Employers Hesitate To Discipline Workers For Safety

Discipline is essential for safety, but employers just aren’t doing it.  This is a problem for several reasons, including the fact that without a record of disciplinary action, an employer might not be able to demonstrate to OSHA that it is operating an effective safety program. 

Lack of disciplinary action also makes it unlikely for an employer to use what’s known as the “unpreventable employee misconduct/isolated incident” defense. It says that despite the employer’s efforts to run an effective safety program, the employee acted unsafely. Disciplinary steps, proof of training, and documented safety rules help prove that the employer was providing a compliant safety program. 

Too often the only time an employer learns that an employee was working unsafely is in the course of a post injury investigation.

This article appeared on June 11, 2013 on Safety.BLR.com.