I would look outside the EHS arena, which gets too lost in being OSHA-centric, for answers to some of the questions that confront the future of the EHS profession. I think the world of Risk Management and Insurance and the Liability Environment play a much bigger role in corporate decision-making when it comes to occupational safety.
Occupational safety regulation needs to emerge from the 19th century concept that employers have to right to privately injure employees, and instead use the sunshine of modern public transparency to spotlight employer’s risk based safety performance.
The Market is not holy. The author himself is stuck with antiquated thinking. What this author is suggesting is that you want to be the top seller of buggy whips and just hope the world likes your product and advertising without noticing that cars are coming soon.
Gary Rosenblum, member of OSHA’s National Advisory Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) and risk manger for the City of Palm Desert, Calif., reviews his 20-year compliance experience with the state of California’s Injury and Illness Prevention Program (I2P2).
If government subsidies can get businesses to do irrational things like produce fuel ethanol from corn, just think of what subsidies could do to encourage rational, moral behavior, like preventing workplace injuries and illnesses.