Joint Response to Blame the Worker "Safety" Programs

USW participated in a training seminar that brought together Unite representatives at container company Crown from across the UK. The purpose was to pilot a training on behavior-based safety programs, which Crown is introducing into its UK worksites.

USW participated in a training seminar in July that brought together Unite representatives at container company Crown from across the UK.

The purpose of the seminar was for Unite to pilot a training on behavior-based safety programs. Crown is introducing these programs into its UK worksites.

The training was held at the Unite training facility in Esher.

Crown has already introduced behavior-based safety programs into a number of its USW-represented worksites in North America. USW representatives from Crown and from the union’s Health & Safety department provided input on their experiences with these programs.

Behavior-based safety programs are often referred to as blame the worker programs because management implements them with the intent to decrease the number of reported injuries and shift responsibility for maintaining a safe workplace from management to workers.

USW and Unite used the occasion of the training to discuss a global campaign against blame the worker “safety” programs.