Safety or What?

Safety or What?

How many times have you seen a sign that said "Safety First?" Do they really mean it or is it just a bunch of words? I ran across this sign in the picture at a local factory. The fact that this sign, which says nothing of itself, covers over a sign important to safety shows a questionable attitude that some businesses have toward safety. It appears that safety is only the employee's concern.

Whenever I worked as an engineer, we had many safety classes and were informed of the dangers in the plants and other work environments. Sometimes that safety lesson was in the form of films which showed gruesome injuries to people. Since then industry has learned that showing such films does not do that much good. People are de-sensitized by all the horror in films.

Some companies claim that there is no such thing as an accident and that all accidents can be prevented. A friend of mine once told me that if there were an accident in his unit, then he would feel it in his paycheck. Those people obviously had a greater concern for safety than those in the picture above.