Union members may be being taken advantage of by sweet words and cheap employers in a new way as a concept called “behavioural safety” is being introduced into the workplace. The idea behind behavioral safety is that the workers are responsible of preventing and taking care of any accident that may or may not occur. This lets industry employers off the hook from having to pay injury liability as well as identifying safety hazards in the work place and dishing out the money to have them removed. The program is also rewarding those workers who get injured less frequently, meaning that many workers will hesitate from reporting health issues. With workers not telling anyone how they feel, their injury will go untreated and the hazard will remain in place.
The illusion of safety is being created by allowing the union members to feel in control of their own well-being. By showing numerical data on safety statistics and awarding rising safety rates, the union workers feel as though their safety is stable in the hands of their employers, and always on the rise. Prizes for good health such as new cars and vacations are very tempting, and few realize the dangers of negative reactions to injuries until it happens. The injured worker, facing a boss who praises the incredible safety of his firm, may keep quiet his pain for fear that his work would be affected. An accident may mean that your shift loses its bonus. The workers may fail to notice that such benefits as toxic use reduction are being taken away in favor of the workers watching out for themselves.
Health and safety coordinator for the union federation Massachusetts AFL-CIO, Nancy Lessin, has offered advice to North American unions in order to counter the dangers of behavioural safety policies, such as:
- Offering a comprehensive worksite health and safety program intense on identifying and eliminating work hazards.
- Supporting engineering controls that do not require the workers to provide health protection for themselves.
- Proposing prizes for workers who target serious work related hazards or supply ideas with how to be rid of them.
If you or someone you know has been injured in the workplace, or if you would like to find more information, please feel free to contact a personal injury lawyer such as Silberstein, Awad, and Miklos in New York, New York.
*Information on behavioural safety programs provided from Hazards Publications, LTD.
