Don’t Give Up on Safety

Resignation puts you and everyone else in your workplace at risk.

By Michael Schroeder Hubert, CLAC Training Manitoba Program Manager

I recently came across a book by Ricky Brown that caught my interest: The Five Hazardous Attitudes: Ways to Win the War Within. Brown has been a professional pilot and flight instructor, getting to decide who is fit to be a pilot. He identifies that there are skills that are required to be a safe pilot, but he also says that there are attitudes that are necessary to ensure that a pilot can fly safely as well.

Brown has looked at accidents in the world of aviation caused by pilot error. He has identified five attitudes that create hazards and accidents as a result. As a safety professional and trainer myself, I’m always looking for the hazards, so I was curious about what Brown’s hazardous attitudes were all about.

5 Hazardous Attitudes

1. Anti-authority – Rules aren’t meant for me, so don’t fence me in.
2. Invulnerability – It can’t happen to me, because I know what I’m doing.
3. Machoism – I’ve got to prove myself no matter what.
4. Impulsivity – I’ll figure it out on the fly. . . . Don’t bother me with the details.
5. Resignation – I’ve given up trying to change things, so I just do my eight hours and keep my mouth shut.

From my experience working in construction, I’ve seen all these attitudes exhibited by different coworkers. I’ve even seen them in myself. And I understand how these attitudes can create conditions where health and safety is put on the shelf.

What struck me about Brown’s list of hazardous attitudes is the difference between the first four attitudes and the fifth attitude. The first four are let-me-do-the-job-the-way-I-want-to-do-it type attitudes rooted in how each one of us has developed to do their thing—even if that creates hazards.

But the fifth attitude results from a person trying to do the safe thing but being worn down to accept that they can’t make a difference. When we try to do things safely and that isn’t valued, is actively discouraged, or is simply ignored, we can lose hope and just stop caring. This resignation puts us and everyone else in the workplace at risk.

Ultimately, the book is about overcoming all of these hazardous attitudes so that we can work in a safer way. Some of the work has to be done by each one of us to recognize these attitudes and work to find a healthier approach to our work.

But remember that you are not alone. With the attitude of resignation, continuing to care about working safely is the antidote, and you have a partner in CLAC in trying to improve safety in your workplace.

If you are hitting a wall when it comes to being heard about safety, reach out to your steward and your union representative. The subtitle of Brown’s book is Ways to Win the War Within. But the battle over safety may also be a battle with outside forces—and you are not in that fight alone.