Document vev2d1Xk72L2ex1EEBnN67m8

SAFETY ORGANIZATION AND SAFETY INSPECTION In addition to employee manuals, com pany publications and the general press and radio-TV can be used to continually train employees and interest them in company goings-on Details on how to work with company pubbcabons, and the working press in general, are given in Chapter 8, "Publicizing Safety" Safety rule enforcement Enforcement of safety rules is actually a matter of education To set a good exam ple for employee education, top management and supervisors must know and bebeve in the rules, and must religiously follow them Education often succeeds where discipline fails, and it is usually used when supervisors find violations Some companies, in addi tion to instruction, give a warning on the first violation The second offense may be followed by a stronger warning or a short layoff The third offense often results in an extended layoff or, in extreme cases, dis charge Where labor bargaining groups represent employees, they should be consulted on pro posed methods of enforcing rules Such an agreement should prevent later misunder standings In some organizations, the foreman does not have the right of discipline, but refers the offender to the personnel department or some plant official This plan is often effec tive where personalities are involved Administering reprimands for the viola tion of rules demands tact and good judg ment This duty should be performed by someone in authority who commands re spect and who is sympathetic without being lax Reprimands should never be given publicly or even before a committee When management feels the worker is deliberately disobeying the rules, and where he continues through unsafe acts to endan ger his own life and lives of others, prompt and firm action is justified It is far better to use extreme measures than to allow ac cidents to happen because of laxness in the enforcement of safety rules Many companies feel that a spirit of co operation, or mutual understanding and agreement, make drastic measures of en forcement unnecessary Indeed, this philoso phy should be the goal of safety rules See Chapter 8, "Safety Training " Inspection of Work Practices The safety department should assist su pervisors in instructing employees in the safe way of domg each job But accidents can be prevented only when these recom mended procedures are based upon a thor ough analysis of the job and when these procedures are followed without exception Hence, to prevent accidents, continuous ob servation is necessary to ensure that the task is executed in the safest way, and that workers comply with these procedures The safety department can provide most effective assistance to the supervisors by observing all workers in the performance of their tasks to eliminate unsafe procedures In this way, foremen and supervisors are appraised of all weaknesses in the safety program within their domain end can have a common reference point for monitoring these occurrences Safety observation plan A safety inspection of work practices re quires the active participation of all super visory personnel Basically, this inspection is a safety observation plan by which su pervisors at the various organizational lev els, and particularly the first-line super visors directly responsible for employee safety, observe work while it is in prog ress These observations cover the use of tools, material, and equipment, as well as any unsafe method or order of procedure in performing an act which indicates a lack of planning or failure to take into account all the circumstances surrounding the par ticular job In large plants, where constant observa tion by supervisors or members of the safe ty team is impossible, supervisors should set up an observation schedule that will permit observation of the maximum number of employees dunng a month In addition, no opportunity should be overlooked to make routine or unscheduled observations whenever possible Unsafe practices may occur at any time, and supervisors should record them whenever they appear One comprehensive way of determining unsafe practices is a "safety sampling" technique s Vincent Pollina "Safety Sampling " Journal of the American Society of Safety Engineers, 7 19-22 (August 1902) 2-11