Constraints to Upholding Workplace Safety Laws and Regulations within Organizations

Abstract

Compliance with laws and regulations requires that within organizations there exist supportive processes and systems that enable it. Drawing on an ethnography of safety management approaches within an industrial factory, we find evidence that a number of cultural, personal, and structural factors constrain workers from exercising safety rights. As a result, it was observed that informal processes for managing safety risks were preferred over formal processes that are in compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Thus, within the subject factory no endogenous system developed to adequately support the safety laws that individuals inside the organization must comply with. The regulatory strategy of individual responsibilization is also discussed to further illustrate associated issues.

Keywords: Safety Culture, Health and Safety, Regulation, Compliance, Individual Responsibility, Ethnography, Legal rights, Voice