Pub. 7 2018-2019 Issue 3

26 San Diego Dealer M any people take it for granted that they have a safe work envi- ronment. It’s a serious problem when that assumption turns out to be wrong. The U.S. government, employers, and employees can all have a role in developing accident-prevention strategies. Historically, many people have considered employees to be responsible for their own safety, and they have thought that if someone got hurt it was probably because they were being careless in some way. People thought that unsafe actions caused 85 percent of work accidents. That approach, however, has serious shortcomings. Most significantly, it hasn’t causedmuch improvement inworkplace safety during the last 15 years. Why? It is reactive instead of proactive, which means changes are made only after someone has actually been hurt or killed. There isn’t much emphasis on prevention. Blaming employees is also superficial; some- times there are multiple factors involved in the creation of an unsafe work environment, and it is unfair and misleading to focus only on the role played by employees, especially if the employees don’t really control the environment where they work. Too frequently, employees don’t have the authority to change anything, or are actively encouraged to stay silent if they see a dangerous situation. An employee who feels powerless is not going to be motivated to advocate for change unless the consequences are obvious and immediate, suchmight occur if the employees realize that ignoring a situation might actually cause them to die that day. Unfortunately, that depends on employees recognizing the dangers they face and being supported by their managers in refusing to place themselves in danger. The following factors can decrease workplace safety: • ALCOHOL: 11 percent of the workplace fatalities that are recorded are caused by drinking. Alcoholic employees are almost three timemore likely to be absent because of injuries than their peers. Many adult employ- ees drink, but drinking is especially common in the mining industry (17.5 percent) and the construction industry (16.5 percent). • DRUG ABUSE: The Department of Justice has determined that approximately half of all accidents in the workplace are caused by illicit drug abuse. Three industries have a particular problem with drug abuse: accommodations and food services (19.1 percent), entertain- ment (13.7 percent), and management (12.7 percent). Keep inmind that drug abuse causes accidents, but it also provides amotivation for employees to steal in order to get the money to buymore drugs. The Department of Justice estimates that 50 percent of all workplace acci- dents and as much as 40 percent of employee theft are caused by drug abuse. • MENTAL ILLNESS: Approximately 9.5percent of all adults have problems with some formof depression. Experts estimate that untreated cases of depression in employees can cause employers to lose approximately $100 billion every year. Depression is considered to be a disability, which means it is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Employees are entitled to reduce the number of hours they work and have their responsibilities changed in order to help them recover more quickly. They can also sometimes get permission to work from home. • TOXIC CHEMICALS: The eight largest cause of death in the U.S. is exposure to hazard- ous chemicals. Toxic chemicals can also cause chronic illness. As many as 32 million workers are exposed to toxic chemicals on a regular basis. Workplace safety has improved since 1970, when 38 employees died at work every day in the U.S. because of unsafe working conditions. SAFE WORK ENVIRONMENTS