Making Companies Safe - what works? (CCA ... - Unite the Union

A similar experiment in self-regulation, but one that applied only to firms with exemplary
safety records within the construction industry, was California’s Cooperative Compliance
Program (CPP). The program focused on seven large construction projects, each employing
between 250 and 4500 workers. Participating companies agreed to establish joint
labour-management safety committees that would carry out many of OSHA’s regulatory
functions, whilst routine OHSA inspections were discontinued. 18 A rather different sort of
initiative was the “Maine 200” program, which differs from VPP and CPP in that it was aimed
at the 200 companies with the state’s highest levels of injuries. Participating companies
worked cooperatively with OHSA to develop health and safety programs to identify and abate
hazards and self-report identified hazards to OHSA. In return, firms were not prosecuted for
any safety hazards or violations that came to light during the process, and were only
subject to traditional inspection and citation in response to worker complaints, accidents and
referrals. 19
It is important to note that even though OSHA introduced its first Voluntary Protection
Programs (VPP) over twenty years ago, a report by the US General Accounting Office (GAO)
published this year concluded that there had never been a systematic evaluation of either their
individual or their relative effectiveness. 20 The evidence that does exist in relation to the
impact of these programmes is contradictory.
Participating firms and OSHA have claimed that VPP companies are achieving significant
reductions in their injury rates. 21 And a report by the OECD refers to ‘evidence’ that firms
participating in the Maine 200 Program in the United States achieved an overall reduction in
compensation claims of 47.3% between 1991 and 1994 (as compared to a reduction of 27%
amongst all Maine employers). 22 However, an analysis of the Maine 200 program
commissioned by OSHA paints a more complicated picture. While OSHA reported that by
1995 employers had identified and reported hazards at a rate 14 times greater than would
have occurred under traditional OSHA enforcement, Mendeloff makes three observations
which cast doubt on the significance of these results. 23 First, half of the identified hazards
came from four particular firms in the paper industry, all of which were unionised. Therefore
the impressive level of hazard identification may not have been representative and may have
been a consequence of strong trade union organisation and action on health and safety.
Second, there was little information about the severity of the hazards identified in the
companies’ self-surveys, so it was difficult to assess how they compared to the type of
problems detected through traditional enforcement. And finally, whilst the companies
claimed to have corrected around 68 per cent of the hazards identified, OSHA had no means
of verifying this claim since all information on hazard identification and abatement came from
the companies themselves. 24
In relation to assertions that companies participating in OSHA’s VPP, CCP and Maine 200
programs achieved impressive reductions in reported injury and illness rates, Needleman
notes that:
“the decline in workers compensation claims that accompanied the Maine 200
program can be explained in many different ways, some of them inconsistent
with worker safety.” 25
In particular, there is evidence that reductions in workers compensation claims associated with
VPP, CPP and Maine 200 may have been achieved through the internal suppression of
reporting, and by placing workers on ‘light duties’, rather than through genuine reductions in
lost time injuries and ill-health. 26 The AFL-CIO reports that many of the firms achieving VPP
status have instituted internal systems whereby workers receive rewards or prizes when they
do not report injuries and/or are threatened with and receive punishment if they do report
injuries.
An example of this is the “Accident Repeaters” program, which is based on the assumption
that occupational injuries result from the unsafe acts of individual workers rather than from
unsafe work environments. Any worker who reports two injuries in a period of two years will
be placed on the Accident Repeaters program. The next injury they report is followed by
counselling on how to be a safe worker or perhaps by compulsory attendance on a safety
awareness-training program. Any injuries that are reported after this may be followed by a
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