Reply #83: There is really only so much a company can do [View All]

[Lab Owner]

I know that the workers are trained in safety procedures. I know the supervisors are trained to look out for safety violations. I know that even my husband, an accountant, has to go to monthly safety meetings. I know each location has a safety director who is charged with seeing that safety procedures are implemented and followed. I know that they provide financial incentives to avoid accidents. And, believe it or not, companies don't want to see their workers injured or kill, if for no other reason than that it really isn't cost effective.

That said, I don't know what went wrong in this case. Maybe a supervisor hadn't seen her that morning. Maybe fellow workers never noticed that her hair was loose. Or, if they did, maybe they didn't want to "narc" on her over her hair. There is only so much management can do. They can't (and shouldn't have to) follow each employee around to make sure he or she is dotting every "i" and crossing every "t."

Kind of funny story: This mill provides summer employment for the college student children of its employees. It's a good deal. They get $12/hour (WAY more than any other summer job around here) for "make work" tasks. They have a bomb shelter/fallout shelter at the mill and one of the summer students was given the task of cleaning it out. At the time, every employee was about to receive a quarterly safety bonus of several hundred dollars because there had been no loss-time accidents for that quarter. Well, this idiot kid was down there with all these ancient cans of food, and wondered if any of it was still good. He broke open a can with a shovel, reached into the can, cut his hand on the jagged edge, needed a few stitches, and BLEW the safety bonus for everyone. You simply cannot prevent stupidity.