>The issue is that if you think safety is important enough to start the day, shift or class with then you should talk about safety first and only.
People in all workplaces are managing "safety" that includes many risks that reach beyond physical hazards. People who preceive social, cultural and professional risks related to their identity, the social expectations of the people they work with, or power relationships in their workplace are likely to make decisions that overllok specific physical risks they are undertaking. In the lab world, one need only look at the UCLA fire or the UHawaii explosionto see how this can play out. The recent ACS Chemical Health & Safety article "Listening to the Well, Listening to Each Other, and Listening to the Silence‰??New Safety Lessons from Deepwater Horizon"
at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.1c00050 describes how this challenge played out on the Deepwater Horizon.
I would note that the J Chem Education article I originally cited included a list of topics included in the SID talks article I cited (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c00434 ) showed that more than half of the topics addressed related to physical risks. At least 6 of the other talks listed addressed topics that are clearly related to social safety that supports better safety communication practices. The article also makes the specific statement that these talks are not part of the departmental training program (safety or otherwise), but are an affirmation of the department‰??s commitment to safety in all its forms.
I believe that this approach is a significant step forward in safety education in a diverse (both in terms of physical hazards and socially) workplace.
- Ralph
Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
ralph**At_Symbol_Here**rstuartcih.org
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