Responsibilities blaming workers

A slow response to a smoldering mix of chemicals at the Napp Technologies plant in Lodi, NJ is blamed for an April 21,1995 explosion and fire that killed four workers and injured dozens of others. The blast destroyed more than 70% of the plant, which made pharmaceutical and cosmetic iiuerniediate products, and employed 110 workers. The explosion wrecked several stores housed in (he Napp building, damaged nearby buildings, and forced evacuation of 400 residents for about 13 hours. Chemicals leaked into a nearby river, killing hundreds of fish. 

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. 

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. 

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... 

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. 

Early statistical research showed that industrial accidents could not be blamed on individual workers because they were systemic in nature. As a result, the Dutch Industrial Accident Act [Ongevallenwet] of 1901 made employers responsible by law for worker safety. 

During the first part of the 1900s, workers compensation laws started appearing and were finally deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court in 1916. Before this, most employers blamed their workers and held them responsible for workplace incidents citing what were known as the the common laws that stated ... 

An indushial example. Let me tell you a true story to illustrate how a focus on property damage can make a difference. Walking along a scaffold, a worker slipped on a metal plate and almost fell several stories to his deatii. Fortunately, he was able to catch himself with his arms and pull himself back onto the walkway. Members of the safety committee decided to do more than the typical "reachve investigahon" of this incident. They did not simply blame the welder responsible for securing the plate. Instead, they looked for other contributing factors to prevent similar mishaps. 

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. 

Single Event Theory — Common sense leads us to this explanation. An accident is thought to be the result of a single, one-time, easily identifiable, unusual, unexpected occurrence that results in injury or illness. Some still believe this explanation to be adequate. It s convenient to simply blame the victim when an accident occurs. For instance, if a worker cuts her hand on a sharp edge of a work surface, her lack of attentiveness may be explained as the cause of the accident. ALL responsibility for the accident is placed squarely on the shoulders of the employee. An accident investigator who has adopted this explanation for accidents will not produce quality investigation reports that result in long-term corrective actions. 

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