Our Ref: N4/DJ/kg
28 April 2010
Bob Gibson Ass/Sec Outdoor
CWU/HQ
Dear Bob,
RE: "Behavioural Based Safety Programmes" - Zero Accidents Can Kill
Many thanks for your 27 April e-mail in which you reproduce and circulate the "International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) website editorial on "Workers Memorial Day - 28 April 2010" and "Behavioural Based Safety Programmes".
Behavioural Based Safety Programmes are not new and have been around a long time and tend to come around and rear their ugly head periodically. The last time there was an upsurge in popularity amongst employers was around a decade ago when these Japanese led, American ideas of "Total Quality Management" (TQM) or "Human Resource Management" (HRM) ideas and techniques were being promoted and sold across Europe by "DuPont" the US Chemical Giant and others and the TQM/HRM philosophy stretches beyond Safety into other people management areas.
The US Postal Service purchased the DuPont "Stop" Programme but firm resistance by the US Postal Unions drove it out.
Royal Mail purchased a DuPont Safety Package for many millions of pounds which was substantially 'blunted' by the CWU in 2000 and it became "Safety Excellence 2000" but fizzled out and disappeared with virtually none of the remnants of it remaining today.
However, the TUC has noted through feedback that once again there is as big upsurge in "Behavioural Based Safety Programmes" and the other associated 'junk'. I sit on the TUC Union Health and Safety Specialists Committee and we've had a debate about this over recent months, agreeing that the topic will be one of the key TUC health and safety subjects to be tackled in the 2010 programme.
"Behavioural Based Safety Programmes" have many names and closer to home we can already see this cancer taking root again; In Romec Ltd, they have one called "Towards Zero Accidents" and three Romec Ltd Engineers in two incidents have been sacked for health and safety rule infringements and incidents at Horsham and NDC. We will be meeting the new Safety Director and Head of Safety to challenge this soon. In Royal Mail of course we have the TQM/HRM "World Class Mails" initiative with the "Safety Pillar" being a typical "Behavioural Based Safety Programme" and a "blame the worker" component which we have been strongly opposing as it is in conflict with Royal Mail's own Safety Policy.
These "Behavioural Based Safety Programmes" programmes all have the same central theme however, that is to "blame the worker" by focusing on workers' behaviour as the cause of most work-related injuries and illnesses when in fact, quote "bad managers are the biggest cause of work-related accidents and stress" (Management Today) and "Statistics have proved that bad management practices cause accidents and cost money" (HSE).
The type of organisation DuPont is can be judged on its own Safety and Trade Union record. Quite ironic that DuPont should set itself up as an international safety leader, selling 'off the shelf' "Behavioural Based Safety Programmes" from whom companies are prepared to spend millions buying their product. As mentioned above a safety program called 'STOP'. Here are some examples of DuPont's Behaviour in the USA;
Sulphuric Acid Leak - DuPont was issued four safety and environmental citations for the October 11, 2004 following a leak of tonnes of Sulphuric acid into the ground, water and air at its Wurtland, Kentucky facility. DuPont failed to keep people away from the cracked pipe responsible for the leak, failed to have back-up emergency staff and failed to have emergency response employees wearing protective breathing equipment during the spill.
DuPont had to settle several 75 federal court lawsuits from residents who were made ill by the October spill. They now have breathing and vision problems. Fire, police and ambulance crews who evacuated people near the plant were also affected.
In July 2003, DuPont paid out a $1.1. million settlement in connection with Clean Air Act violations involving a May 1997 chemical release from DuPont’s fluoroproducts plants in Louisville, Kentucky. DuPont was unable to contain or block the release for approximately 40 minutes. During that time, approximately 11,500 pounds of hydrogen fluoride, escaped into the air.
DuPont was sued by 13 workers injured in a fire at its Malden Mills factory, Lawrence, Massachusetts. The blaze, which swept through the Malden Mills complex on December 11, 1995, levelled four buildings and injured more than 30 people. It was one of the largest industrial fires in history. DuPont supplied material that fire investigators believe sparked the inferno. The case was settled in 1999 for an unspecified amount.
In 1981, DuPont began a study that showed 2 out of 8 of its Washington plant female workers had children with birth defects similar to those found in rats in another study. In 2004, EPA sued DuPont for hiding both studies and evidence of drinking water contamination. 3M had stopped making APFO based on principles of “responsible environmental management” causing DuPont to manufacture APFO itself. Now, the EPA, communities around DuPont plants and consumers are concerned about the toxicity of a chemical that makes Teflon, a product that once provided so much convenience.
In June 1984 DuPont also found C8 in West Virginia and Ohio tap water near the Washington Works plant, the same plant where Teflon is made and female workers had children with birth defects. DuPont disposes of waste from the plant in the Dry Run Landfill. Until recently, the landfill was unlined and polluting the soil, ground water and drinking wells with C8. Not until a local farmer sued DuPont for polluting Dry Run Creek and killing 280 cows in 1999 did the community begin to learn the extent of its drinking water contamination. Even through levels exceeded DuPont’s original “community exposure guideline” of one parts per billion (ppb), the company did not tell residents or the EPA about the contamination for up to 20 years. Residents in neighbouring communities now drink only bottled water, as per the suggestion of a Pennsylvania scientist. (Water purchases are reimbursed by DuPont. Residents await more studies to determine if a link between disease and the C8 contaminated water exists. If it does exist, DuPont will have to pay $235 million for medical monitoring as part of the settlement of a class action suit brought about by 50,000 to 80,000 residents. DuPont had paid $107.6 million as a result of the settlement in 2006.
On top of all that DuPont have been found guilty in the past of Labour Law Infractions in US. Amongst several for example in 2004 the US National Labor Relations Board issued labor law violations against DuPont over the giant chemical firm's interference, restraining and coercing Union activities and Union members at its Louisville (Kentucky) plant and was ordered to halt its interference of shop-floor Union activity that is protected by US law.
Nestlé who are mentioned in the IUF article as a "Behavioural Based Safety Programmes" leader have a chequered international history also with workers in Eastern Europe and South American plants fighting against unsafe production plants. Nestle have been repeatedly criticised and widely boycotted in a number of countries because of their violation of international codes. Their workers in a Nestle plants in South American Countries have in the past complained of poor working conditions, including discrimination against women, lack of protective clothing and inadequate safety conditions. Strikes have taken place and workers sacked. Nestlé is one of the UK's largest food and drink manufacturers. In 2003 Nestlé UK Ltd, was fined £220,000 plus £30,000 in costs following a fatal accident when a man was electrocuted undertaking work at Nestlé's factory in Nestles Avenue, Hayes, Middlesex. Last year USA Nestlé Workers forced to change into work and protective clothing in their own time won back wages from the company with Nestlé having to pay out US$5.1 million (approximately £3.6m) in back wages to 6,000 workers. A US Department of Labour Law infraction judgement determined. Investigators found that production, maintenance and cleaning workers at manufacturing facilities in Chatsworth, Calif., Springville, Utah, and Jonesboro, Ark., were not paid for time spent putting on required equipment and clothing and removing it before and after their shifts, as required by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Nestle subsequently identified additional back wages due to workers at plants in Mt. Sterling, Ky., Solon, Ohio, and Gaffney, S.C. Reviews at additional facilities are still in progress. The workers will receive back wages for work performed between Dec. 15, 2006, and Dec. 15, 2008.' 'The FLSA requires that covered employees be paid for required time spent before and after shifts 'donning and doffing,' or putting on and removing certain uniforms, protective clothing and safety equipment, as well as for time spent between locker rooms and production areas once work time has begun.'
Best Wishers and Regards on this the 2010 Workers Memorial Day
Dave Joyce
National Health, Safety & Environment Officer
On April 28, Remember: 'Zero Accidents' Can be Hazardous to Your Health!
IUF Editorial 26-04-2010
Unions around the world will be mobilizing again on April 28, each in its way highlighting the 360,000 annual workplace fatalities and 2 million deaths from occupational diseases. On April 28, as on every other day, some 960,000 workers will be injured in an accident at work, and some 5,300 workers will die of work-related diseases.
Flanked by an army of consultants and propagandists, employers increasingly promote the lie that workers are themselves to blame for this epidemic of illness and death. 'Behavior based safety programs' initially developed by the US insurance industry, later refined by chemical giant DuPont ("Better Living through Chemistry"), seek to divert attention from the organization of work, its methods, materials and hierarchies of time and space, to locate the source of blame with the individual worker. According to this scheme, it is unsafe behavior, rather than workplace hazards, which are at the root of this daily carnage.
Responsibility is shifted from the hazard to the individual: "Safety is everyone's business". In this scheme, you don't need a comprehensive workplace health and safety program, and a union health and safety committee which empowers workers to identify hazards and work through their union to eliminate them. Accidents are individual lapses; what is important is to hit the coveted 'zero accident' target. Bonuses are linked to zero-accidents, and workers are encouraged to seek individual medical treatment outside occupational protection schemes. Employees can be medically screened to identify their alleged propensity for 'unsafe behavior'.
In the run up to this year's International Worker Memorial Day, there have been, as always, a succession of fatal accidents claiming many victims in enterprises - factories, mines, construction sites - which vaunted their 'zero accident' credentials. Many of the 'zero accident' practices described above are in force at Nestlé workplaces, singly or in combination. In its latest "Creating Shared Value Report" Nestlé states that "safety is non-negotiable". As with so many other things, Nestlé has again got it wrong. Safety must becontinuouslynegotiated, because new hazards arise with each change in the production process, and change is continuous. And negotiation requires strong unions, in each and every workplace.
You will find comprehensive global reporting, in the original languages, of union activity for April 28 on the website of the UKHazards. As our contribution, the IUF this year would like to propose a global fight back against the insidious doctrine of 'behavior based safety'. Its time to stop blaming the victim and again assert the absolute primacy of employer responsibility for health and safety on the job. Zero accidents can kill.
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