26 Jan You are hired as a safety/lean consultant to help a manufacturing company with the development of its safety program
You are hired as a safety/lean consultant to help a manufacturing company with the development of its safety program. One of the first things that you do when you get to the site is review the OSHA 300 logs. You see an injury on the log that involved a partial amputation and several days away from work. The company’s safety manager explains to you that an employee fabricating parts on a manufacturing machine accidentally placed his hand into a danger point on the machine. The result was that the employee had the tip of his finger cut off. You ask the safety manager what was done to follow-up on the incident and if there was any corrective action implemented. The safety manager hands you a file with the accident report and corrective action documents. Upon reviewing the documents, you see that (after the accident) a guard was fabricated and placed over the danger point on the machine. You also see that the employee received disciplinary action of one week off without pay due to an unsafe act. When you ask the safety manager about this, he replies, “The employee should have known better than to place his hand in that area.”
How would you address this situation?
Did the employer possibly violate any whistleblower statutes? Explain.
What impact could this situation have on their overall accident reporting system?
