Refusing to Over-Report Injuries http://www.safetyxchange.org/compliance-risk-management/safety-director-fired-refusing-overreport-injuries Putting Safety First Sun, 29 Jan 2012 04:58:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=4932 hourly 1 By: Hank Roberts http://www.safetyxchange.org/compliance-risk-management/safety-director-fired-refusing-overreport-injuries/comment-page-1#comment-323 Hank Roberts Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:04:16 +0000 http://www.safetyxchange.org/?p=7416#comment-323 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. 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.

]]> By: sgrimes http://www.safetyxchange.org/compliance-risk-management/safety-director-fired-refusing-overreport-injuries/comment-page-1#comment-287 sgrimes Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:31:12 +0000 http://www.safetyxchange.org/?p=7416#comment-287 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. 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.

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