Safety in the Workplace

Mike Rowe has written two articles on workplace safety recently:

What’s Riskier – Working Without a Net or Without Personal Responsibility?

A One Size Safety Approach Doesn’t Fit All or Make You Safer

The gist of Rowe's argument is that the responsibility for workplace safety falls on the worker not the company. This is a controversial opinion, but it is one that I agree with. Under the current rules, the company is responsible for any and every workplace incident even if the worker who got hurt was being utterly stupid and got themselves hurt. I don't even have to go on about the people who fake injuries just to get a check. But it makes the workplace suck royally.

I have never worked in a single workplace that has not endeavored to keep workers safe. Maybe I am lucky in that regard, but I have yet to see a business that thought it was a good practice to let their people get hurt on the job. This is because workplace injuries cost money. People will argue that this is a result of OSHA regs and litigiousness, but dangerous workplaces have a hard time recruiting and retaining good employees. They end up having to pay more money to get them to work there and pay more on their insurance.

As a working guy, I believe that my safety is my responsibility. If I do something stupid and get hurt, it is my fault. I remember taking a coworker from one of my jobs to the clinic to get his hand stitched up after he stuck it in a moving machine. He was cool about it, and the boss man paid for the stitches. The coworker didn't sue or anything. Why? Because he was a dipshit for sticking his hand in a moving machine. He knew it. I knew it. The boss knew it.

The problem with the workplace today is that many workers don't think safety is their responsibility. They think everything should be done for them. They should never encounter harm. And if they do, they will sue the living shit out of everybody. The result is that workplaces are toxic places to work. You have endless rules, and workplaces call their lawyers before they call you a doctor.

Some of my blue collar peers will take me to task over this position, but the irony I find is that the people who scream the loudest over worker's comp are the ones who ride their motorcycles with no helmet, smoke unfiltered Camels, drive fast cars, and drink and get into barfights. I remember a story of one guy who had wrecked his motorcycle and fucked himself up really bad. He couldn't afford the doctor bill, so he sneaked into work and tried to claim he was hurt on the job. His trick did not work, and he was fired.

The reality is that we live with risk on a daily basis. The workplace is often safer than the places we go to outside of work. The drive to work is filled with risk. People often contaminate themselves with food made at home in their filthy kitchens. Then, there are all those nutty weekend warrior activities they do involving boats, four wheelers, and guns.

When I work, I am always aware of what I am doing. I drive safe, and I keep my eyes open. I have found the greatest threat to my safety doesn't come from the company I work for nor from my own activities. The greatest threat comes from idiot coworkers who have no trace of common sense in their skulls. They don't give a fuck about anyone and certainly not themselves. My remedy for this is to take these people aside and threaten them with a severe ass beating. That seems to work.

I think workplaces should do what they can to make things safe such as having fire extinguishers handy, providing safety glasses and hard hats, and whatnot. But beyond that, people are responsible for their own safety. If they don't like this, they can always quit. Hey, safety is more important than money, right? But we all know that we take these risks in order to put food on the table and to pay the rent.

The sad fact is that a lot of workers game the system because they don't want to work. They want to get a check for doing nothing. This would be the guy who begged me to cut his grass for him because he didn't want to get caught doing it himself because he was collecting a worker's comp check for his "injury." I told him to go to hell. It is people like him that make companies not want to hire people in the first place. They never know if the guy will turn out to be a litigious dirtbag.

I am with Mike Rowe. Safety is your responsibility. Keep your eyes open. Use your brain. And work safe.

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