August 9, 2024
DENVER — Most workplace fatalities have similar core elements that employers in high-risk industries can study to prevent similar disasters, according to industrial safety experts.
A push to study root causes of workplace fatalities grew out of a deadly methane gas explosion in 2023 in a coal mine in Kazakhstan, operated by ArcelorMittal S.A., a steel and mining company based in Luxembourg, according to Mike Dwyer, the company’s corporate health, safety & security director, who spoke Thursday at Safety ’24, the American Society of Safety Professional’s annual conference.
“We wanted to build this model together so we can predict where the next fatality is going to happen,” said Kitchener, Ontario-based Mr. Dwyer, who worked to create a root-causes model with co-presenter Peter Susca, Wethersfield, Connecticut-based principal at Operational Excellence LLC, a consultancy that does business as OpX Safety.
The pair looked at other fatal incidents and found similar factors, such as overall organizational issues, including profit-centeredness and not investing in equipment; poor management and accountability for safety; a work culture comfortable with hazards; and bad operational decisions.
In the case of methane explosions in mines, not allowing ample time for the gas to release before sending workers into a mine — a business decision usually made to compress a work timeline — is a contributing factor, said Mr. Dwyer, who found 26 contributing factors that can lead to disasters.
Mr. Dwyer and Mr. Susca said fatalities in the workplace come down to six elements: the presence of a hazard; exposure to the hazard while working; ineffective controls when facing the hazard; an organization not assessing those three elements; an immediate change in the work process, such as a problem with equipment or staffing; and poor overall management.
Mr. Susca said it is common for employers to blame workers when there is a fatality — or for companies to not address hazards and possibilities until someone is killed. Usually, the issue is in the organization, he said.
“When you look at organizational factors, they remain the same,” Mr. Dwyer said. “It's the lack of investment. It’s procurement, making decisions that are not in alignment with safety. It's bringing contractors in at cheap prices, not having the best contractors. It's all these types of decisions.”
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