How to Ensure Workers’ Safety beyond Worker’s Compensation?

Accidents are quite common in all industries. The victims are compensated through worker’s compensation law by insurance companies. Normally medical bills and wages are paid through it. The employer is not held under tort liability even if he is found guilty of negligence.

When can a manufacturer be held liable for an industrial accident?

Sometimes accidents occur due to defect in a machine. In such situations where an accident has occurred due to inadequate safety provisions, the manufacturer of the machine may be held liable under product liability lawsuit. But it needs an expert witness to determine the existence of such a defect.

Legal codes that specify safety in machines

There are numerous codes which specify safety in machines. Some of these are mentioned below.

Code of Federal Regulations, Title 29, Part 1910, which is popularly known as OSHA (Occupation Safety and Health Standards)
National Electrical Code
National Electrical Safety Code

How industrial accidents occur?

The liability of dangerous machines cannot be eliminated by only conforming to the codes.
There are several instances where accidents had occurred due to a worker’s intention of doing a good deed much beyond his assigned duties. Examples of these can be clearing a jam in a machine or escaping a safety device to increase productivity.

There are several gloomy anecdotes. Once a worker reached in to a molding press by by-passing four concentric safety devices and lost his hand. A woman in order to clear a jam climbed through a gap in a machine and got crushed. An untrained man once tried to repair a machine and was struck by a spring operated lever in the face.

All these instances speak of one thing. Human beings themselves jeopardize their own lives by avoiding safety devices.

How to avoid such accidents?

Often it is found that safety devices are tampered with or they fail leading to such accidents. Hence it is important that they should be tested regularly and automatically. Since workers themselves interfere with safety devices so there should be provisions of testing such devices as part of the operating cycle.

How to ensure that workers abide by the rules and use machines safely?

People often debate over the means that will ensure that workers abide by the safety laws. Some are of the opinion that warning labels are enough to educate them.

But there are very few people who actually read warning labels which are attached to machines and materials and abide by them. Even those who read them do not obey them. So, warning labels are not as effective as safety devices and practices. If warning labels were enough then prescription drugs would have been sold as OTC drugs.

Providing training on proper usage of machines is another good idea. But here again the problem lies with the obedience. Most workers do not pay heed to safety norms and try to avoid them. They are often bored by their repetitive schedule and slackness creeps in. Unless there is a safety device in place it is very difficult to ensure their security against accidents and mishaps.
The onus lies with the machine’s manufacturer and installation contractor to foresee all types of unauthorized behavior and provide means to prevent them.

The workers compensation intends to relieve the employers of negligence liability. But in cases where the employer fails to prevent situations which can be dangerous, he should be held liable for such negligence.