It's depressing. I urge management to concentrate the bulk of its safety dollars, time and effort on reducing the common hazards -- the ones that cause the most overall damage. It's plain common sense. But they just don't listen

I've tried everything -- statistics, risk ratios and history. You name it, I've tried it. But just when I think I'm making some headway, BAM!, some employee from a company on the other coast gets into a freak, billion-to-one accident that gets all kinds of media attention. Or the manager's sister-in-law's friend's hairdresser sues her company for a zillion dollars over some outlandish hazard.

Of course, at the next committee meeting, the manager wants to know what I'm doing to prevent the same type of thing from happening at our company.

"But none of our employees have 'milking rattlesnakes' as part of their job descriptions," I explain calmly.

"Doesn't matter, our people could be doing something similar at this very moment that may put us in the same predicament. I think we should form a task team to look into this."

"Well, wouldn't it be better if that time and effort was spent on teaching employees how to lift better. Back injuries are our?"

"That's not what I'm talking about," the manager interrupts. I'm talking about preventing a major lawsuit. There needs to be action taken on this."

"No matter how small the likelihood of its occurring?" I sputter.

"It's already happened once, it can happen again."

I'm about to rebut but I figure it's a waste of brain waves.

This type of knee-jerk reaction from management irks me no end. I'm sure some of you feel the same way. And we're not alone -- our employees hate it too

Knee Jerking and the Killer Pen Cap

True story. One afternoon a secretary in our maintenance department broke her wrist while pulling a stubborn cap off of a pen. When the cap finally came loose, the secretary's arm swung back and she hit her hand and wrist against the side of the desk. It was a serious break and she couldn't do any keyboarding for several weeks.

Now I agreed that we should do an accident investigation, and even describe the incident in our monthly safety bulletin. But to call an all-hands meeting to warn about (and demonstrate) the hazards of removing a pen cap! That seemed like a bit much. And it was only the beginning.

The pen brand was banned. I spent two days collecting pens and checking other brands to ensure they were safe. Every department purchaser and secretary was sent a notice commanding them to never again order the offending brand. One manager suggested we ban all capped pens and only allow "click" pens onsite.

In a moment of frustrated passion, I blurted out, "let's prohibit all writing utensils!" So now, because I couldn't keep my big mouth shut, if you come to visit me at work with the intention of taking notes, you better bring a notebook computer!

Beating the Knee Jerk Blues

What can a safety director do to keep management from lapsing into the knee jerk blues? One key measure is to keep track of what's causing most of the accidents at your own facility. Keep the statistics at your fingertips. Though it might not prevent every management knee from jerking after freak accidents, it might help sensible members of the management team refrain from letting reflex reactions dictate decisions in terms of your company's safety efforts.

HISTORIC MOMENTS IN WORKPLACE SAFETY

Hammurabi: Made it illegal to kill another man's slave.

The Invention of Workers' Compensation

Ancient Babylonia wasn't exactly a workers' paradise. In fact, it was a slaveholding society. But the Babylonians did do one thing to advance the cause of working people: They invented what is widely considered to be the very first workers' compensation scheme. Well, sort of.

The Code of Hammurabi, published around 1750 B.C., codifies a bunch of legal principles dealing with personal injuries. Two of its best known provisions are Section 196, which says that if a man destroys the eye of another his own shall be destroyed, and Section 200 which says the same thing about a tooth.

The Code also said monetary compensation should be paid for inflicting injuries on another person -- like killing that person's slave. Of course, this post-mortem compensation didn't do much for the slain slave; but it might at least have discouraged the slaying of other slaves. Not much of a safety net. But Rome -- or rather, the pyramids -- weren't built in a day.

Story Tools:  Email This Post  Print This Post Top