Workers Distrust Behavior-Based Safety Programs

(Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation)

On April 28, 2007, men and women throughout the country will pause to pay their respects for Workers’ Memorial Day. Each year working men and women take time to remember those who have been killed or injured on the job, while renewing their pledge to make workplaces safer. Sadly, the Rochester Business Alliance’s Unshackle Upstate seeks to eliminate workplace safety regulations (such as the scaffolding laws), and instead place the sole burden on employees themselves. This misguided effort is akin to removing a safety harness – you may move faster and avoid injury today, but your actions will make it more likely for an injury to occur.

James Frederick and Nancy Lessin shed light on these issues:

“Over the last decade, workplaces throughout the world have experienced massive restructuring that has included downsizing, increased hours of work (e.g., 12 hour shifts, mandatory overtime), intensification of work (increased work load and/or job duties), increased pace of work ("push for production") and a host of changes in technologies, work processes and management techniques. These changes, aimed at making workplaces more competitive and productive, have been associated with significant adverse health and safety impacts - repetitive strain injuries, stress, workplace violence, fatalities and other work-related injuries and illnesses.

“Instead of examining how core work processes are affecting health and safety, many employers are directing attention to workers themselves as the problem rather than work restructuring and hazardous job conditions.

“Enter "behavior-based safety" - safety programs that, depending on the particular behavioral safety program, claim that 80 to 96 percent of job injuries and illnesses are caused by workers' own unsafe acts. Behavior-based safety programs focus attention on worker carelessness and conscious or unconscious unsafe behaviors, and place the onus for a safe workplace on workers themselves.

“Workers whose employers have implemented behavior-based safety programs describe an atmosphere of fear that descends upon the workplace, where workers are reluctant to report injuries and illnesses for fear of being labeled an "unsafe worker."

“At one factory that had implemented a behavioral safety program, the United Auto Workers Health and Safety Department reports, when a union representative asked workers during shift meetings to raise their hands if they were afraid to report injuries, about half of 150 workers raised their hands. Worried that some workers feared even raising their hand in response to the question, the union representative asked a subsequent group to write "yes" on a piece of paper if they were afraid to report injuries. Seventy percent indicated they were afraid to report injuries. Asked why they would not report injuries, workers said, "we know that we will face an inquisition," "we would be humiliated" and "we might be blamed for the injury."

“Employers have many reasons for wanting to discourage workers from reporting injuries. If workers do not report injuries as work-related, it can be difficult for them to receive workers' compensation benefits - covering medical costs and/or lost wages - related to those injuries. Those costs are then shifted to workers' health insurance at the same time that employers are increasing the share of these costs that are borne by workers themselves. Fewer workers' compensation claims also translate into lower workers' compensation premium payments for employers.

“In the United States, discouraging workers from reporting injuries may also help employers escape Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspections. The Department of Labor collects employers' records of work-related injuries and illnesses (known as OSHA 200 logs). Under a new OSHA initiative, OSHA inspectors will make unannounced inspections of employers with rates of injuries and illness above a specified level. Employers with injury rates below that level are unlikely to receive an OSHA inspection unless a very serious accident occurs in the workplace or someone files a complaint with OSHA.

“The national AFL-CIO along with a number of U.S. unions have issued policy positions opposing "blame-the-worker" approaches to health and safety.

“"These programs and policies have a chilling effect on workers' reporting of symptoms, injuries and illnesses," states a 1999 AFL-CIO policy resolution, "which can leave workers' health and safety problems untreated and underlying hazards uncorrected. Moreover, these programs frequently are implemented unilaterally by employers, pitting worker against worker and undermining union efforts to address hazardous workplace conditions through concerted action."

“Labor law in the United States deems health and safety a "mandatory subject of bargaining," meaning that employers cannot refuse to bargain with unionized workers over health and safety issues and are prohibited from making unilateral changes in health and safety programs and policies without providing the union an opportunity to bargain. Thus, when and if an employer decides to initiate a behavior-based safety program, a safety incentive program or injury discipline policy - even mid-contract - unions can demand to bargain.

“To counter management's proposal of a behavioral safety program, unions can propose a comprehensive worksite health and safety program - focusing on identifying and eliminating hazards and utilizing the recognized hierarchy of controls, which supports the elimination of hazards and the use of engineering controls as preferable to lower-level and less effective control measures such as using personal protective equipment. To counter an employer-proposed safety incentive program that offers prizes to workers who do not report injuries, unions can propose that rewards be offered to workers when they identify serious hazards or recommend ways to eliminate them.”

It’s time for workers in the United States to understand, articulate and demand safety in the workplace. As the evidence shows, union members are guaranteed the ability to negotiate health and safety regulations within their contracts. Additionally, the evidence shows incentive-based hazard reporting may be the solution. Working together, unions and management can find solutions to these cost prohibitive problems.

This April 28, 2007, please take a moment to reflect on health and safety within your workplace, while pausing for a moment to remember those who have been injured and given their lives on the job. To those workers, we say thank you.

By James V. Bertolone (President of the Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO and President of the American Postal Workers Union Local 215)

Published: Rochester Business Journal, April 27, 2007