Systems of Safety and Active Worker-Participation Strategies for a Safe Workplace: The Philosophical and Structural Underpinnings of the Labor Institute, and the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union, Accident Prevention Programs

Abstract

For the last ten years, The Labor Institute, in cooperation with the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE) and several other international unions, has been training workers and managers to prevent accidents in the workplace using what we call a Systems of Safety (SOS) approach. We teach workers to identify major categories of safety systems and sub-systems in the workplace and to assign a hierarchical prevention value to each category. The SOS approach enables workers to look beyond the simplest explanations for an accident to identify the full range of factors that contributed to the event. As a result, Systems of Safety training provides workers with an unparalleled opportunity to reduce the frequency and severity of in-plant accidents. Unfortunately, the full benefits of an SOS system cannot be realized in most workplaces as they are now organized. Our decades of experience—and a review of relevant literature—tell us that worker participation is the key to preventing accidents. Maximum accident prevention is only achievable through maximum worker participation. In most workplaces, hierarchical structures—and workers' internalization of that hierarchy—prevent full worker participation. This article will explore barriers to achieving maximum worker participation, and strategies for providing workers with some measure of control over the systems of safety that determine the level of safety at their work sites.