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OSHA listening session: Make safety a ‘value that goes beyond OSHA compliance’

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OSHA Directorate of Standards and Guidance Director Andrew Levinson, agency administrator Doug Parker and deputy assistant secretary Jim Frederick moderate a June 14 listening session on safety as a core workplace value.

Washington — Making safety a core workplace value means “going back to the basics and saying this is an individual right,” health care safety executive Luis Colado says.

Speaking during a June 14 OSHA listening session, Colado added that he often sees employers tout occupational safety as a benefit of employment, rather than a right. He wants that to change. “You have the right to be safe regardless of who you work for, where and what you’re doing at work. I think it’s centering our message around that.”

Multiple safety experts joined Colado in a discussion of the role of messaging – and action – in changing safety behavior and influencing workplace culture.

“Safety isn’t just an initiative. It’s not a slogan,” AFL-CIO safety and health specialist M.K. Fletcher said. “It really has to be something that’s integrated throughout every single part of work; otherwise, it’s just more of an afterthought if it doesn’t have that true integration.”

Added Jennifer McNelly, CEO of the American Society of Safety Professionals: “You can put really good words on a website. That doesn’t necessarily mean modeling happens where it creates that psychological safety for everybody to bring forward concerns. So it’s the actions at every level that then demonstrate the value of what that means.”

Leadership can help by modeling good safety practices. “A lot of what we can do moving forward is to make sure that not only are we setting expectations for that frontline employee to wear those safety glasses, but also their leader,” Colado said. “As a leader, what can you do to encourage, and to facilitate this individual being hazard-free in the workplace?”

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A trio of OSHA officials – administrator Doug Parker, deputy assistant secretary Jim Frederick and Directorate of Standards and Guidance Director Andrew Levinson – moderated the discussion. Parker called the listening session the beginning of an agency “engagement” to “work toward continuous improvement in our communication with the public and with stakeholders.”

Levinson said about 30 listening sessions within federal OSHA and the agency’s 10 regional offices have taken place or been scheduled. He said OSHA wants safety to become a worldview – something people want to do “because it’s important for their workers, for the workplace, for the relationships, for the respect and trust that goes on between all employers and their workers.”

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Charles Atkins
June 20, 2023
I have been involved in safety since 1978 when I started out with DuPont, who at the time were one of the top safety practicing companies. I was an operator of very hazardous processes with serious chemicals,, so I was a perfect fit for hazmat, a confined space rescue and just good safety habits. I just left Russia where I was the safety manager for construction projects and a consultant and or contractor for Exxon in Russia. I had the best safety performance they had ever seen for 12 years, so it was repeatable and sustainable. I thank God for OSHA because they help maintain minimal standards for the bad players. The good players have higher standards than them. However, I do feel OSHA is not making huge differences now because they have created an environment that smaller and medium companies try not to be fined rather than to be safe. Whereas unions seem to me to have more ownership of their employees and care about their safety and health one on one. I grew up in WV coalfields so am very familiar with unions. I am nearly complete with a book and it will tell how I have done it for over 45 years and some simple programs I created to make it work. The reason it does is because I was a worker and know how they feel and what drives them, you will be surprised. There is a couple other obvious problems as well that seem to get worse. One problem is companies using HR to hire Safety people, they only know about initials after the name, seems BCSP has a lock on it , no one else knows anything other than them, ha. You guys are missing some critical pieces, and they are simple.