Thought Leadership

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When you think about the title of this piece, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is an accident that produced property damage but no injuries.  While that is a common example of this principle, it is not the only one.

I am the managing director of Australia's largest safety solutions organisation, the Industrial Foundation for Accident Prevention (IFAP).  We are a wholly self-funded, not for profit organisation which provides services across the broad spectrum of safety-related matters ranging from low level induction style training courses to whole-of-organisation safety culture change programmes.

With the rising costs associated with healthcare, an aging workforce more likely to require treatment for chronic illness, and the simple fact that people in good physical condition tend to be injured less severely than those who are out of shape,  organizations are increasingly able to argue that what you do on your own time is indeed their business.

Last week the Politico Playbook daily newsletter noted the coming retirement of Rep. George Miller (D-CA) by saying the 40-year veteran of Congress was one of the last of the Democratic “Watergate babies”… “part of a post-Vietnam 70s generation filled with moral certitude.”

I am Tom Lawrence from the St. Louis, MO area.  I have chemical engineering degrees and 43 years’ experience as a safety professional.  I am here today to vigorously oppose this proposed regulation.

In 2013, 42 miners died in work-related accidents at the nation's mines, an increase of six over last year. Of those fatalities, 20 were in coal mining and 22 were in metal/nonmetal mining, compared with 20 and 16, respectively, in 2012.

News item: Sen. Chuck Grassley has joined 42 other senators in requesting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to stop unlawful regulations on small family farms. “OSHA is overstepping its bounds here,” Grassley said.

Last fall, I taught my first collegiate sustainability course for the University of Iowa’s Evening MBA Program. If you’re like me — a recovering perfectionist — you can relate to this story. When environmental issues you care about can often (literally) seem like life or death… the end of the world, etc… then every decision feels like it carries a lot of weight.