What is striking is the large percentage of professionals who apparently can’t make their minds up one way or the other about these critical issues. When it comes to what safety and health pros believe, a large block are simply undecided, or unwilling to say.
What if a company is characteristically cautious and slow to make a decision, and does not reward innovative risk-taking, while the market is moving fast and increasingly rewarding agility? What if the choice is to change or die?
Realistically, what employee is going to risk his or her livelihood filing a safety or health whistleblower complaint with OSHA; even with all the so-called protections afforded in Section 11(c) of the 1970 OSH Act or the additional protections of the proposed Protecting America’s Workers Act (HR 2067) to amend the OSH Act?
I think, for the most part, that the priorities for OSHA were about where we all feel they should be. I am pleasantly surprised to see that a General Industry Combustible Dust Standard made the top five.