Is your workplace safe?

The report states that a man was discovered crushed to death in a trash compactor at the Southland factory in Los Angeles, California. According to the report, federal investigators with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) surmised initially that the worker was inside the machine when it was switched on. He was pronounced dead at his workplace of employment. The man was identified as a 64-year-old, a cardboard crusher at this non-descript factory. The day, date and location are Friday, October 23, 2009 around 3:44 p.m., at 8201 North Woodley Avenue.

How can a work related death, such as this one occur? Perhaps there are a lot of reasons, none which seem very satisfying and none are definitive.

1. Workers in a rush and don’t think things through before finding themselves or a coworker in a life or death situation.

2. Poor or no equipment training.

3. Poor or no equipment safety training.

4. The user manuals aren't available to read.

5. The user manuals aren't in the native language of the worker and co-workers.

6. Drinking on the job.

7. Distractions that affect safety.

8. Supervisors failing to supervise and ignoring safety.

9. A work place where a culture of safety isn’t promoted.

10. No team effort with co-workers.

11. Supervision that isn't of the quality to oversee, train, supervise or manage risks.

12. Older workers staying in the workforce doing jobs that they are no longer qualified to perform.

In this instance it could be none of the above and something totally different. The article reported on the death but failed to provide sufficient detail of the machine, the workplace or the circumstances for us to know anything concrete. But the one thing we do know, and it's the way we start out thinking about accident investigation, they are all avoidable.