Document NnO7Lw4MKap6eQ7DmxjQYExV

Monsanto ,3,---iioc*noi J. A. Glass, LP&S, Texas City O.tf May 20, 1982 r S-T-O-P HMIINCC TO 5/18/82, Conversation w/Jim Pace, Safety Supv., Krummrich : G. L. Tromblee 0-10 AG: Arnold Glass JP: Jim Pace 0-22 ee D. E. Kaldenberg H. 0. Reid G. W. Daues D. D. Kos M. A. Riddle DG: Greg Daues HR: Henry Reid ,7>V iC. 0-7 PER 0-5 0-11 0-22 AG: Ve had some questions about some of the details and the mechanics of the follow-up on the STOP program once you get the cards out for observations and people begin making the observations. The mechanics of reviewing the content of the cards, of the tabula tion of results, reporting mechanism back to the Plant Manager, that sort of thing. Wonder if you could describe that for us? JP: Yes. I'll start from the very beginning. As you know, our plant is divided into zones and each General Sup. has a certain number of zones. Those cards that are pertinent to his zone are... well, they're turned back in to their immediate supervisor. In other words, if a foreman does a card, he'll turn it in to his supervisor; the supervisor reviews it; and it'll eventually get up to the General Sup. GD: You say eventually, the time frame? JP: The time frame--within a week. GD: Within a week? JP: Yes. The General Sup. will review them as they -come in. He gathers them all together and brings them down to the Safety Office. Every Monday morning committeemen, the three plant safety committeemen, and myself, and sometimes Paul, will review them and tabulate them. Then we report to my General Sup., which is Howard Curtis, Superintendent of Personnel, and he gives a total report to the Plant Manager and his staff of the total plant picture. Now before that, as far as follow-up, the supervisor who gets cards from his area has the responsibility of following up right then and there anything he feels that should be done immediately. Sometimes there is no follow-up needed. Like a man says he saw a person without his safety glasses and he told him to put them on... It wouldn't be necessary for the supervisor to go out and say anything else to the person. But other things, like mechani cal problems, equipment, he can follow-up on it. It's up to his discretion. But as far as the time, cards have to be turned in L sc 002113 t-AR/10033 78 2 within that week and. gotten to us by Monday morning so we can tabulate and make our report. GD: Do you use a secretary in each area to see to it that the cards are collected and put in one place so that the General Sup. or whoever can review them? JP: To the best of my knowledge, each General Sup.'s secretary does coordinate that for him. Our Safety Department secretary does the coordinating for us as far as they bring the cards to her, she copies down the names as they come in, and saves us a lot of time, and then we count the number. AG: By names, you mean the names of the observer? JP: Yes. The person that filled out the card. That way we have an idea of who's involved in making STOP cards, and then, who isn't, and what areas are involved in making STOP cards. GD: Do you have a chart with say some printout sheets that have the names of all the people in the plant and then you check them off as the cards come in? How do you keep track of whether or not someone is turning in cards or not? JP: No. We don't, we do it longhand and you'd have to review our secretary's sheet as to who actually did turn in cards. GD: I see. AG: Is it obvious who is and who is not? JP: Yes. It doesn't take that many pages to write all the foremen and supervisors and it's obvious who isn't really, more than who is. GD: Right now, to us it seems pretty difficult, but I'm sure=that as we get into it we'll change our minds on this. Is there a way you could make a xerox of some of your records? Just typical, not a lot, but a typical page that recording this looks like this and a typical page recording that looks like that, and ship it down to us? JP: Sure, I can do that. GD: What we're trying to do is not invent a wheel that's already spinning. And you guys have been through this in fairly recent history, and I'm sure you've worked out some techniques that we could benefit from and not have to learn the hard way how to do it. JP: Right. Let me say one thing. It's not that critical, at what I've found in the year that we've been doing it, who is and who isn't, it's just informational more than anything else. SC 002114 LAM003319 3 GD: We talked about requiring that each person turn in four cards a month and one a week if they're here, kind of thing... JP: Yes, well we didn't really. The Plant Manager made a statement that he was going to be doing so many and he expected people to follow suit. It was more of a sales pitch than anything else. GD: How do you keep a rigid control on that? JP: In this plant we did not keep a control, you know, who did how many and all that. We just had a general idea of who was, who wasn't, what areas were emphasizing it more than others, nothing derogatory was ever said or done about those who didn't because eventually they may have not turned in their card for several weeks and then again they may turn in three or four the next month. GD: In sums of judging whether a man's got the right attitude about it by turning in cards I guess the supervisor would do that? JP: Yes. The supervisor's the one who has control over that. Right. GD: Well, it's a supervisor and the General Superintendent problem than it is an administrative problem. JP: Yes. Yes. We at the onset decided we weren't going to be a policing type action as far as STOP was concerned, and it has worked out. There was no pressure to put on say five cards a week by everybody in the plant. Besides that's superfluous anyway. People would just be filling out cards to be filling out cards, and we want them to be meaningful. And it has worked in my opinion. GD: Okay, well we're still trying to get calibrated here on... JP: I understand other companies and other plants did have quotas. GD: Yes. JP: My opinion is I don't think it's that relevant. I feel that you would end up with a lot of cards that were meaningless if you start having quotas. Just forcing a man to fill out a card does not actually make him a good safety observer, and it doesn't pre vent accidents in my opinion. I think if you concentrate more on the quality of what is turned in rather than the quantity, I think you'd be better off, but that is my opinion. I understand other plants and organizations do have quotas. AG: Well then, if I understand you correctly, Jim, what you're saying is that at Krummrich that the control is in the hands of the line supervision. SC 002115 LAM003320 4 JP: Yes. AG: And you simply look over what the line supervision has turned in from a plantwide basis to detect any trends or how things are going, and to sort them out into categories to sort of interfere for what the highest number of kinds of things that have been observed on a plantwide basis. JP: Right, and then you know, the zones can emphasize those par ticular areas as far as preventing them. As far as any kind of control on who does how many, we shied away from that. AG: Your actions on the part of your Safety Department was simply... JP: Informational. AG: Informational. What did you do about the office employees who rarely ever get out into the plant or anything like that? JP: Well naturally, they're not going to be doing as many cards as the people who are out in the plant, but they do on occasion find situations in the office that need correcting. Say, a drawer is left out and somebody could trip over it, or an extension cord is strung across a walking area... We have cards like that come in from the office people, but it's not as frequent as the people out in the plant. But they are trained. They do get the... AG: Anyone who does go to the field ought to take a card with them. JP: Yes. AG: You encourage that kind of activity so they'll have something with them when they go. JP: Right. AG: In case they see something they can highlight. JP: Yes. Part of the training says you should make a concerted effort. Say, I'mgoing to go out now and make a STOP card, and some people do that, but I tend to agree with what you said. Have a card with you and when you come to that kind of position where you do see a thing where you need to fill out a STOP card then you've got the card and you can do it. GD: If you'll just send me copies of typical records of things, it might help me, and also how about attendance at the courses, you know, you're going to teach this eight unit course over a period of somewhere between 23 to 30 weeks depending upon how well it flows, you know, with interruptions, delays, absences, and so \ SC 002116 LAM003321 5 forth, and in the instructions I read, what they want the admi nistrator to keep records on who has attended these classes. Do you have any sort of a sheet showing how you keep track of this? JP: No, Ed Stewart did that, and his secretary, but I could probably get those copies for you. GD: That's fine. If you would contact him. He was the administrator? JP: Yes, he was the administrator. GD: Then I need to talk to him. In fact, we wanted to talk to him, but he's not in today. JP: Oh, he isn't. Okay. GD: That's exactly what I'd like... Since I'm going to be admi nistrator here, I'd like to get as much information from him with regard to record keeping, and on attendance, and on cards, and sorting out information. If you see him, just tell him I'd like to have him send me anything he's got along that line that he thinks would be helpful and of course, if I get something and I have some questions I could call him. ^ JP: We sure will, Greg. GD: Appreciate it very much, because you'll save us a lot of agony I think. Like I say, we've got better things to do than reinvent wheels that already work. JP: I agree. Anytime we can help each other out on things like this it's better for all of us. AG: Jim, we've just been joined here in the room by Henry Reid who is our Labor Relations Superintendent, and he has some questions regarding the hourly participation. Henry? HR: I talked with Rick Faulkner I guess earlier this week, and Rick had mentioned that some of the participation of the hourly people were on a voluntary basis? JP: It's voluntary throughout the plant for hourly people. HR: Voluntary throughout the plant for the hourly. JP: None of it is mandatory. HR: How has their participation been? JP: Less than desirable, as far as I'm concerned, because of that, but that's one of the things you have to live with. LAM003322 SC 002117 6 GD: Voluntary to take the course and fill out cards? or just on the card filling? JP: Well, okay. It is up to the immediate supervisor to give it. Okay. He can give them the program instruction book, and they may or may not read it, and they may or may not fill in the answers, and that's where the non-mandatory could get you into problems. But it was decided at the onset that through nego tiations with Labor Relations and the Union Committee that we would not force people to take STOP. HR: That answers my question. JP: Personal opinion, if you can make it mandatory I think you'll have a better program. Whether or not they agree with it, they will at least have read it and absorbed something, but if you can't make them read it... Those people who wish not to will not be a part of the program at all. GD: I'm kind of looking at not even bringing the word "mandatory" up, just saying, "Hey, we're going to have this safety training course for you and you're going to take it", now if some guy says, "I'm not going to take it", well, you're not going to fire him because of it, but just kind of have it as a safety program and we ask the hourly to participate. JP: That's probably one of our mistakes I would say, is that it was advertised as non-mandatory. GD: I know, you can be non-mandatory but you don't have to keep bringing it up. JP: Right. Right. I think I agree with that. WeiL maybe you'll learn from our mistake. HR: Did this change? As I understand that initially the Union leadership supported STOP. JP: Yes. HR: At some point in time they withdrew that support. JP: It's fluctuating, any time Labor Relations and the Union have a problem, it doesn't even have to be on safety, they'll threaten to withdraw support of anything, and that was the case for one time that I know of. They were talking about some kind of Labor Relations problem and said, "well, if you're that way about this, you're that way about safety, and if you're that way about safety, we're not going to support STOP". In my mind it was jibberish. It fluctuates, it depends on what kind of hassles they're involved with as far as Labor Relations. It has nothing to do with the STOP program really.. SC 002118 LAM003323 7 S' 1 AG: Okay, that answers that question. One more quick question. It's pretty important to have your meeting with your Union announcing the program and what it's all about up front isn't it? JP: It's very important that you lay the ground work down first before you ever start announcing what kind of program you're going to have for the whole plant so they can support you on that. AG: Did you have separate private meetings with your Union Committee? JP: Yes. Howard Curtis, Rick Faulkner, and I believe the Plant Manager all had private meetings. AG: I see. Very good, very good. Okay, and you felt like that allowed it to have a good initial reception. JP: Yes, yes. AG: Okay, that answers that question. I'm sure we'll think of a thousand others, and we'll be back and talking to you again, Jim. JP: Okay, you call anytime, Arnold. AG: Thank you so much. _ Arnold Glass es \ sc 002119 LAM003324