Show me something good in society and I’ll bet the Americans will claim they invented it. Of course, they’re often wrong. Democracy? It was invented by the ancient Greeks. Religious freedom? It goes back to ancient Persia, if not further. The automobile? I think the Germans invented that one. Still, the Americans have done a lot of good things not just for the world but Canada. And that extends to occupational health and safety. Although OHS laws are hardly a unique American institution, the Americans have done quite a bit to advance them—not just in the laws they’ve drafted but in enforcement. We, as Canadians, can learn a lot about our own OHS laws by paying attention to things that have been tried in the U.S. Construction Safety & the U.S. ‘Collaborative’ Enforcement Program With that in mind, I just came across an interesting tidbit that I want to share with you. The basic question: What’s the best way to get employers to obey OHS laws? More precisely, which works better at promoting compliance—punishing offences or taking steps to ensure that employers don’t commit them in the first place? Historically, U.S. OSHA has taken a “gotcha” approach to safety that emphasized punishment over prevention, random inspection over targeted enforcement. But that policy began to change in the 1990s. One notable example involved the construction industry: In 1998, the Clinton Administration began offering incentives to construction companies for finding and fixing safety problems before incidents occur. The Bush Administration (W, not his dad) not only continued the collaborative approach but was criticized for emphasizing collaborative and voluntary efforts over traditional enforcement. As a result, the Obama Administration has been considering rolling back collaborative programs and re-emphasizing the “gotcha” ways of the past. Report: Collaboration Works Better than Gotcha A brand new report says that this would be a huge mistake, at least in the construction sector. According to a trade group called the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), the OSHA collaborative approach to safety has been successful. The report claims that:

• The annual fatality rate for U.S. construction projects fell from 1,171 in 1998 when collaboration began to 969 in 2008, a 17% decline;
• In 1998, there were 1.7 fatalities for every million dollars invested in construction; in 2008, the rate declined 47% to 0.9 fatalities per million dollars;
• The construction safety incidence rate declined 38% from 8.8 incidents per 100 workers in 1998 to 5.4 incidents per 100 workers in 2008; and
• The injury absence rate for construction workers fell from 3.3 per 100 workers in 1998 to 1.9 in 2008 (a decline of 38%).

To get the report, see, http://www.agc.org/galleries/news/Construction%20Safety%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf Collaborative Enforcement in Canada Of course, parallels to the collaborative approach to safety exist in Canada. The most notable example are the various provincial workers’ compensation incentive programs that enable employers to get rebates and lower premiums if they meet certain safety standards. Robin has written what I believe to be the only comprehensive guide to all workers’ comp rebate programs in Canada. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a must-read. Check out, http://www.ohsinsider.com/search-by-index/business-case-for-safety/using-workers-comp-benefits-to-demonstrate-greater-savings-in-direct-costs Still, Canada lags far behind in voluntary and collaborative compliance. As safety professionals, we should all pay close attention to the experiments in collaborative enforcement taking place to the south; and we should fervently hope the government regulators who oversee us are doing the same.