Workers responsibilities

A Hare stack was used to dispose of surplus fuel gas, from the gas holder by a booster through valves B and C. Valve C was normally left open because valve B was more accessible. One day the worker responsible for the gas holder saw that the gas pressure had started to fall. He got gas from another unit, but a half hour later the gas holder was sucked in. Another flare stack at a different plant had to be taken out of service for repair. A worker at this plant therefore locked open valves A and B so that he could use the "gas holder flare stack." He had done this before, though not recently, and some changes had been made since he last used the flare stack. He did not realize that this action would result in the gas holder emptying itself through valves C and B. He told three other men what he was going to do but he did not tell the gas holder worker because he did not know that this man needed to know. 

The flare stack shown in Figure 1.9 was used to dispose of surplus fuel gas, which was delivered from the gas holder by a booster through valves B and C. Valve C was normally left open because valve B was more accessible. One day the worker responsible for the gas holder saw that the gas pressure had started to fall. He therefore imported some gas from another unit. Nevertheless, a half hour later the gas holder was sucked in. 

Where errors occur that lead to process accidents, it is clearly not appropriate to hold the worker responsible for conditions that are outside his or her control and that induce errors. These considerations suggest that behavior-modification-based approaches will not in themselves eliminate many of the types of errors that can cause major process accidents. 

Task Analysis and Error Analysis of the Blowdown Operation Task analysis was carried out in order to organize all the performance data about the way that workers process information, the nature of the emergency and the way that decisions are made. Figure 7.20 shows a tabular task analysis of the workers response to a significant unignited gas leak in MSM. The analysis was a combination of a tabular HTA and a CADET analysis (see Chapter 4). Human error analysis identified the major human failure modes which could affect time to blowdown (see Table 7.2). 

Larva Decreases worker response proboscis threshold to sucrose in a extension response increases number of pollen foragers Ten component blend of brood pheromone [123]... 

The search for mitigating reasons that would allow the practitioner to view the adult s incapacity as a temporary problem to be resolved, and therefore not necessarily a decision about child safety, was also a feature of the drug workers response to the situation ... 

Laboratories should require that any reaction mixture stored in glassware be labeled with its chemical composition, its date of preparation or formation, the name of the laboratory worker responsible, and a notebook reference. This procedure can provide the information necessary to guide disposal of the mixture if the responsible laboratory worker is no longer available. It should be recognized, however, that such a procedure must be enforced. It cannot guarantee that a departing worker will not leave behind unlabeled mixtures. 

It is not necessary for the theory of wage compensation that workers be aware of its existence, yet it would help. After all, if risk and pay are tradeoffs in the labor market, and if workers express their preferences by choosing among different types of jobs, it would stand to reason that many workers on many occasions would have a glimmer of this. Yet the historical and sociological literature that describes workers response to risk fails to disclose this. The most detailed treatment of workers attitudes on these matters is Workers at Risk by Dorothy Nelkin and Michael S. Brown (1984). They interviewed in great detail 75 workers... 

The balance of power between labor and management affects the likelihood of worker response to risk in two ways. First, it enters into the likelihood that workers will overcome their collective action problem to behave solidaristically. This is a precondition for almost any effective worker influence on working conditions. Second, it... 

Odontomachus troglodytes demonstrates that of the four compounds produced by workers, three, 2,6-dimethyl-3-butyl pyrazine, and its 3-pentyl and 3-hexyl homologues all release the same behavior pattern in worker ants. These ants are alerted, approach the source with mandibles opened, where some of them attack. The fourth compound, 2,6-dimethyl-3-ethyl pyrazine, has no detectable communicative role between workers, even though it is not the least abundant of the four compounds in the whole secretion. There is no qualitative difference between the behavior patterns released by the three other compounds in the secretion, and the workers response to the whole secretion can be explained in terms of any one of these single components (Longhurst et al., 1978). 

Although workers do not have the control that management has over their workplace, they are still responsible for complying with the company s safety and health policies and procedures. Some of the commonly accepted worker responsibilities are to... 

The workers responsible for detaching trusses from cranes and/or securing trusses at the peaks traditionally are positioned at the peak of the trusses/rafters. There are also situations where workers securing rafters to ridge beams will be positioned on top of the ridge beam. 

But, although in this respect the responsibility is being shifted back to the employer, there remain subtle ways in which the lead smelting industry continues to hold workers responsible for the problem. This is facilitated by the way in which lead contamination is measured. There are two common types of measurement lead-in-blood and lead-in-air. Lead-in-blood measurements are clearly more relevant from a medical point of view. But lead-in-blood measurements leave the way open to holding the victim responsible in a manner which is not possible with lead-in-air measurements. The point is that a focus on lead-in-air leads to a policy of containing lead emissions at their source, clearly a management responsibility. A focus on lead-in-blood throws up the additional possibility of encouraging workers to wear personal protective equipment—... 

But, as pointed out in Chapter 1, to claim that a certain proportion of accidents are caused by people is unenlightening. Accidents often involve both an immediate human error and a variety of engineering and system precursors. Furthermore, it is often more effective to make technical changes which will prevent accidents occurring than it is to exhort workers to behave properly. Insofar as the stress which safety leaders place on culture involves holding workers responsible for the injuries which occur to them, it is not an approach worthy of emulation. 

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. 

Procedures for worker response during a robbery or other criminal act... 

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