It’s Our Fault
On
October 25th the UAW and Caterpillar held their annual joint Health
and Safety training for UAW-represented facilities in
The
opening plant reports are supposed to be joint reports with input and
participation from both the union and the company, but as usual, some business
units (B/U’s) in our local don’t understand the concept of working together on
health and safety. It showed both in their presentations and their statistics
related to the number and frequency of injuries/illnesses suffered by our
members.
It’s
funny that a number of the companies with exceptional safety performance CAT uses
as benchmarks (such as John Deere) actively involve their official union safety
representatives. If we can’t even give a joint presentation of the plant
report, how well do you think safety efforts are going?
We
learned of the latest cause of injuries and illnesses at our plants. “The aging
workforce” used to be the group of people management used to blame as our
members suffered through Caterpillars historically excessive number of injuries
and illnesses. We were considered too old and frail for the demands of our
jobs—it was our fault. At the 2005 joint training, the older, more experienced
workers were hailed as the safest group and instead it was new, younger workers
who management said were at fault for injuries and illnesses—again it’s our
fault!
Is
there a recurring theme here? For an organization that supposedly pushed
responsibility away from centralized control down to the business unit level,
most are in lock-step in their desire to adopt Behavioral Safety (BS Safety).
Most
of the literature presented during initial phases of BS Safety training focus
on the elimination of exposure to hazards—I agree with this part of the
concept. After exposure to hazards has been eliminated or reduced to the lowest
practical level, employee behavior is taken into consideration—again, I have no
problem with this. Where our employer falls short in their implementation of BS
Safety is when they “Caterpillarize” it. Some B/U’s
want to skip the parts they feel unnecessary, like the part where they
eliminate or reduce our exposure to hazards and instead shift the focus to our
behavior because—it’s our fault.
In
the easternmost business unit of our local, it appears to be fine for a supervisor
to notice a trucking aisle obstructed by parts and do nothing about it. But if
a fork-truck driver hits the parts left unaddressed by the supervisor, they get
time off! The BS concept says that when something is noted, it needs to be
addressed immediately by the individual, no matter the payroll. A person who
knowingly leaves a hazard unabated is one who should receive time off.
In
the period of great enlightenment about safety in this business unit,
disciplinary action appears to be the behavior flavor of the month to
management. Think nothing of the failure of the employer to provide a workplace
free of recognized hazards as required by law. I wonder if the real intent of
this policy is to discourage people from reporting incidents and injuries—that’s
one way to make your statistics look better.
In
order to assist our brothers and sisters in their quest for a safe, healthy
workplace, I encourage anyone who observes a condition they feel may constitute
a hazard to their health or safety to report the hazard to their supervisor
immediately and document it. If the hazard is not addressed in what you
consider a reasonable manner or time, please ask for your UAW Safety
Representative, they’re there to help!
For
example, if a storage location is so high there is a risk of hitting overhead
obstructions or if there are guardrails protruding into a trucking aisle or even
if the storage location of heavy parts is either too low or high, report them
to your supervisor and write down the time and date of the request.
Additionally, if you have questions about the hazardous materials you work with
or are exposed to, you have the right to a copy of the MSDS. You should receive
it on the shift it was requested. Again, write down the time and date of your
request. Sometimes management will balk at the request, but you have the right
to access to these documents without their interference.
I’ll
leave you with two thoughts to illustrate some of the problems we’re having related
to health and safety. First, “the system is perfectly designed for the results
being achieved”. If there are too many injuries or illnesses in your building,
it is because of the poor way the safety system is designed. Second, “if you do
what you’ve done, you’ll get what you’ve got”. Caterpillar, in most cases
continues to refuse to address health and safety in the joint manner they
agreed to. So, if we continue to allow them to avoid their legal obligation to “provide
a workplace free of recognized hazards” (OSHA 5a1) and instead blame the workers
without raising our hands, it will be our fault.
In
Solidarity,
Steve
Mitchell