Blaming the Worker

Accidents are caused by a failure in the system, a series of blunders. If one reviews the loss causation model and the three luck factors that influence the conrse of action in the accident sequence, it becomes clear that the injury is the result of good or bad luck. The weakness in the system is neither identified nor rectified if there is no resultant injury. It s easier to blame a worker for the accident than to spend time and effort investigating the real causes. 

In many instances, if the accident (the event) does not result in an injury, it is largely ignored, as it did not affect the safety record. It s a case of no blood, no foul Yet, under slightly different circumstances the event may have caused serious injury. What seems to matter most is the resultant injury, and this is where the safety attention and focus lies. 

Workplace safety is measured by only one statistic, the OSHA recordable rate. Based on this statistical yardstick, continuous process industries continue to be among the safest industries in the country and are getting safer. Many plants have celebrated working millions of hours without a lost work day accident. While all eyes are on the OSHA recordable rate, releases of hazardous materials, fires, mechanical breakdowns and near misses are not included in the safety statistics, (p. 7) 

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However, these programmes have not been without their critics. There was a vocal backlash in particular to the behavioural elements of early manifestations of the safety programmes, both in the USA and the UK, with claims that they tended to blame the worker ... 

Frederick, J. and Lessin, N. (2000) Blame the worker - the rise of behavioural based safety programmes. Multinational Monitor, 21(11), 10-17. 

Many of the models of causation of injnries and illnesses... are operator models which are sophisticated versions of blame the worker safety approaches. 

Because of the safety fear factor there is almost invariably a cover-up after an accident. This most certainly happens after a fatal accident, where employees are terrified of becoming involved in the investigation, especially if legal agencies are involved. This cover-up is another spin-off of the fear factor in industry that hampers the process of creating a positive safety culture. It is a result of years and years of blaming the worker for accidents and will not be changed in a hurry. 

Meanwhile, three other workers in turn had been asked to work with the machine all day long. Each had come in to the first aid centre complaining of pain and with swelling of the tendons visible to the nurse. Two of the three had had to take sick leave. Robbie continued to blame the workers because the fact that one had not had to take leave suggested that the others were exaggerating the problem. The whole situation was exacerbated for these workers by their knowledge that Robbie was planning to retrench four or... 

One assumption which underlies the preceding discussion is that OHS is the responsibility of management rather than workers. While OHS professionals and many employers accept this assumption, it is nevertheless controversial. Chapter 1 aims to justify this approach and offers a critique of the alternative, blame-the-worker approach. It argues that focussing on the system of work, for which management is responsible, is more effective than holding workers responsible for the injuries and illness which befall them. 

First, it sends the blame the worker message that kills cultures. 

I was impressed with their collective insight. Instead of blaming the workers for using the incorrect tool, in this case a ladder, they looked at the work environment and were determined to change the system. In the next amazingly productive 15 minutes they decided to work with the maintenance staff to determine where to put wall hooks in the plant to hang the different ladders they may need for the tasks they would find themselves doing in those areas. A small win for safety ... 

All assaults must be investigated, reports made, and needed corrective action determined. However, methods of investigation must be such that the individual does not perceive blame or criticism for assaultive actions taken by the attacker. The circumstances of the incident or other information that will help to prevent further problems need to be identified, but not to blame the worker for incompetence and compound the psychological injury that is most commonly experienced. 

The subjective biases of the decision-makers are a concern. In attribution-theory research, people s judgements in determining accident causes and selecting remedies are studied (DeJoy, 1994). Due to the fact that accidents often are causally ambiguous and emotionally charged, subjective biases play an important role in the attribution of causes. Self-protective biases on behalf of the supervisor makes him/her likely to deny his/her own responsibility for an accident. Instead, the accident is often attributed to causes beyond the supervisor s control by blaming the workers involved. They, on the other hand, are likely to favour situational causes in the working environment. 

This incident is typical of many that have been blamed on human failing. The usual conclusion is that the worker was at fault and there was nothing anyone could do. In fact, investigation showed that ... 

Even before the smoke cleared, investigations began into the causes of the mysterious disaster. Few, at this point, doubted that the zinc works were the source of the poisonous emissions. Pittsburgh s health director, Hope Alexander, told the Associated Press on Sunday that most of the Donora deaths had occurred within two or three blocks of the zinc smelter. The next night he was joined in blaming the zinc mill by local doctor William Rongaus and Frank Burke, national safety director of the United Steelworkers of America, which represented the workers at both Donora plants. Unidentified plant... 

Make the machine adjust to the worker, not the worker to the machine. If the system does not function well, redesign the machine or procedure rather than blame the operator. 

Here, although understanding has been positioned as the ultimate output of the accident investigation process, it is the worker who is effectively blamed for the incident, his action becoming the focus of the investigation process. There is a segregation of responsibility for this incident the worker s violation is separated and made distinct from the shared ownership of the accident as a whole. 

However, such approaches may simply be misdirecting our efforts towards the allocation of blame and the production of reams of near-miss paperwork, rather than taking a closer look at how we structure and manage our work contractually - to look beyond over-simplistic causal chains and instead focus more closely on the bigger picture - the construction site contexts of Chapter 2. We need to ensure that the hidden influences of time and money, the manifestation of Dekker s (2006) latent defects in our construction industry systems of work, are put in their correct place within the cause and effect chains, and in the way we think about safety. We need to shift our understandings away from the sharp end at the site level, and move them up into the board-rooms where decisions to take a slice off the tender price or a month or two off the programme can result in pressures for speed and productivity that creates an unhealthy context for work on sites. The way this thinking manifests in site practice, examined from the perspectives of the workers themselves, is explored in much more detail in Chapter 6. 

The release of methyl isocyanate (MIC) from the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India, in December 1984 has been called the worst industrial accident in history Conservative estimates point to 2,000 fatalities, 10,000 permanent disabilities (including blindness), and 200,000 injuries [38]. The Indian government blamed the accident on human error—the improper cleaning of a pipe at the plant. A relatively new worker was assigned to wash out some pipes and filters, which were clogged. MIC produces large amounts of heat when in contact with water, and the worker properly closed the valves to isolate the MIC tanks from the pipes and filters being washed. Nobody, however, inserted a required safety disk (called a slip blind) to back up the valves in case they leaked [12]. 

To an outside observer, it appears as if neither the official spokesperson nor the manager considered the community s reaction as important. Furthermore, by disciplining the workers involved in the accident, there appears to be an attitude of blaming the operator rather than looking for root causes of the accident. In fact, it is likely that these managers did indeed care very much about safety, but this is not the perception that was created with these actions. 

Until a few years ago, it was widely believed that if a worker was involved in an accident while performing their duties, it was probably the worker s fault. In a review of 75,000 accident cases, an estimated 88 percent of the accidents were due to unsafe acts of people. Similarly, airplane accidents were generally assumed due to human error— the pilot. U.S. Air Force ballistic missiles introduced a new concept of the cause of accidents. When the missiles were launched and then failed, there was no human on board to blame. Thus, the cause of the accident was due to something else, such as design or manufacturing error. This led to the new concept that accidents could be caused by an error due to ... 

These four historic defenses were the beginning of the shirking of, and excuses for, safety responsibility. By putting the blame on the worker, the safety burden is shifted to the employees, and statements such as The majority of injuries are as a result of the unsafe behavior of the worker reinforce this incorrect assumption and misdirect well-intended safety efforts. Safety culture shift involves recognizing the principle of multiple causes and forces employers to look beyond the injured worker to seek root causes of accidents. 

The basic premise of behavior modification programs is that the primary cause of accidents is worker error. This blame-the-victim concept provides little opportunity for effective accident prevention. Behavior modification does not focus on the fundamental safety problems that we face in the continuous process industry, (p. 2)... 

This process is founded on the premise that for every accident there are hundreds or sometimes thousands of at-risk behaviors. When at-risk behaviors decrease, the likelihood of injuries also decreases. A successful approach does not look for blame, but provides two-way feedback that promotes the idea that the worker is indeed the solution. 

There are a number of perspectives on the causes of injury and illness which can be classified into two broad types those which locate the causes in the personal characteristics and behaviour of the workers themselves and those which locate the causes in the wider social, organisational or technological environment. The former type has often been described as blaming the victim for the sake of symmetry I shall term the latter, somewhat loosely, blaming the system . It is most important to understand that each perspective implies a strategy for combating illness and injury. If, for instance, one sees worker carelessness as the primary cause, then exhortation and education may be the appropriate policy responses. If, however, one notes the close association between... 

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