The president of one of the nation’s leading safety associations says complying with rules and policies isn’t enough for breakthrough safety performance. Keep reading to find out what matters even more.
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American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) president Tom Cecich started his safety career working with the furniture and textile industries in the 1970s as they were striving to comply with the then-new Occupational Safety and Health Act. “Missing fingers, hearing loss, and occupational asthma were the norm,” Cecich recalls in a recent blog post, “and widespread ergonomics-related disabilities were simply viewed as the price of getting old.”
Over time, the OSHA standards did contribute to marked improvement. Although Cecich says regulatory standards continue to provide the foundation of worker protection today, “OSH professionals understand that compliance alone cannot produce an injury-free workplace.” As proof, he points to a plateau in the rate of fatalities and serious injuries over the past decade.