“Worker Endangerment,” Tolerable and ALARP: the future of Safety Excellence?

What does “Worker Endangerment” mean to you? An agreement between the DOJ and DOL could mean your C suite executives could serve 20 years in prison.  This presentation will seek to arm you with a set of tools to ensure you can take proactive steps to avoid these consequences.  A recent (Dec 2015) agreement between the DOJ and DOL will transfer the responsibility for criminal worker safety prosecutions to the Environmental Crimes Section (ECS) of the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD), with a view to charging other serious offenses that occur alongside the OSH Act violations.  This memorandum of understanding (MOU) is likely to lead the US from a compliance approach to safety towards a safety case methodology where employers would be asked to prove that the risks they are exposing their employers to are both tolerable and ALARP.  The main body of the presentation would describe how the safety professional can combine their existing skills in hazard identification and assessment with a more holistic approach to risk assessment and the 4Ts approach to risk management: treat, tolerate, transfer or terminate.  We will discuss the components required to build a safety case for their operations and how to assign duty holders to provide meaningful decision level data and a systematic approach to risk prioritization and control.