Manager's Safety Violation

psrcello · November 2003

Without going into a lot of detail, we had an employee injured last week as the result of a manager and a supervisor directing the employee to use an unsafe piece of equipment. When another employee complained earlier about the equipment being unsafe, management's response was "Be careful and do the best you can."

Both the manager and supervisor are going to be written up for this safety violation. I'm concerned about putting too much detail in the write-up, lest the documentation is ever requested by OSHA or some other regulatory authority - we definitely did wrong. On the other hand, pretty much all of the information is contained in the accident investigation anyway.

Is there any way to word the write-ups to avoid getting into more trouble than necessary?

Thanks!

Dan Krawczyk · November 2003

I'd recommend you be forthright with your discipline.

rad · November 2003

I'm inclined to think that you should write the incident exactly as it happened, using factual information. There is no need for embellishment or withholding information.

mwild31 · November 2003

Hi - I agree with the other posts - I would keep it simple and state the facts. I would also document the corrective action that went into place after this accident as well. Not only including the disciplinary action (just a question: is a write-up strong enough that a reasonable person would believe it was the most appropriate action to take with the supervisor/manager?) but also what the company did to eliminate the safety hazard. Did you remove the unsafe equipment? Did you modify the equipment to make it safe? And, how soon did the removal/modification occur after the accident. That sort of thing.

Parabeagle · November 2003

I generally agree with the above posters, but don't feel it's necessary to go into extraordinary detail in your disciplinary report. As you said, the facts are laid out already in the accident investigation. I would just structure the writeup in such a way that clearly and briefly states why the manager was written up, what policy was violated, and the punishment directed. For example "John Doe directed Jane Doe to use an unguarded machine resulting in injury in violation of policy #..." or something along those lines.

As important, I would make sure your line employees and supervisors are aware that when an employee reports an unsafe condition or piece of equipment, the last thing you want to do is have the employee use it. And severely discipline any manager who would be stupid enough to direct an employee to use an unsafe tool.

psrcello · November 2003

Thanks to all of you for responding so promptly - with the help of your input, I can take it from here!

Balloonman · November 2003

I hope in the write up of the supervisors you make it clear if they ever do it again they will be terminated. Make it crystal clear.
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman

Don D · November 2003

It is also important to remember that OSHA looks very kindly at employer attempts to correct problems and cite safety violations. They view that as proactive. OSHA has no right to view a personnel file, per se. They can look at training records, violation reports, incident reports, accident logs, and other documents associated with your safety program.

Manager's Safety Violation

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