Elevating safety

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 | 2:07 a.m.

One of the insights gained by the Las Vegas Sun’s ongoing series on construction deaths and injuries is that safety protocols are more likely to be grudgingly tolerated than openly embraced.

Twelve workers have been killed on the Strip over just less than 20 months in a frenzy of construction. Las Vegas Sun reporter Alexandra Berzon has reported extensively on the deaths as well as on the fast pace of the construction, the inherent hazards to workers amid severe safety violations and the comparatively low priority of safety precautions.

An April story by Berzon quoted a safety engineer employed at one of the Strip construction sites. “Most of us are (at our companies) because it is mandated to have safety people, not because we have any clout,” the safety engineer said.

This sentiment has been echoed in surveys taken nationally by the American Society of Safety Engineers.

For example, at a September conference, representatives from more than 100 of the organization’s chapters completed a survey asking them to list their concerns as professionals. No. 1 was lack of support from the top officers in corporations for which they worked.

And as Berzon reported Monday, the organization also surveyed many senior managers whose primary responsibilities at work did not directly involve safety. The results showed they did not sufficiently value safety engineers.

In response, the safety organization is preparing a plan to elevate the role of safety professionals at work sites. A draft of the plan states, “safety still lingers in the background and its importance is not clearly understood by corporate America.”

A goal of the organization is to get corporate America to understand that by investing money upfront in safety, money will be saved in the long run through fewer accidents. And fewer accidents mean a better public image, the value of which cannot be overestimated.

Our view is that corporate organization charts should show the safety director as equal to other top executives — and this priority should be reflected at all the work sites, where it counts the most.