Safe Work Is Talented Work
Merit isn’t necessarily a synonym for talent, in law, it actually refers to the rights and wrongs of a case. This is especially applicable to workplace safety situations. Just because an employee can work quickly doesn’t necessarily mean they are a good employee. Progressive workplaces reward their employees for following safe work procedures. In a society robbed of its authenticity by people who constantly turn a blind eye to unfair wealth distribution, many employees are too discouraged and corrupted by it all to make safe decisions at work. It can also become extra difficult to convince employees to do the right thing when they are all paid the same wage, regardless of their talent.
Governments should force businesses to compensate employees fairly and in close balance with all others in the industry to ensure that the best safety procedures are met. Unfortunately, our current system allows unsafe businesses to hold a share of the market for human needs. Bad safety culture creeps into employees’ lives, extorting their needs and painting their concerns as petty and unnecessary. Sadly, our current system does not have an adequate means of regulating these businesses. Although it seems possible for workers who are wrongfully dismissed for challenging unsafe work conditions to win cases, government OH+S employees have warned workers that bringing up safety concerns could cost them their jobs. Although these employees may just be warning workers of a system that may be unable to defend their rights, the time for people to excuse this lack of quality has long passed.
Since many high-risk jobs are essential to maintaining civilization, the only rational way to allow anyone to make a profit should be to require them to adhere to strict safety regulations. Since these jobs are essential to human survival, those who force poor people to work them in unsafe conditions under the banner of “tough love” and “practical management” become like tyrannical lords of peasants. All income made by those who turn a blind eye to these abuses and normalize the bad behaviour is unethical in some way. Employees pressured to put up with the abuses to pay bills become slaves of their own neglected conscience when the majority of the profits from their hard work flows right into the hands of tyrannical bosses. If the means of production were owned by the public rather than private or individual stakeholders, governments would have the funding to ensure that workers’ rights are looked after.
Indeed, free-market capitalism does not consider the most carnal of unbridled human desires and affects not only innocent citizens at the market but also the whole (when it backfires). To keep up with competitors, many people have to overexert themselves, leaving them exhausted at the end of a long day in a world full of crime caused by a lack of merit-based pay. When other employees cut corners on safety, a cycle of neglect, lenience, and denial plagues their organization. These types of organizations nurture our emotions in ways that are not fit to foster our best selves. When people have poorly nurtured emotions, they become irrationally guided by them because they think they are healthy. Safe work can only be achieved once our emotions have been effectively dissected and utilized.
Deciding to take the safe route is emotionally mature, yet it can be tempting to avoid with time constraints and bad influences around. Just because someone can get away with providing a service unsafely doesn’t mean their actions don’t hurt society. The self-balancing forces of unregulated supply and demand perhaps once provided a means to an end, yet they do not account for other variables that must be considered to achieve more complex and profound outcomes. This primitive economic principle often passes as a rational tradition, when in reality, it causes people with bad habits to hog a share of the market, much like a monopoly, until it tragically comes tumbling down.
The wealth and power of senior employees who know their jobs but don’t follow proper safety procedures can frequently override the best judgment of supposed experts who are assigned to deal with these unsafe workplaces. They appear to be practical and pragmatic people who have accepted necessary risks and are wise to proceed with production. Cries of employees fired for pushing to halt assembly lines until others do things safely can sound like false alarms designed to distract others from some imagined laziness. Since these seniors start with money and property, innocent and impressionable employees become corrupted by the riches they have made while unethically cutting corners. Employees may say things like, “Gee, I love my boss, he lets me drive without a seatbelt,” but may never get a chance to lose their habits until it’s too late.
Only those who follow safety and don’t take unnecessary risks can shatter the mental shackles that hold them back. These old-time bosses may deny these shackles exist, but the absurdity of their nay-saying will always prevent them from breaking their chains. The stresses of carrying their toxic secrets and pretending to be fooled by their fresh coats of paint sap workers of their intuitive gift for distinguishing truth from falsehood. It is this intuitive gift that allows safety officers to determine if workers are going to wear their safety gear or not. How can subordinates develop their gut instincts if CSOs and foremen can’t maintain sufficient boundaries to distinguish between a responsible and a delinquent person?
Getting everyone to follow safety protocols is the only way to ensure other employees are not harassed for making the right decision. Imagine if the person who threatened to make you lose your job for raising safety concerns was replaced by someone who could always remind you to wear your safety gear when you forgot. Imagine if they would only fire you immediately if you refused to wear it. When corner-cutting bosses are scrutinized for not following safety protocols, they often overcompensate for their ignorance by harshly punishing those who simply forget to wear PPE or, worse, those who were once scolded for doing it properly in the first place. These people can also cause the most memory issues due to the stress and loss of focus caused by their passive-aggressive tantrums.
Remember: When you don’t require someone to work with proper safety gear, it influences people to force others to work without it.
Some people don’t want to enforce these rules because they don’t want to seem uncool or lose job opportunities. However, until workers can grasp the importance of this principle of accountability, they have no chance of profoundly escaping the things they found the most lame and uncool in the first place.
A single governing body should publicly provide Essential services and products to ensure quality control is met and the safest technology can be provided. When a product or service has shown itself to be a non-necessity, it can become privatized as long as it benefits society. These private companies should also be regulated by publicly funded experts who ensure their employees are paid a fair and meritocratic wage and have their rights protected. If a product or service cannot be provided in a way that meets rational safety standards, then its production should be considered to provide no benefit to humanity. Those who continue to demand the unsafe product or service and allow others to continue to produce it should be considered unfit to have buying power over those who fight for the greater good.
When a product has no clear benefit or is dangerous, its production should be discontinued immediately before it’s Trojan horsed into rickety low-income homes with deceptive advertising. When citizens have to work these jobs to pay the bills, their morale and demeanour decline due to a lack of purpose. Those who force others to uphold the absurdity and deny its unbearable burdens will never be free, no matter how much money their absurd persona allows them to make. Everyone’s inner world fractures when corporations are allowed to market absurdities as innovation. Workplaces with regressive products and services are unsafe enough already, yet the overwhelming frustration that comes with being forced to contribute to these absurd self-appointed profits to avoid bankruptcy poses a whole new threat to public safety. After all, the only new thing regressive corporations ever seem to provide is a new hydra head on the capitalist beast.
Public safety is at risk when children from low-income homes cannot afford a proper education despite having excellent grades. People wouldn’t let parents pay for their kid’s education while children are still starving if their peers weren’t doing it. Low-income kids are constantly forced to work jobs without being properly trained because they haven’t been provided any better opportunities. A properly taxed and funded government will provide sufficient safety equipment and education to all. Workers do not deserve to be forced to work in places that are so dangerous they cannot have a fulfilling life. Our children don’t deserve to live in a world where they have to work for people who have been given such unreasonably unfair advantages.
When people of privilege are given a free education, the talented who cannot afford to participate are forced to bear the price of their rigged games. Privilege takes away the spirit of wonder that can only exist in places where privilege does not. Privileged people have created institutions that forge their credentials and convince others to honour their certificates, which lack credibility. Private schools have been caught mercy-passing unfit students for bribes and influence in social groups. These unethically educated professionals have been responsible for some of the biggest safety malfunctions in human history. The fact that they were offered what many required to compete and still had the races rigged in their favour is just the icing on the cake. It is time we show people the intrinsic benefits of doing things safely and fairly.
In a world where people drag each other down for not having a strong inner compass, having the mental prowess and civility to make the compassionate choice is rare and undoubtedly talented. Freedom can only thrive in those who fight most ethically for its will. Fight to defend merit.
Protect human rights and stand your ground on safety.
