How to protect yourself from a hazardous job

Dear WW: I work in a warehouse and my coworkers and I all think that conditions here are unsafe. The company won’t listen to our complaints. What can we do? A MATTER OF TIME

Dear TIME,

At least you know unsafe when you see it. Check this out. A guy named Luke Dow volunteered to assist the magician at a magic show. For his first trick, the magician tried to snatch a paper out of Dow’s hand with a whip. Well, he missed-and raised a welt on the side of Dow’s head. So did Dow say “thanks, but no thanks”? Nope. He agreed to help with another stunt! This time he held a balloon while the magician turned his back, looked in a mirror and shot at the balloon with a pistol. You can guess what happened. Dow missed the rest of the magic show: he was in the hospital having the bullet removed from his hand.

So, duh! The guy shoulda known better, right? Well, that’s what people will say about you and your coworkers if you continue working in unsafe conditions. If you’re convinced your jobsite’s unsafe, there are a number of things you can do to get those conditions changed (and remember, blue collar workers don’t have a monopoly on dangerous working conditions). Doing them may not be easy-but it’ll be a lot easier than living with your injuries-or your conscience-if you do nothing. The questions below will help you. Also check out “The Rights of Employees and Union Members” by Wayne Outten (Southern Illinois University Press, 1994).

Did you express your concerns to your employer rationally? There’s nothing like a toxic explosion from an employee to turn an employer off. So talk to your employers again-as coolly and logically as possible.

Are there others who agree with you? The larger your group of complainants, the better. Look beyond

the warehouse to other areas of the company to recruit support.

Can you document your concerns? What concrete evidence can you supply to document the dangers? Documentation could include: reports of accidents that have occurred in similar situations, studies of similar worksites that have been deemed unsafe, records of injuries that have occurred at your worksite in the past. Your union, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, etc. should be able to help. Also search the Internet.

Are there safer ways to accomplish your job? If you can show that you can achieve the same results with a safer set-up, you’ll go a long way to convincing the company to make a change.

Did you contact OSHA? If after the steps above, your company still doesn’t listen, contact your local OSHA office. They’re charged by the federal government with ensuring that workplaces are safe.

Luke Dow, by the way, is considering suing the magician. But it seems like he would have been better off doing the ultimate magic trick-disappearing before the second act.

Working Wounded poll:

Which movie title best sums up your company’s approach to hazardous assignments at work?

• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 47.2%
• Do The Right Thing, 44.4%
• Little Shop of Horrors, 8.3

Working Wounded strategy:

Our winning strategy for dealing with a dangerous work assignment comes from Bob L. in Hollis, OK. “The worker should contact the company’s workers compensation carrier. They perform safety studies as a part of their service. It is a ‘win-win’ situation. The company saves on future premiums through lower claims, in addition to less lost man-hours. The Comp carrier benefits from less risk or exposure. The employees/workers benefit from a safer more productive work place. I would try this before OSHA because the government can be ridiculous and would probably not fix the employee’s concerns.”

Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, speaker and internationally syndicated columnist. Sherrie Campbell is a relationship and business professional, having applied her counseling background in a variety of challenging organizational settings. They’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic, especially if you have better ideas than they do. Also check out their complete column archive at workmash.org, “The Boss’s Survival Guide” and “Gray Matters: The workplace survival guide.” Send your questions or comments to bob@workmash.org.