27 April, 2011This April 28 the International Metalworkers' Federation calls for greater empowerment of union safety representatives as they are the best means to a safer and healthier workplace.
GLOBAL: April 28th is recognized by trade unions throughout the world as workers' memorial day, a day in which we stop and think about those colleagues who have lost their lives at work. It is also a day when we recommit ourselves to ensuring health and safety standards improve and the belief that no one should be killed at work. Our aim is to reduce the number of workers killed each year by speaking out against behavioral based safety systems, which blame the worker rather than fixing the hazard.
We are speaking out now against these systems because we believe good occupational safety and health practices are based on the understanding that all work related injuries and illnesses are caused by workers' exposure to hazards. The goal of workplace health and safety efforts then is to find and fix all hazards and to understand and change systems of work.
Good safety begins with engagement from workers and unions and does not start with expensive consultancy based systems which impede safety by driving down the reporting of minor accidents and near misses. The possible harm that results from a policy focused on discipline is illustrated by a recent incident in a North American steel plant. Three workers voluntarily reported a near miss accident, and suggested steps be taken to prevent a reoccurrence. All three were blamed for the incident and given 5-day suspensions. The discipline was later rescinded, but the damage has been done, and workers are now reluctant to report minor accidents and near-misses because they think they will be blamed for undermining safety efforts.
Rigorous hazard identification, workplace safety audits, and route-cause incident investigations are time-consuming and hard. Punishing workers for alleged rules violations is easy. Given a choice many companies will choice the easy way. Sadly behavior based systems empowers them to substitute discipline for safety. As unions we do not believe that it's possible to discipline your way to a safer workplace.
It is no coincidence that union workplaces are safer workplaces. That's because trade unions are a positive force for change and fight for better working conditions for their members. There is no one better at identifying hazards on the job, or come up with ideas to eliminate or reduce hazards, than the worker doing the job.
Building a union alternative to behavior based systems is critical and one way in which to do this is by collectively bargaining employee authorization cards which reinforce an employee's right to immediately stop any work activity that they feel presents a danger to themselves, co-workers or contractors. These cards empower employees and act as a deterrent to behavior based systems. Often workers report areas for improvement only to be ignored, then after a fatality the management ends up spending 10 or 20 times more than if they had fixed the original problem. Investment which could be better spent empowering union work place safety representatives that can deliver real benefits not just misleading statistics.
For details on actions being taken around the world this April 28, go to: http://www.hazards.org/wmd/countrylistings.htm