Many these days will decry the concept/practice of “Cardinal Rules” as if they are a bad thing and then suggest that workers go out and identify “Stuff That Kills you” (STKY) which is at the very heart of the Cardinal rules administrative control approach. The belief is that once the serious hazard is identified that a group of workers who perform these high-risk tasks will have the knowledge and skills of how to best mitigate the risks this hazard poses.
Is this group of workers being trained in HAZARD Identification and Risk Mitigation measures before embarking on this exercise or is it the belief that they have the skill to identify STKY based on their experience of simply working ___ years in the facility?
By all means SAFETY is for the workers and we are best if we have the workers involved in their safety process. But your scenario sounds more like a fairy tale than reality and in the vast majority of workplaces it would not “just happen”, it would take years to gain the ability to have it turn out as you describe.
And lay off “Cardinal Rules” – they are simply an administrative control for the STKY.
