Posted By Sean Fraser
I'm watching this thread develop with some interest. Here are some thoughts on what has been discussed already.
The focus on the employee as the regulator of safety in the workplace is misplaced, as they have little individual influence or control over normal operations. Even collectively, they often find themselves on a back-foot against the managing regime regardless of whether they are uniuonised or not (they DO have more effect in a unionised workplace as compared to a non-unionised one though, which is at least one good reason for recognising and working with the official Trade Union[s]). The over-riding consideration has to be the prevailing corporate culture which stongly infulences how things are done, especially in terms of health and safety. Many organisations talk a good game but many have no actual intention of playing by the rules, either statutorily imposed or self-determined. Even the good ones will ignore "safety" issues when they become politically or economically inconvenient. A significant number actually believe that they have a robust safety regime in place, as reported incidences and injuries continue to decline and they trumpet this as evidence of how safe they are. But look behind much of this and you find a culture of under-reporting, even with those who are perceived to take safety "seriously". Reason? 'Targets' and 'performance measures'. Example - company has a contractor who is judged (or worse, paid) on performance. H&S incidents form part of that measure. Poor H&S results = lower payment (or even a "fine") or a failure to succeed in contract bids or futher work. Jobs are now at risk. To change the situation would take significant investment in the short term for results that will noly be realised over a longer term. Outcome? Obvious - under-reporting. And the same can apply within an organisation, as departments will conceal the real situation in order not to jeopardise budgets, jobs or even just corporate kudos.
So how would disciplining help the employees, assuming that the intention is to improve the safety culture? It won't. Worse, it would create further resentment against a system the employee has little or no real power to influence or control. And this would become an injustice if it were to be factored into any court proceedings as contributory negligence. We cannot allow fear to continue to run our organisations. Legal sanction, for many reasons, doesn't work. We are seeing the results of that already. Over-regulation will make it worse, not better. Any law is only as good as the enforcement that follows. As most of us have already commented, this appears to be happening less often, which only encourages the cowboys to flout the laws. Access to justice can sometimes mean that the most vulnerable, our poorly paid workers, are at most disadvantage as taking matters to court costs money, and there is often no guarantee that you will win. And then there are the appeals. He who has the most money, has the power. You cannot enforce or impose moral and ethical ethos on anyone - you can only foster that through an understanding of how society benefits from such intentions. And hence we get even furhter away from the individual. It has become a societal matter - and to punish the smallest element for the "sins" of the majority is patently unfair and unjust.
Sounds hopeless, doesn't it? Although I am against targets per se, I do believe that objective performance measures can illustrate how effective an organisation's safety culture is actually being. One way would be absence management. If we were required to report on consistent, simple to understand measures then it would be easy to do a comparison agaisnt like-for-like. There are obvious issues that arise in such a scenario - contractual relationships (inc. sub and sub-sub-contractors), temporary and transient workforces, traditionally "high-turnover" industry sectors and so on. But the principle remains sound.
Of course, anyone wanting to massage or misreport figures will still be able to do so. In any case it depends on the honesty of those required to report accurately - even if it is a legal obligation - and how strong all of the influencing factors actually are. Some are factors are stronger than others and will over-ride them. Some are equally strong but diametrically opposite, creating a dilemma that may or may not be resolved to the satisfaction of most (seldom all).
The fact remains that the focus should be on the system, not the individuals involved. The immediate impulse to "discipline" employees to address failures in the organisational culture (read "leadership") is always tempting, but if acted upon simply excacerbates the undesirable situation and may have further unintended consequences later on. If incidences are not being reported, we need to look beyond that and see the true causes, organsiationally, industrially and societally. And under-reporting by employees will seldom, if ever, be a cause, only a symptom.