# Saftey incentives.



## just the cowboy (Sep 4, 2013)

*knifes*



Jhellwig said:


> I just read in an email from our company that OSHA banned saftey incentives that might encourage people to not report incidents. We use to get chamber of commerce gift certificates quarterly for not having any incidents.
> 
> It makes sense but a far bigger threat to reporting incidents is getting wrote up or fired. I have been wrote up for not wearing ppe after I have been hurt and it makes you not want to report anything. I used to work for a place that would always find a way to get rid of people that had lost time incidents. This is a far bigger problem than incentives cause.


When I worked at the navy yard they gave us a reward for going 6 months with no safety incidents. They gave us pen knifes and right after that a few people got hurt, *with the knifes they gave us.*


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## mitch65 (Mar 26, 2015)

Funny, they use incentives in the form of reduced insurance premiums for companies, but it's corrupt to give employees incentives.


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## TGGT (Oct 28, 2012)

Chamber of Commerce is anti-worker, and anti-osha.


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## Jhellwig (Jun 18, 2014)

TGGT said:


> Chamber of Commerce is anti-worker, and anti-osha.


The chamber of commerce didn't have anything to do with it. That is just what they gave us. At my last job they gave us these dumb safety bucks to go by a candy bar with.


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## ponyboy (Nov 18, 2012)

Safety metrics are bull**** and easily manipulated. We can have a guy break a rib on the job but if he comes to work everyday and sits in medical doing busy work it's not a lost time. 


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Yeah, I personally knew of several serious accidents within just our division when I worked for the POCO, so imagine my surprise when they declared an accident-free year for the entire country. It's a crock. Most of those people care far more about the idea of safety than the end goal which is to actually keep people safe.


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## mitch65 (Mar 26, 2015)

Calling it safety is a misnomer, it should be called liability shifting.


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## Majewski (Jan 8, 2016)

My safety incentive is, I don't want to die.


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## HackWork (Oct 2, 2009)

I developed a very strict and incentivized safety policy for my company.

Don't get hurt and you won't find yourself in a shallow grave in the meadowlands.


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## Majewski (Jan 8, 2016)

I hate digging so I certainly would have a grave dug.... Maybe toss em in a river?


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

HackWork said:


> I developed a very strict and incentivized safety policy for my company.
> 
> Don't get hurt and you won't find yourself in a shallow grave in the meadowlands.


We turn them into alligator turds


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

Jhellwig said:


> I just read in an email from our company that OSHA banned saftey incentives that might encourage people to not report incidents. We use to get chamber of commerce gift certificates quarterly for not having any incidents.
> 
> It makes sense but a far bigger threat to reporting incidents is getting wrote up or fired. I have been wrote up for not wearing ppe after I have been hurt and it makes you not want to report anything. I used to work for a place that would always find a way to get rid of people that had lost time incidents. This is a far bigger problem than incentives cause.


I dont really believe OSHA has any authority to ban safety incentives. This gets into the "what if" business. But, now that I think about it, all safety is "what if"


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Suncoast Power said:


> I dont really believe OSHA has any authority to ban safety incentives. This gets into the "what if" business. But, now that I think about it, all safety is "what if"


They don't outright ban them that I'm aware, but if it comes out that incentives created an environment that caused improper response to accidents (for example by discouraging reporting) then that opens the employer up to additional labor law violations. We cancelled our safety bonus program because of this.


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## Jhellwig (Jun 18, 2014)

Suncoast Power said:


> I dont really believe OSHA has any authority to ban safety incentives. This gets into the "what if" business. But, now that I think about it, all safety is "what if"


They didn't ban them but it is a mater of opinion on weather or not the cause people not to report. If they don't outline an acceptable program they have essentially banned it.


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## Islander (Jul 11, 2016)

A company I worked for had incentives, which were calculated using a rather complicated, obtuse formula. Still, people got $25 and up of Home Depot cards, or grocery cards, or other goodies. 5 and up years got some nice swag. 

Then the company got bought out by a huge corporation whose incentives included a congratulatory letter from the safety department, and a sticker for your hardhat. One year got you a cheap keychain, and two years a cheap pocket knife.  Why bother?


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

It's a dumb idea IMO. I doubt very seriously anyone changes their work habits for some stupid trinket or $25 a year, it comes out to a $0.01 and hour or something. The main safety incentive is not getting hurt, the secondary is not getting fired. 

It's one of the million ways the corporate bureaucracy keeps it bloated ass in a seat. It's a way for some safety officer to shuffle papers, make spreadsheets, attend meetings sharing their great idea, compile statistics showing how great it worked, and create the illusion they are contributing something. 

Take that money and buy one more of something that's in short supply so people don't cut corners and create hazards, and find something productive to the safety officer's day with.


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## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

We had a worker vaporize a sawzall cutting thru 2" emt w/200A in in a while back 

Said energized entity was a _'spur'_ off an old line used for temp service by our competitive company on a lager 1/2mil sqft job , ran across the entirety of the job w/ red tape applied.......except for the spur they missed.....

Yup, _their_ install, thru _our_ turf, and _they_ missed it. This was on a B&D jobsite regularly patrolled by OSHA 

When i pointed it our to our compeditors foreskin , he did everything to backpeddal and deny it in front of me, while his Jman was fixing it :whistling2:

Nor did they change the ' *10001 working days w/o an incident*' sign on their trailer 

Had i reported them, it would have been_ political _suicide

Because the aforementioned afflicted worker wore an ankle bracelet, he wasn't about to make noise either

That's how '_safety'_ works here.....

~CS~


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## ponyboy (Nov 18, 2012)

If guys get hurt at my work bad enough they can't physically work they're still required to clock in and sit in the infirmary for so many hours a day so the company doesn't get a lost time incident filed. It's laughable. We currently have like 4 million hours worked this year without a lost time incident but it's a complete bullshît lie. 


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

ponyboy said:


> If guys get hurt at my work bad enough they can't physically work they're still required to clock in and sit in the infirmary for so many hours a day so the company doesn't get a lost time incident filed. It's laughable. We currently have like 4 million hours worked this year without a lost time incident but it's a complete bullshît lie.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


That's a good one. If I was injured i'd be damned if I'm getting out and driving to work, what a crock. 

What's that number 1-800- Sue-Them???


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## LGLS (Nov 10, 2007)

We worked on project as a subcontractor of Kewit. They rounded us all up at a meeting to announce a $100.00 Home Depot gift certificate for each worker IF the project completes without an accident or injury reported. The steward went ballistic. And a lot of the men who could clearly see this was nothing more than a bribe also expressed their feelings quite loudly. But surprisingly, many others were simply salivating over the carrot on the string, unable to see how nefarious the plan was. Clearly, monetary incentives offered to a workforce for an accident free record is meant to prevent workers from legitimately reporting accidents. 

After the accident free project completed, no $100.00 Home Depot certificates ever appeared.


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

LawnGuyLandSparky said:


> We worked on project as a subcontractor of Kewit. They rounded us all up at a meeting to announce a $100.00 Home Depot gift certificate for each worker IF the project completes without an accident or injury reported. The steward went ballistic. And a lot of the men who could clearly see this was nothing more than a bribe also expressed their feelings quite loudly. But surprisingly, many others were simply salivating over the carrot on the string, unable to see how nefarious the plan was. Clearly, monetary incentives offered to a workforce for an accident free record is meant to prevent workers from legitimately reporting accidents.
> 
> After the accident free project completed, no $100.00 Home Depot certificates ever appeared.


You could have taken them to court, just to piss em off.


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## Cl906um (Jul 21, 2012)

chicken steve said:


> We had a worker vaporize a sawzall cutting thru 2" emt w/200A in in a while back
> 
> Said energized entity was a _'spur'_ off an old line used for temp service by our competitive company on a lager 1/2mil sqft job , ran across the entirety of the job w/ red tape applied.......except for the spur they missed.....
> 
> ...


Spell check..


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## Cl906um (Jul 21, 2012)

We used to get a quarter an hour at one company. That is incentive. A new crummy knife is chump change. They figured it out that that quarter an hour just made people hide more. Guy ended up with a bad infection that ended it all. He was the foremen and his incentive was accounted per hour for each man under him. Ended up in the ER for his ailment. Was out of work for some time I heard.


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