Page 52 - Occupational Health & Safety, November/December 2019

FACILITY SAFETY
Stop Work Authority: A Principled-Based Approach
How do you manage the decision-making of large groups of employees working in risky environments, and can you give away the necessary rights to those closest to work to make critical choices in how they work? BY SCOTT GADDIS
Starting my safety career almost 30 years ago, an early hurdle I had to jump was the acute realization that I could not be everywhere all the time, nor could I police the work en- vironment close enough to ensure that everyone went home as healthy as they came in. Adding to this di- lemma was the fact that I led large plants with expan- sive manufacturing geographies and had people scat- tered everywhere, getting direction from supervisory staffs that, at times, had differing objectives than me.
This raises the question: How do you manage the decision-making of large groups of employees work- ing in risky environments, and can you give away the necessary rights to those closest to work to make critical choices in how they work? Giving away the au- thority to act is a big subject that is too much to cover in one article, but it’s a fundamental element in lever- aging a work culture most EHSQ professionals desire, the authority to stop work.
Federal Law
Under federal law in the United States and similar laws written in other countries, employers must pro- vide employees with a safe and healthy workplace free of recognized hazards. Workers have the right to re- fuse to perform dangerous work and, if they do so, are protected against employer retaliation.
The law was supported by the courts on Feb. 26, 1980, when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that defined—with great clarity—a worker’s right to refuse work when there was a reasonable con- cern that death or serious injury or illness might occur performing the job. This decision stemmed from a 1974 case against Whirlpool Corp. in which two workers refused to crawl out on a screen from which a co-worker had fallen to his death only nine days earlier.
The two workers in the Whirlpool case were or- dered by management to go out on the screen 20 feet above the floor to retrieve small appliance parts that had fallen from a conveyor belt system above. The screen was in place to protect workers in the plant from falling parts. Claiming that the screen was un- safe to climb, both employees refused to carry out the task and were sent home for the day and denied pay.
It is supported by law: If an employee believes working conditions are unsafe or unhealthful, he or she has the right, the responsibility, and the authority to halt work activity without fear of retribution.
Understanding the Value of
Stop Work Authority
Stopping an operation is better than risking a loss. Stop Work Authority (SWA) is best viewed as a safety policy or procedure that authorizes and empowers employ- ees to stop an action or condition they consider to be unsafe. The goal behind such a plan is to encourage workers to speak up without fear of retribution when they see a potential at-risk situation unfolding.
It is presumptuous to say that OSHA or any other regulatory agency requires SWA programs, but there is a mandate to the employer to provide a safe work- place and another that protects worker actions should the workplace not be safe. An SWA, however, goes far- ther to foster the idea of safety engagement.
OSHA concurs with this idea, stating that “the best safety and health programs involve every level of the organization, instilling a safety culture that reduces accidents for workers and improves the bottom line for managers” and concluding that “when safety and health are part of the organization and a way of life, everyone wins.” In this context, the very best safety programs have a broad partnership with employees on the manufacturing line.
A Principled Approach
It’s simple: The power of “we” thumps the power of “me” every time. Stop Work Authority supports this idea with the development of an environment and culture that encourage the belief that every person can create and maintain a workplace free of illness or injury or other loss. A worker who feels ownership of the safety process shifts from an independent worker to an interdependent business partner who shares de- cision rights to protect the work system.
Thinking back to my time with Kimberly-Clark Corp. and very early in my career, I was assigned to a newly constructed paper mill where I worked with a leadership staff that had a fervent desire to lead mostly by work principles rather than volumes of rules. While it would be inaccurate to think that I drove an entire safety program on principle, I did find that I liked the challenge of developing written regulatory mandated policies that were shaped in such a way that they guided the behaviors we desired as an organization. If there was no mandated require- ment for a written procedure, we worked from our corporate principles and formed employee teams to craft procedures in a way that were short, concise, and
48 Occupational Health & Safety | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019
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