Experience in Safety implementation

There is a saying that "Experience makes a man wise". Yes, this is true, but not in all respects. Sometimes, it is good if we do not get experience, for example, tasting a food item that is made by a first timer, or, learning 2-wheeler driving where there is every possibility of fall of person.

I like to taste a mango once again rather than getting injured first time or next time also.

The greatest safety professional, Mr. Kletz said in one of his books on industrial safety that, it is better to learn from others mistakes rather than experiencing all those by ourselves. By this, we can ensure a safe work for ourselves and our colleagues and public.

Information on accidents is available in various books, news papers, journals, websites. We should be interested in searching and getting all those information and then applying the lessons learnt to our work place.

Still, it is surprising to see that we do not learn from the accidents, leave those at other places, even from our own work place accidents, we refuse to learn. We are so lethargic and self centered that we do not want even to inform the people in our work place about accidents that are likely to occur. Every thing we leave it the wisdom of the shopfloor workers or Know Your Self way.

However, when an injury occurs, it is likely that the injured apart from pain has also be ready to receive admonishing from superiors by way of a memo / advise letter / explanation seeking letter for the injury. What the works manager or his supervisor does during regular plant visits is known only to the GOD, I suppose.

It is to be noted by all that apart from penalties (financial as well as sitting in a jail) listed in the Factories Act, there are provision listed even in the Constitution where by way of negligence, when failure to take protective measures is established, concerned in-charges are likely to be punished under constitution also.

Hence, one should not be relaxed that their work place does not come under Factories Act. Constitution contains all to see that persons are protected.

Sometimes, when safety supervisor / officer gives advise on safe acts / practices or stops an activity that is carried out in an unsafe manner, then the production in-charge asks the safety person to do the work or he will try to shift the safety person to that production activity or sees that he is removed. Of course, removal is not possible in a government organization, but it is always possible to shift safety person to production line as a punishment or teach a lesson for advising on safety.

The production fails to see why a safety person advises so. It is production in-charge who has to face questions, in case of an accident and he may have to be prepared even for a possible arrest by police. Instead of seeing or visualizing the situation, production in-charge questions safety department like, are you not belonging to the organization, don't you want a good name for the General Manger, etc.

Chief Executive / General Manger who is designated as Occupier should be careful against people like the above who want to get production somehow and want to claim for the production but not about the injuries. Such people should be thrown out of the organization or they should be sent to training programmes compulsorily on the statutory requirements with stress on penalties so that they MAY be able to see the implications. Even then if they do not learnt, better they are removed from the job itself so that workers will be protected and organization's name is not spoiled.

Mr Om P Kharbanda in one of his writings mentioned that SAFETY IS NOT ONLY FREE, BUT IT ALSO PAYS. Like quality brings down the cost of production, similarly safety also is cost reducing proposition. However, safety brings more tangible benefits when it is thought and implemented during the design stage itself. If it is implemented later as an ADD ON feature, then people may resist to follow unless until they see the reason clearly.

Though people say penalties do not have much effect in safety, I feel strongly that safety department should be given the authority to impose cash penalties where safety advisor can caution once and if the problem persists, then he can take evidence by photograph or other means and also impose penalty straight away. The penalty amount should be deducted from the concerned production department / agency Head of the Account to Safety Department which can be used as fund for safety promotion. Again, the facility in-charge should seek explanation from the concerned production department where penalty is recovered for the safety lapse.
When managers are questioned on penalties and is shown as a negative aspect, then only production mangers will realize the importance of safety.

Stopping the work by safety person will not have impact, because once the safety person leaves the shopfloor after advise / instruction, the work will be resumed in the same manner. This is true in most of the cases.

Sometimes, when shopfloor persons are questioned about unsafe practices, like doing maintenance on a running machine, or not wearing PPE, etc, they start complaining about the knowledge of the safety person or quality of PPE or need for getting an item of a particular brand, etc without justification so that safety person can be undermined and will be made to leave the place. It should be known that PPE of good quality meeting standards only will be recommended by safety person but not of brands. If there are more suppliers meeting the required standards, then supplier of the item meeting standards at lowest cost only will be recommended for purchase.

Sometimes, when workmen face problem with overtime, they they call safety persons on the pretext of unsafe conditions in the shopfloor. Once the manager agrees for giving overtime, then workmen forget about safety aspects and everybody disappears. At the end, you may see shopfloor in-charge and safety person arguing on the unsafe conditions, that may not be existing at all which were complained by workmen.

Workmen also should realize that if they do not follow safety, they can be punished under various provisions.

Finally, safety implementation requires commitment by shopfloor people and the production department. If they follow advise by Safety Department, then they can get benefited more. Else, it is they who have suffer the pain, not the safety persons.