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I would tend to agree, if those risks are formally communicated and accepted. If they don't accept those risks, the employer is still legally bound to provide a

by bumby 4y ago

I would tend to agree, if those risks are formally communicated and accepted. If they don't accept those risks, the employer is still legally bound to provide a safe working environment. What you see in many of the higher injury-rate industries is that the injuries are often traced back to a lack of diligence in that responsibility. What I've seen in practice is that risks are often downplayed due to cognitive biases or outright gaslighting. What tends to happen is that people want to either 1) push the risk down to a different person, who may not be in a position to either understand or accept that risk or 2) informally accept that risk so that if something goes wrong they have plausible deniability. This gives them all the productivity upside with none of the responsibility. I don't think most people assume laws create rights (at least, those of the inalienable variety) but they create a framework to protect those rights. That framework is what allows people to objectively determine the safety of workplace and are relevant. In the case of something like OSHA, that framework gives the employee grounds to rebalance the power dynamic with management in terms of understanding and mitigating that risk. Sometimes I think HN is so skewed towards tech that many are unable to understand that people in other jobs don't necessarily have the same leverage with their employers. Laws help ensure they are still protected.

kragen 4y ago
Probably in this case the line employees are, on the most part, better informed than the management: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33067293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33067293 And the fact, at LANL, that the safety team left en masse when the management wouldn't let them implement what they considered to be proper safety measures, suggests that the employees in question were in a good position to not only understand but also reject the risk. In general, line workers are the ones whose incentives are best aligned with safety, since they're usually the ones who die (or, as you pointed out, suffer serious injuries). Sometimes they make bad decisions (as seems to have happened in this case) and sometimes they lack the information necessary — often, as you point out, because they're being lied to. Sometimes regulation helps improve that situation (it has been very useful in extorting MSDSes from material suppliers, for example) but I think much more often it results in the sort of time-wasting box-checking exercise referenced in the other comment, motivated by management ass-covering, not real safety improvements. Usually, what improves workplace safety is decentralization of control (devolution of decision-making power down to line workers), freedom of information, high-quality coworkers, and an overall workplace culture that values safety and, as I said at the beginning of the thread, ceaselessly seeks ways to improve it. And if that makes me sound like a "sovereign citizen", so be it — even a stopped clock is right twice a day. For the record, I've only experienced a significant workplace injury once, and the resulting disability was small enough I don't notice it most days, though the scar is obvious. I got fired for it.
- bumby 4y ago
  It's interesting how wildly differently we can interpret the same information. >"Probably in this case the line employees are, on the most part, better informed than the management: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33067293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33067293" For instance, I would not consider 2 days of training "highly trained". I believe it's true that the LANL area has one of the highest concentrations of PhDs, but I don't necessarily think that translates to being informed about all the risks. A PhD often means a lot of knowledge, but in a very narrow field. Sometimes, that level of education can be a detriment if it fosters a false sense of general ability. I've had many experiences of Masters and PhD chemists and engineers who felt, "Hey, I'm smart. I've written some cool VBA macros. I'm sure I can program this thing. It's just software." Smash-cut to hazardous releases that cause people to have to shelter in place or firefighters being called. They were subject matter experts in one area, but not smart enough to recognize their own ignorance outside their specialty. It didn't matter that they were experts in their field or front-line workers. I also think it's wild to me that your takeaway from the article is that blatantly disregarding best practices is acceptable. It's a bit of a jump to look at the evidence in the article and assume it must be okay, 'cause, you know, they're first line employees so they must know what they're doing so best practices need not apply. As someone who used to work in safety-critical software, it scares me when I read about this same cavalier SV attitude pervading into safety-critical design like autonomous vehicles.[1] Which relates to, >"In general, line workers are the ones whose incentives are best aligned with safety" I think we agree that their incentives are aligned. I think where we disagree is that people on the front lines aren't always acting as rational agents. I don't think they are because of a host of competing incentives and cognitive biases. Major catastrophes bear this out. Good examples are the Challenger or Columbia disasters at NASA. To your point, there was disagreement between management and front-line employees regarding the risk. Both groups were wrong because of these biases. We just aren't wired to estimate low probability events well, especially when there are less abstract competing risks like budget and schedule. That's why NASA created a separate safety arm that was distinct from the production workers. They felt it was necessary to get an objective assessment. Note this lack of impartial judgement is also a finding in [1]. I don't disagree that there's a lot of unhelpful safety theater. But there's also an awful lot of push back against safety that's borne out of a combination of ignorance and arrogance. [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/ntsb-investigation-into-deadly-uber-selfdriving-car-crash-reveals-lax-attitude-toward-safety#toggle-gdpr https://spectrum.ieee.org/ntsb-investigation-into-deadly-ube...

by bumby 4y ago

kragen 4y ago

Probably in this case the line employees are, on the most part, better informed than the management: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33067293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33067293 And the fact, at LANL, that the safety team left en masse when the management wouldn't let them implement what they considered to be proper safety measures, suggests that the employees in question were in a good position to not only understand but also reject the risk. In general, line workers are the ones whose incentives are best aligned with safety, since they're usually the ones who die (or, as you pointed out, suffer serious injuries). Sometimes they make bad decisions (as seems to have happened in this case) and sometimes they lack the information necessary — often, as you point out, because they're being lied to. Sometimes regulation helps improve that situation (it has been very useful in extorting MSDSes from material suppliers, for example) but I think much more often it results in the sort of time-wasting box-checking exercise referenced in the other comment, motivated by management ass-covering, not real safety improvements. Usually, what improves workplace safety is decentralization of control (devolution of decision-making power down to line workers), freedom of information, high-quality coworkers, and an overall workplace culture that values safety and, as I said at the beginning of the thread, ceaselessly seeks ways to improve it. And if that makes me sound like a "sovereign citizen", so be it — even a stopped clock is right twice a day. For the record, I've only experienced a significant workplace injury once, and the resulting disability was small enough I don't notice it most days, though the scar is obvious. I got fired for it.

bumby 4y ago
It's interesting how wildly differently we can interpret the same information. >"Probably in this case the line employees are, on the most part, better informed than the management: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33067293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33067293" For instance, I would not consider 2 days of training "highly trained". I believe it's true that the LANL area has one of the highest concentrations of PhDs, but I don't necessarily think that translates to being informed about all the risks. A PhD often means a lot of knowledge, but in a very narrow field. Sometimes, that level of education can be a detriment if it fosters a false sense of general ability. I've had many experiences of Masters and PhD chemists and engineers who felt, "Hey, I'm smart. I've written some cool VBA macros. I'm sure I can program this thing. It's just software." Smash-cut to hazardous releases that cause people to have to shelter in place or firefighters being called. They were subject matter experts in one area, but not smart enough to recognize their own ignorance outside their specialty. It didn't matter that they were experts in their field or front-line workers. I also think it's wild to me that your takeaway from the article is that blatantly disregarding best practices is acceptable. It's a bit of a jump to look at the evidence in the article and assume it must be okay, 'cause, you know, they're first line employees so they must know what they're doing so best practices need not apply. As someone who used to work in safety-critical software, it scares me when I read about this same cavalier SV attitude pervading into safety-critical design like autonomous vehicles.[1] Which relates to, >"In general, line workers are the ones whose incentives are best aligned with safety" I think we agree that their incentives are aligned. I think where we disagree is that people on the front lines aren't always acting as rational agents. I don't think they are because of a host of competing incentives and cognitive biases. Major catastrophes bear this out. Good examples are the Challenger or Columbia disasters at NASA. To your point, there was disagreement between management and front-line employees regarding the risk. Both groups were wrong because of these biases. We just aren't wired to estimate low probability events well, especially when there are less abstract competing risks like budget and schedule. That's why NASA created a separate safety arm that was distinct from the production workers. They felt it was necessary to get an objective assessment. Note this lack of impartial judgement is also a finding in [1]. I don't disagree that there's a lot of unhelpful safety theater. But there's also an awful lot of push back against safety that's borne out of a combination of ignorance and arrogance. [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/ntsb-investigation-into-deadly-uber-selfdriving-car-crash-reveals-lax-attitude-toward-safety#toggle-gdpr https://spectrum.ieee.org/ntsb-investigation-into-deadly-ube...