How to address safety concerns to superiors

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SomeRandomPerson

SomeRandomPerson

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Location
Massachusetts
Occupation
Electrician
Hello. I’ve a question for the wiser ones here. Long story short, I’m an apprentice, was called to a commercial job to fix some RTU’s that had no power. This leads me to the main electric room. It’s 2000amp, 480v. I call my boss. He comes down and starts taking the dead front covers off so he can access the breakers. He’s got no PPE, wearing a wedding ring, chain hanging down, huge metal belt buckle and just regular hand tools. Not satisfied he then starts taking all of the covers off, exposing the live bus. He finds that the RTU breaker was relocated to a different panel at some point so it’s just spliced through onto new conductors that go to another panel.
If all of that’s not bad enough, he then gets on a six foot ladder and sticks his arm between the live bus so he can grab the spliced conductors and examine the split lug bolt. I left the room right before. This guy has a death wish. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say he very reckless and would rather not blow up with him. He’s not been swinging a wrench for 15 years now, just management with a Masters license. This morning I called out and am contemplating quitting and finding a new place to work. Who do you voice concerns to when the owner/boss is actually reckless?


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If he is the owner, then I think I would take the new employer option. Just reading this sent a chill up my spine.
 
hillbilly1 said:
Several things wrong there, they have you as an apprentice, troubleshooting an RTU by yourself? Definitely look for another company to work for.
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I was in HVAC for several years so that’s probably why but once it got to the main electric room, that’s when I called for someone more experienced and licensed. But come on, even I know you don’t mess around with this stuff


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You obviously have enough knowledge to recognize an unsafe work practice. Not sure what your obligations are under state/federal law - I'm in Ontario Canada - but I would be obliged to report such actions to my supervisor. If this guy is your journeyman, that's one issue. If he is also your boss/superior, that's another. Once you fulfill your at least moral obligation, pack up your tools and move on. If he cares this little about his safety, what does he think of yours?
 
It's often helpful to communicate safety issues to superiors in terms of financial liability, ie. if his reckless safety attitude results in an injury then a very expensive lawsuit could result as well as fines. Many bosses simply have a 'just get it done' attitude but do respond to financial incentives.
 
SomeRandomPerson said:
Hello. I’ve a question for the wiser ones here. Long story short, I’m an apprentice, was called to a commercial job to fix some RTU’s that had no power. This leads me to the main electric room. It’s 2000amp, 480v. I call my boss. He comes down and starts taking the dead front covers off so he can access the breakers. He’s got no PPE, wearing a wedding ring, chain hanging down, huge metal belt buckle and just regular hand tools. Not satisfied he then starts taking all of the covers off, exposing the live bus. He finds that the RTU breaker was relocated to a different panel at some point so it’s just spliced through onto new conductors that go to another panel.
If all of that’s not bad enough, he then gets on a six foot ladder and sticks his arm between the live bus so he can grab the spliced conductors and examine the split lug bolt. I left the room right before. This guy has a death wish. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say he very reckless and would rather not blow up with him. He’s not been swinging a wrench for 15 years now, just management with a Masters license. This morning I called out and am contemplating quitting and finding a new place to work. Who do you voice concerns to when the owner/boss is actually reckless?


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Click to expand...
That’s smart..
If you‘re thinking about quitting anyway, you might as well take the forward approach and just tell him how reckless his work practices are.
what’s the worst he can do? Fire you??
your quitting anyway.

It may work out and he heeds your warnings.
 
Hv&Lv said:
That’s smart..
If you‘re thinking about quitting anyway, you might as well take the forward approach and just tell him how reckless his work practices are.
what’s the worst he can do? Fire you??
your quitting anyway.

It may work out and he heeds your warnings.
Click to expand...

I'd caution you to not overdo it if you choose to quit. I can tell by the way he risked creating an arc flash incident with you in the room that he's probably an a-hole and if he's well connected in the area he may tell other potential employers that you're difficult to work with and such. I'd just leave the company and call the OSHA tip line.
 
Recognizing the un-safe acts is the first part.
Second part is you can't expect people to change without telling them. Even then you only get at best a 50/50 chance. If you don't say something, you have zero chance. If your boss is willing to listen, you could potentially be saving some future apprentices life.
When it comes to safety, you have to think about yourself first, and help the others along the way.
 
Don't quit until you have another job lined up. Easiest way to get hired is to be prepared to walk away at the interview, increases your bargaining power by a lot, and there's an emotional factor. The boss wants to win, so if you get up and start walking out at the interview, it can seal the deal.

Make a written record only for yourself. Don't tell him you're writing it down, it will just incense him. Easiest way is probably send an email to yourself so it has the computer time stamp on it. You can probably google for a list of what to cover in the letter, time date, location, witnesses ...

Pro tip would be to write the letter in a word processor (Open Office is the free one if irrc), save it as a pdf so it is locked from edits, then email the pdf to yourself so it's in the file system with a timestamp. If you get one that develops into an email chain, routinely print to pdf the email chain. Then you have two files, the email chain as pdf, and the pdf attachments seperately.

Your liability or obligations, if you were a license holder on the job, even if just a worker, I would say the license obligates you to at least escalate your concern to the proper person in the company. Best bet I would say is to discuss directly with the owner and then you can see how he wants to run things. If he shares your concern or he just wants all butt kisser, yes man, and people who back his play 100% regardless of how bad the stink gets.

With no license for the trade you are performing, I would say your obligations to report to anyone are the same as the plumber's, none.

Be advised, talking to anyone, anyone, about your concern in the manners of safety violation and terminating offense, your probability of initiating your own termination goes to about .999 . That's what the pdf emailed to yourself is for, protecting your own rights.

From what I've read, make the pdf and send it to yourself, done. I would not advise trying to discuss it with coworker who is senior to you as they can just turn on all the shit jobs for you, or turn the good jobs into shit jobs for you, and then when you quit voluntarily they will bring in a grill that day and barbecue chicken in the parking lot.

No upside in it for you if you report it. Best case is you can plan on lasting longer in the trade than he does if you can plan to be at least 10' from him every next time he wants to go barehanded into the gear. You cannot save every defective. Be aware of the defectives you are obligated to try to save. In all cases you have a duty to mitigate damages.
 
I would suggest keeping a log of the weekly events and printing it out at the end of each week. Then have the hard copy notarized. Saving to PDF doesn't keep things from being edited. Timestamps on emails can be tampered with as well. A third party witness and notarized stamp would hold up better in my opinion. Just adding that $.02 to the post above ^^^.
 
4x4dually said:
I would suggest keeping a log of the weekly events and printing it out at the end of each week. Then have the hard copy notarized. Saving to PDF doesn't keep things from being edited. Timestamps on emails can be tampered with as well. A third party witness and notarized stamp would hold up better in my opinion. Just adding that $.02 to the post above ^^^.
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I quit. I’m not going to learn the trade with a bunch of cowboys. He says he won’t approve my hours for my license but it’s all legit and all on the books so good luck to him. Oh well.


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__dan said:
Don't quit until you have another job lined up. Easiest way to get hired is to be prepared to walk away at the interview, increases your bargaining power by a lot, and there's an emotional factor. The boss wants to win, so if you get up and start walking out at the interview, it can seal the deal.

Make a written record only for yourself. Don't tell him you're writing it down, it will just incense him. Easiest way is probably send an email to yourself so it has the computer time stamp on it. You can probably google for a list of what to cover in the letter, time date, location, witnesses ...

Pro tip would be to write the letter in a word processor (Open Office is the free one if irrc), save it as a pdf so it is locked from edits, then email the pdf to yourself so it's in the file system with a timestamp. If you get one that develops into an email chain, routinely print to pdf the email chain. Then you have two files, the email chain as pdf, and the pdf attachments seperately.

Your liability or obligations, if you were a license holder on the job, even if just a worker, I would say the license obligates you to at least escalate your concern to the proper person in the company. Best bet I would say is to discuss directly with the owner and then you can see how he wants to run things. If he shares your concern or he just wants all butt kisser, yes man, and people who back his play 100% regardless of how bad the stink gets.

With no license for the trade you are performing, I would say your obligations to report to anyone are the same as the plumber's, none.

Be advised, talking to anyone, anyone, about your concern in the manners of safety violation and terminating offense, your probability of initiating your own termination goes to about .999 . That's what the pdf emailed to yourself is for, protecting your own rights.

From what I've read, make the pdf and send it to yourself, done. I would not advise trying to discuss it with coworker who is senior to you as they can just turn on all the shit jobs for you, or turn the good jobs into shit jobs for you, and then when you quit voluntarily they will bring in a grill that day and barbecue chicken in the parking lot.

No upside in it for you if you report it. Best case is you can plan on lasting longer in the trade than he does if you can plan to be at least 10' from him every next time he wants to go barehanded into the gear. You cannot save every defective. Be aware of the defectives you are obligated to try to save. In all cases you have a duty to mitigate damages.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all of this. I did just quit though. I do have a job lined up already and start Monday. This wasn’t the first alarming safety hazard.
A few weeks back we went to swap out a panel at a home. There was a lock on the meter. He wanted us to just take the conductors off of the main breaker, tape em up and swap out the panel. Obviously we declined to do that. The journeyman I was with had his last day week and I’m going to his new shop


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SomeRandomPerson said:
I quit. I’m not going to learn the trade with a bunch of cowboys. He says he won’t approve my hours for my license but it’s all legit and all on the books so good luck to him. Oh well.


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Click to expand...
You know sometimes they just bend over and wiggle it right in front of you. Separating from the company changes things, the job loss was one of the downsides for you.

Having taken that hit, you could file it now with OSHA. Whistleblowing for violations could get you protected status with EEOC, you could file a claim with them also.

Big one as I see it, not registering your apprenticeship hours with the State is a violation of your Civil Rights, US 18 -241 irc, deprivation of right, he conspires to rob you on the highway. If you file the others I would definitely mention the not registering your hours as a way to intimidate and deprive you that you suffered from. Willfull negligence.

They do it to themselves, the bending over for it. If you handed it to a lawyer at that point, I'm sure he would be tied up next.
 
SomeRandomPerson said:
Thanks for all of this. I did just quit though. I do have a job lined up already and start Monday. This wasn’t the first alarming safety hazard.
A few weeks back we went to swap out a panel at a home. There was a lock on the meter. He wanted us to just take the conductors off of the main breaker, tape em up and swap out the panel. Obviously we declined to do that. The journeyman I was with had his last day week and I’m going to his new shop


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Click to expand...

Good luck to you..
Keep a lookout in the papers. Someone that does stupid crap like you described is bound to make the papers somehow. Just hope it’s not the obituary section…
 
I think your best bet is to take up the hours issue with someone higher up the food chain. Lawyers can be pricey. If you are talking about a lot of hours it might be work pursuing. If it is a few weeks, just move on.

Keeping records of bad acts on his part serves no real purpose you did the right thing by moving on.
 
__dan said:
Whistleblowing for violations could get you protected status with EEOC
Click to expand...

When I was an apprentice in 2003, OSHA could only investigate hospitalizations, and deaths. No complaints were taken before casualty.

My documentation of job-site events contributed to our union president having a nervous breakdown. He could not handle the casualties happening around him.

Our local 441 policy was to invite a 3rd party safety enforcer, local AHJ, to address the apprentices. After demonstrating proper use of Safety equipment, this guy threatened severe punishment & fines against everybody involved in these hazards.

I kept his card, but soon realized
job-site hazards don't hang around waiting for witnesses. Without leadership in the trenches showing alternatives, hazards happen too quickly, and go unreported where survived.

Since low cost labor / apprentices out number more-skilled journeyman, leadership is stretched thin, and journeyman who keep their livelihood learn to bounce from reckless management.

Since the State-indentured programs terminate livelihoods of apprentices who quit jobsites for any reason, reacting to hazards after the fact, without procedural leadership on the spot, results in contructive discharge, for any number of performance failures.

After terminated from NECA/IBEW inside wiring apprenticeship, I waited on book 3 & 4 at different locals, before my local business Mgr could black ball me. I finally settled out of jurisdiction traveling with IBEW lineman as their groundman.

Digging holes for power poles with shovels & jackhammers to pic thru 10ft of mud, rock & clay was a convalescent escape from my failure to control hazard, save co-workers, or myself from apprentice-program termination.
 
Yes the charge of no PPE was (terminating) solely based on who observed it. Just one guys word against the boss, who would on autopilot denounce the helper as someone incorrigible and failing out of the trade. No documentation. They are already planning of laughing off the slap on the wrist penalty they invite.

The Civil Rights violation for not registering the hours otoh, pays 10 years in Federal boy scout camp. Unless there is harm to life and then it can pay hanging (looks like the statute was written a long time ago).

Combine that with the ambulance chasing infrastructure and it's a made for tv movie. Story writes itself. Pretty easy to run down the documentation, or at least make them fabricate it after the fact.
 
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