The more safety violations we experience in the workplace, the fewer injuries and illnesses we have.
Or, stated with more logic, as more inspections are made and more citations for violations of safety rules are issued, the safer the workplace becomes.
Safety seems to be a byproduct of oversight, perhaps because businesses pay more attention to safety after they or other companies in the same industry are caught in a major violation and pay a penalty.
The statistics seem to support this because the injury and illness rate for 2006, the most recent year with available statistics, reached an all-time low of 4.4 per one hundred employees. This continues a five-year trend that has resulted in a total decline in workplace injuries and illness of 17 percent. Meanwhile the number of citations for repeat and serious violations increased over the same period by 26.4 percent.
The trouble with logic is that it’s easy to carry it too far. In this case, logic would suggest you should welcome and encourage safety violations.
Do violations increase safety? Hardly.
Obviously, there’s more in the safety equation than enforcement.
At the same time that targeted inspections and penalties have increased, safety programs unrelated to inspections may have become more effective and industry-specific. OSHA also gives credit to some whistle blowers whose complaints about unsafe working conditions resulted in the investigation of specific cases.
Other factors are involved as well.
Still, it’s hard to refute the idea that when high-risk industries and businesses that have been cited for previous violations are targeted for inspections, safety rules are followed more rigorously.
jg
Posted by hodicom 