Useful safety tool or just a Wall of Shame?

October 18, 2009 by Fred Hosier

Posted in: Fatality, In this week's e-newsletter, Injuries, Latest News & Views, OSHA news, Safety training, What Would You Do?

OSHA added something new to its Web site this week.

Now with just a couple mouse clicks, the whole world can see which U.S. companies had an employee fatality in the previous week.

Example: For the week of Aug. 28, 2009, OSHA’s Weekly Fatality Report lists 18 incidents. First on the list is an incident involving Tri-State Electrical Contracting, Inc., Bay Terrace, NY. The Web page lists Nature of Incident as “victim was operating a knuckle boom truck and was crushed between the boom and the controls.”

That’s all the information given.

While the Web page explains how OSHA receives the incident information, there’s no word (at least as of the writing of this article) on what purpose the agency thinks posting this information will serve.

So, we have two guesses:

OSHA hopes employers use the information in safety training to show workers the real-life consequences of various workplace hazards, or
OSHA is posting the information to call attention to companies that just experienced a worker fatality or other catastrophe.

There are two potential problems with either of these uses. If these are meant to be used as teaching lessons for employees, the items are light on detail. If this is meant as a Wall of Shame for the companies involved, OSHA is posting the information before investigations can be completed, and before exact cause for the incident can be determined.

One more note: When the page for the Weekly Fatality Reports first appeared on OSHA’s Web site, many may not have found it. To access it, you had to find a one-line clickable link among everything on OSHA’s home page. A few days later, OSHA made it highly noticeable, front and center, in a bright blue box in the middle of its home page.

While safety pros can agree that sharing information about workplace fatalities can help prevent similar incidents from happening, it’s not entirely clear what OSHA’s intention of posting the information is.

What do you think? Is this useful information for safety training? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

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Tags: OSHA Web site, Wall of Shame, Weekly Fatality Report

Robin

Providing the employer’s name would be of benefit if multiple infractions were cited over a given period of time. Repeat offenders need to be identified and dealt with. Other than that, the information is just as useful or useless without an employer name.
Forist

When OSHA is able to fine individuals, as well as employers, maybe then, we will begin to see ALL employees take safe practices as part of the job and not just discussion topics at Safety meetings. In regard to Murrkitty’s comment, concerning the current administration, OSHA has always looked at the employer as being at fault- no matter what administration was in office. Employers are responsibile for the training, enforcement of policies, and following up on incidents, as such management is the front line to avoidance of injuries. If management doesn’t provide the proper tools, training, correct unsafe conditions and information to its employees who will? I like to think of OSHA as an extention of government service that works with businesses not only to identify unsafe conditions or practices but also to help resolve those issues in a manner that benefits business and employees together.
murrkitty

While I agree that one workplace fatality is too many, this looks like an attempt by the current administration to justify their stance on workplace injuries by shifting the blame on the employer without giving any regards to employee negligence.
Steve

I wonder if they will list any workplace fatalities in the government?
http://www.tmsnh.com Forist

I think OSHA has a good idea, if they want to express just how ease fatalities can occur however, providing a summary of the investgation would certainly improve the postings and allow readers an opportunity to understand just what happened. Sometimes we just need to be reminded that safety isn’t about common sense. It’s about practice and forming safe habits for ourselves and the other person.
Jen

I also work in the mining industry. We use MSHA’s Fatalgrams as learning tools. I also frequently share the investigation reports with our supervisors as a way to teach them to do their own accident investigations (even if it’s just a near miss).
Paul Burnett

I just took a quick look through the five weeks of “statistics” and noticed that there are NO fatalities listed for California. Now I’m pretty sure there has never been a week (much less a five-week period) in which there wasn’t a workplace fatality somewhere in California (but I could be wrong). This causes me to have strong doubts as to the validity or completeness of the “statistics” posted by OSHA. There’s simply not enough information there, in more ways than one.
http://sheridancorp.com Gary A. Bennett

I think it is a great idea and I have already used it in safety training. After a while construction workers think they are immune from accidents because they do a task so much without getting hurt. I tell them that this is what all these people thought also. It’s kind of a reality slap for them and a great way to bring it home.
Dave

Not being in the saftey profession I stumbled upon this and found the OSHA data very useful.
What I can glean from a summary analysis is 1/3 are falls from 18 inches to many stories. Working above the ground is a clear risk area. Electricution is 15% ( take care around electricity) , 17 % associated with heavy equipment. Cranes, fork trucks… and another 7 % for auto accidents) when working around these high risk areas require due dilligence is required to ensure safety.

These cases, given the limited detail still show the importantance of being aware of your surroundings, how someone elses actions can impact your safety, and vise versa. Clearly some suggest risky behavior, andf others suggest equipment failure. and others just stuff happens. Each requires awareness.

The company listing is trivial other than to highlight that even in low risk areas safe working conditions need to be considered ( video store) I don’t believe it adds anything to name names.
Jean

I have already used it. I showed it to my husband who is in the heavy equipment/road construction business. We were amazed at the number of incidents that could be used to reinforce their safety briefings…workers on the side of the road being hit by cars, truck tires flying off and striking workers, dump truck bed falling on a worker. And when Disney shows up in AT LEAST half of the weekly reports, doesn’t it make you wonder about how their safety program functions? These aren’t just injuries, these are fatalities. I agree that there isn’t enough detail in the write ups to, but there is enough to raise awareness and maybe prompt someone into looking at what protection they can put in place at their work. As for naming the employer, that information is usually available anyway from local coverage in the news.
Sharon

MSHA has done something similar to this for some time (though after looking at OSHA’s site, I feel MSHA has a better format.) The “Fatality Information” shows fatalities year to date and divides them between Coal and M/NM. Once you click on either one, you see a list of the fatalities, the category of the accident, the state, the type of industry and the company. On the left side you are able to view a “fatalgram” which gives you a summary of what happened (no fingers are pointed), a picture of the scene, and suggestions as to how to keep this from happening again. You are also able to look at the final report, once it is posted.
We use these as an educational, awareness, and training tools. Even though Coal and M/NM (Metal / Non Metal) are somewhat different, we are all mining brothers and sisters. If you were to look at some of these fatalities and took away the fact that it happened on mine property, you could probably see some real close similarities in some things you do.
Anything that can bring awareness to the possibilites of certain actions should be available for all to see and discuss.
After viewing, OSHA’s site, I feel it could use some work, such as possibly following MSHA’s format.
However, getting past the format issue, the information contained there is just as useful for an MSHA site as it is for an OSHA regulated site. Some of the reports sound eerily similar to fatalities in the mining industry.
No matter what industry you are in – the more we are aware of what could happen, the better we may be to prevent it from happening.
http://www.sunbeltrentals.com Michael

The problem is the lack of detail. I just read through several that contain a lot of conjecture as to what caused the fatality – “suspected heat stroke” for example and one that read “fatality at a bookstore under construction.” Several indicate falls from height without cause. Did we learn anything? Without knowing a root cause and circumstances of an incident, this does no one any good.
I also wonder, does the name of the report (FAT/CAT) make a shot at businesss owners and executives?
sftefrst

Industry information and type of accident are useful information, however, naming the employer may have negative implications for that employer. The information provided is very limited. Those accessing the information have no way of knowing how the incident occurred, who was at fault (employer or employee), or any specific details of what led up to the accident. It sounds very much to me like a wall of shame. This could be a very useful teaching tool if more information was provided, without naming individual businesses. As it stands, it is only useful in pointing a finger at specific businesses.
Rob

Actual individuals should be protected like the manager or employee but the company and the disaster…I think they should be exposed. We all like attention when we do something good but a bad event should be kept silent and swept under the rug? It is ok to brag about spending hundreds of thousands but if something can benefit someone in a different part of the nation or world it suddenly becomes an embarrassment?
Bob K

No big deal. Most people won’t even look at it. I’ve always been able to find out this info, and not just for the last week. It’s public info. A net search will turn up all kinds of info on a company. I’ve downloaded university studies documenting fatalaties (with all relevent info) for years at a time.
http://www.venturafoods.com Aregee

When employees have accidents that may not be as serious as this one, would it be ok for the company to post the information specifically about the employee’s fallacies for their peers to see. In some cases, employees can make stupid decisions that cause accidents to property and others, but it may be unlawful to post such information. Shouldn’t employers have the same rights?
Rob

Anything that provides a “lessons learned” for other organizations is always a great resource. It may help people established JHAs or JSA (Job hazard or safety analysis). It might emphasize the value of a safety manager position within an organization to minimize these kinds of recurrences by implementing engineering controls, job practice controls, personal protective equipment, and administrative controls. As a safety manager I’ve learned to utilize dramatic situations to convey the importance of safety for people who work in similar situations. Alternatively over utilization of gruesome footage can desensitize individuals from safety processes.
Aïda

What if the fatality ultimately was the employee’s fault? Should we make the company look bad by posting the fatality? Some Wall Street analysts can use this as a way of driving the price of the stock down, even if the company was not at fault.

It would be better to post “an electrical contracting company” had a fatality than saying a specific company had a fatality.