The union steward had just recounted an incident where a supervisor asked one of his workers to step into standing water to work on corroded gauges near the coker. The work needed to be done immediately as it would delay ongoing maintenance on the fractionator to take on different stock feed.

A serious movement is afoot to systematize the concept of “safety culture.” The International Labour Organization has put forward a definition of a “preventative safety and health culture,” and ISO is apparently discussing prospective prescriptive requirements for a “positive culture.”