Change
is inevitable wouldn’t you say? I grew up with change watching “Superman” on
the old black and white Magnavox. George
Reeve would dash into the store room wearing his street clothes and leap out
the window a moment later, changed, transformed from the mild manner reporter
into the invincible Man of Steel. My
grandmother Nora taught me about change with stories of the mysterious east where
the cunning horseman Rewagunga changed into the beautiful Afghan jihadist,
Yasmini. And who can forget how the
leopard changed his spots with a little help from his Ethiopian friend who had,
“just a little color left over on the finger tips of his fine new black skin.” Yes, change is inevitable my brothers and
sisters. Sometimes it is brought on by
necessity and other times it is forced on us a knife point. There has been a change in our safety world
my friends, one which we ignore at our peril.
I am not talking about some deadly new chemical or dangerous new process,
no. In this case it is one both famous
and infamous. It is, the trial
lawyer. The Workers’ Compensation
system has been turned on its head.
First off, since all of the comp judges used to be trial lawyers and
since all of the comp attorneys are trial lawyers, well you can see it is
rather like the fox guarding the hen house.
For years they have tried to find a way around the basis for the
existence of workers’ comp that of “no fault.”
At long last, they have succeeded.
In
the last few years illegal immigrants injured while working in the US have been
awarded huge settlements in addition to their workers’ comp benefits. These settlements have now been upheld by the
various supremes court. Sadly, this
means that the legal protection of workers’ comp for employers has been
breached. Oh sure, your basic simple
comp cases will still work their way through the system no harm/no foul as
usual just to make it look good but let some trial lawyer smell blood in the
water and ohhh Ricky!
So
what’s it got to do with safety? Well
you may ask. Simply this, those
employers who do not have proactive, preemptive and effective safety programs
will soon be out of business. Gone are
the days of sitting presidents pardoning company officials and vacating their fines
for multiple fatalities. Gone are days
of laisse’ faire safety attitudes of “they’ll never get me.” The predictions of former OSHA Secretary,
John Henshaw made just a few short years ago right here at our own Safety
Council are about to come true, and I quote, “those companies who do not comply
and continue to hurt workers will be run out of business.”
Mr.
Employer, this means that now more than ever your corporate safety director
needs to be more than a company man with a suit and secretary, and much more
than a book worm with a high test score.
The modern corporate safety director must be a man who has come up
through the ranks. A man who has worked
on his tools, swung the hammer, run the bead and the backhoe and climbed the
scaffold. The modern safety director is
creative, a bit artsy, after all he was and is still a craftsman. He should have a love of music and be musical
himself. The modern safety director
enjoys the limelight, and even excels in it.
The modern safety director must be all of these things because he must
be able to use all of these things to teach, coach, challenge, and
entertain. If your safety program is to
prevent all accidents, it must change minds and touch hearts.
Sitting in a rocker at the Old Place, I am,
Col. Jim
