Negative safety events as correlates of work-safety tension

We investigate the extent to which three types of self-reported negative safety events (i.e., being injured at work, working in an unsafe way, witnessing others working in an unsafe way) correlate with work-safety tension. Work-safety tension is bi-dimensional, defined here as the perceived conflict between production and following safety rules (“barriers to safety compliance”) and production and proactive ways of working more safely (“barriers to safety participation”). Directly experiencing or witnessing negative safety events may send signals to employees about the extent to which their organization prioritizes production over safety. We tested a model of negative safety events as predictors of both barriers to safety compliance and barriers to safety participation using survey data from 316 front-line supervisors (97% male, mean age = 44 years) working for a UK rail maintenance company. The number of injuries directly experienced had a positive relationship with perceived barriers to safety compliance, whereas the number of times respondents witnessed others work in an unsafe way had a positive relationship with perceived barriers to safety participation.

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