Reporting Unsafe Working Conditions

Other features require that the operator enable employee participation in mitigating or eliminating hazards, a feature missing from API s RP 75, and ensure that all employees have the right to report safety or environmental violations or unsafe work conditions to BSEE and request BSEE inspection. SEMS II also requires that operators specify one person on each facility who has Ultimate Work Authority for operational safety. Finally it requires enhanced training programs and audits of SEMS programs conducted by independent third parties who meet specified qualification criteria. 

Guidelines for reporting unsafe work conditions (proposed in SEMS... 

Establish procedures for reporting unsafe work conditions. 

The BSEE moved the language describing the process by which personnel may report unsafe working conditions from the proposed 250.1933 to 250.193. This change consolidates the reporting process for any possible violation into one section. The BSEE retained the language regarding operator procedural... 

To report hazardous or unsafe working conditions or a possibie vioiation... 

What procedures must be included for reporting unsafe working conditions ... 

In almost 80,000 work injuries reported in that same state in 1960, unsafe condition(s) was identified as a contributing factor in 98.4% of the nonfatal manufacturing cases, and unsafe act(s) was identified as a contributing factor in 98.2% of the nonfatal cases (National Safety Council, p. 141). 

The origin of the Domino Theory is credited to Herbert W. Heinrich, circa 1931, who worked for Travelers Insurance. Mr. Heinrich nndertook an analysis of 75,000 accident reports by companies insnred with Travelers. This resulted in the research report titled The Origins of Accidents, which concluded that 88 percent of all accidents are caused by the unsafe acts of persons, 10 percent by unsafe physical conditions, and 2 percent are Acts of God. His analysis of 50,000 accidents showed that, in the average case, an accident resulting in the occurrence of a lost-time work injury was preceded by 329 similar accidents caused by the same unsafe act or mechanical exposure, 300 of which produced no injury and 29 resulted in minor injuries. This is sometimes referred to as Heinrich s Law. Mr. Heinrich then defined the five factors in the accident sequence, which he identified as the Domino Theory. Heinrich s work is the basis for the theory of behavior-based safety, which holds that as many as 95 percent of all workplace incidents are caused by unsafe acts. See also Accident Chain Behavior-Based Safety. 

Unsafe condition report and hot work permit shortcomings... 

Make daily inspections of assigned work areas and take immediate steps to correct unsafe or unsatisfactory conditions report to the manager those conditions that cannot be immediately corrected instruct employees on housekeeping standards. 

Your name, your firm s name, and any information you provide about your workplace, plus any unsafe or unhealthful working conditions that the consultant uncovers, will not routinely be reported to the OSHA enforcement staff... 

Investigate and document employee complaints and reports of unsafe or unhealthful working conditions. 

Near-accident reporting had improved dramatically, from in the order of one near accident per lost-time accident in the two Swedish companies reporting near accidents to in the order of 100 near accidents per lost-time accident in the oil company. The near-accident reports of the oil company were still dominated by technical events. The reporting of unsafe conditions was a new phenomenon. A closer analysis of the accident, near-accident and unsafe condition reports revealed the intentions of the reporters. The oil company had introduced an efficient system for follow-up of reports with remedial action. This fact was known among the employees, who used the near-accident and unsafe-condition reporting systems as a means of getting working-environment problems solved. 

A study of 91,773 cases reported in Pennsylvania in 1953 showed 92% of all nonfatal injuries and 94% of all fatal injuries were due to hazardous mechanical or physical conditions. In turn, unsafe acts reported in work injury accidents accounted for 93% of the nonfatal injuries and 97% of the fatalities. 

Safety representatives are appointed to identify hazards within their work area. Unsafe acts and conditions are the immediate causes of accidents and, if identified, reported, and eliminated, can lead to a reduction in the number of employees being injured. 

They should be closely involved in drawing-up the details of the experiments with the principal scientific investigator. They should ensure that they understand the work and follow strictly the safety guidelines and procedure required for the task they are performing, so as not to expose themselves or their colleagues. They should report any unsafe conditions of work to their supervisor and, in case of accident, report details of the conditions that resulted, or might have resulted, in exposure. 

Management will make every effort to provide adequate safety training to employees prior to allowing an employee to begin work. Employees in doubt about how to do a job or task safely are required to ask a qualified person for assistance. Employees must report all injuries and unsafe conditions to management as soon as possible so that corrective measures can be taken to prevent future accidents. 

Essentially, the incident recall technique may be used to identify unsafe acts, unsafe conditions, non-compliance with safe systems of work, and near-miss accidents by following a confidential interviewing procedure to a stratified random sample of employees. Each interviewee is asked to recall and report verbally any of the above-mentioned situations in which he was involved or has knowledge. Details of near-miss accidents are then obtained to enable remedial action to be taken before further similar accidents result in both damage and injury. 

One strategy is to assume that for each accident one or other of the factors discussed will predominate and then to identify the proportion of injuries attributable to each. Those who take this approach normally come to the view that in the overwhelming majority of cases it is the worker who is primarily responsible for the injury. Thus one observer has claimed that 85 per cent of accidents are due to lack of training and education, poor work habits or lack of motivation (see McAteer 1981, p. 938). The remainder are presumably due to management failures, unsafe conditions and the like. And an Australian mine manager once reported to a mining seminar that at his mine 3 per cent of accidents were due to unsafe conditions while 97 per cent were due to unsafe acts on the part of miners. He concluded that effort must be focussed on changing men s minds (AIMM 1975, p. 83). 

When conditions are unsafe, maintenance usually will have to correct the hazard. Some companies give every employee the right to fill out work orders others allow employees to complete work orders but require supervisory sign-off before orders are sent to the maintenance department. This system for employees to report hazards should be used only if there is a special high priority for safety work orders [2]. 

The work order system for reporting hazards is not sufficient if used alone. Although it can lead to hazard correction, it cannot correct unsafe practices or at-risk behaviors. In addition, the system is not useful for encouraging imaginative new approaches to improving conditions and procedures [2]. 

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