Monday, September 24, 2007
In several high profile cases recently, the country’s most senior judges have held that employers who threaten to discipline employees for breaches of safety rules but never carry it through may as well not have such a threat at all. Therefore, they conclude, the employer may be as much to blame as the employee for accidents resulting from such breaches.
A verbal warning, even a written warning over failure to adhere to safety rules, costs little in time and effort and could go a long way towards demonstrating to the courts that an employer was serious in, firstly, protecting workers and, secondly, that breaches of safety rules are considered as serious as other matters for which employees might be disciplined.
In Bux v Slough Metals Mr. Bux was injured when molten metal splashed into his face from a ladle he was carrying. He was not wearing goggles but sued the company for damages. Management had made strenuous efforts to get the men to wear goggles but Bux claimed that they steamed up after 20 minutes so workers stopped wearing them.
Bux’s claim was essentially based upon the failure of the firm to make more effort to enforce the rule to wear goggles. The trial judge found that Mr. Bux would have worn the goggles if the management had been more persistent in their efforts to persuade workers to wear them.
The appeal court, upholding the decision, said that the employer’s duty to provide safety equipment depended upon the potential severity of the risk of injury to the employer.
Employers must have safety procedures in place and the disciplinary rules to enforce them.