【Sea and River Safety Discussion】Repeating management for the sake of management is putting the cart before the horse

Sinopec Shanghai emphasized that the company has not experienced any safety incidents in the past three years. But it turned out to be a particularly serious work safety accident – were there any major changes in the management? Is it possible for a layperson to manage an expert?

The primary person in charge of this enterprise lacks a basic understanding of the current state of safety management

Ning Shi is talking about that finance guy from last week?

The flying object **hit the pipeline gallery, causing a fire.

Shanghai Petrochemical should belong to Sinopec. Although I have never worked at Shanghai Petrochemical, I spent 10 years working in the ethylene department of Maoming Petrochemical, which is also part of Sinopec. I judge that this so-called \"industry insider\" is basically just a frontline employee, as what they say is based on their own perspective and is completely contrary to the actual situation. Of course, it’s indeed possible that the situation varies from company to company. I will refute each point one by one; however, these refer to the situation 10 years ago. It’s not clear whether anything has changed in those 10 years, but when talking with former colleagues, it seems that many of the core issues remain the same: “Firstly, there are fewer and fewer workers on the front lines at the refineries owned by CNPC, while there are more and more managers who do no actual work, resulting in an overstaffed situation that leads to employee complaints.” ”There are indeed fewer and fewer employees working on the front line, but it’s not that there are more managers who do nothing; rather, it’s the employees who work on the front line who are becoming more idle. This leaves front-line managers quite exhausted; it’s easy for accidents to occur when they are not fully focused or do not prioritize safety in their work. Shanghai Petrochemical was established in 1993, while the Ethylene Department of Maoming Petrochemical was set up in 1992. Based on their dates of establishment, it can be assumed that the quality of the employees recruited by these two companies was similar at that time. The Ethylene Department of Maoming Petrochemical hired a large number of workers from technical schools to work on the front line; it also recruited a few individuals from top universities such as Tsinghua University, Jiaotong University, and Tianjin University. Of course, there were also employees from regular colleges. Over time, those who were competent either got promoted or left the company, while those who remained either lacked the necessary skills or had little ambition. One very unreasonable aspect of state-owned enterprises is that it’s not possible to fire employees, and this fact is exploited by many frontline workers – no matter how poor my performance is, I can simply become an operator; if I don’t work, what can you do to me? And over time, the more experienced person becomes even more skilled at such things; by using this rule, one can enjoy a leisurely meal in an elegant manner. These are the institutional reasons that lead to employees on the front line ending up doing no work. As for managers at the front line, they are considered officials; even if they are lazy or incompetent, they can still be forced to return to the front line as workers. Therefore, fundamentally speaking, it’s not possible for them to stay idle. Another reason is that state-owned enterprises are continuously deepening their workforce reduction reforms. It’s true that back then state-owned enterprises had excessive staffing in various positions; reducing the workforce was indeed the right approach. But by the end, no one cared whether such reductions were scientific or based on reality – the decision was simply imposed through administrative orders. What used to be a position requiring three people became one position with just one person, and it was up to them to figure out how to ensure safe production. On the one hand, companies have fewer and fewer employees, yet the demands in terms of production volume and safety are increasing year by year. It’s not possible to place these heavy responsibilities on an ever-growing number of experienced employees, so they end up falling on the shoulders of team leaders and managers, who are forced to do the work of multiple people. Take me as an example: when I was a front-line equipment technician, in addition to carrying out technical analysis of the equipment, there was also a lot of work related to inspection, maintenance, and technical upgrades that needed to be organized. At the beginning of the company’s reforms, it was common for the inspection and maintenance teams to lack supervision or for safety measures not to be implemented. When this issue was brought to the general manager, he asked how it was possible that there were no people in charge – after all, the workshop supervisor, equipment technicians, process engineers, and safety officers were all considered people, right? So on average, 1/3 of my day is spent as an on-site supervisor, while process engineers spend 1/4 of their time on site to verify the procedures; without this, safe construction simply cannot proceed. Later on, in order to adapt to this unreasonable corporate model, managers were required to conduct inspections every 4 hours while on night duty, and they weren’t allowed to go home and rest the day after their shift. One day of compulsory overtime is required on Saturdays and Sundays; the latest slogan is that leaders should equip themselves with a perpetual motion machine. When I left my job, I worked until my last day; not to mention any compensatory time off, I hadn’t taken any annual leave in several years. Second: In order to shirk their own responsibilities, the various departments have established numerous rules that are assigned to the teams, forcing the operators to bear them – a situation that causes great hardship for the operators. That’s indeed the case in reality, but most of these systems are correct and beneficial for ensuring safety. The origin of this notion actually lies in the scientific and rational issue of determining job positions and staffing levels; as long as these staffing levels are based on objective facts, there is no such thing as unbearable hardship. It was also said that those with experience can take advantage of loopholes in the system to refuse such requests; it are the front-line managers who are currently suffering the most. Third: The income gap between front-line workers and managers is widening, and there are more and more unreasonable evaluation systems in the grassroots level. The income gap between front-line workers and managers has indeed widened, but in my opinion it isn’t wide enough. It’s precisely because the gap isn’t large enough that few people are willing to become managers, unless it’s for their own future prospects. Managers have to act as supervisors during the day, deal with the meeting-based communication culture typical of state-owned enterprises, and keep innovating; it is only at night that they have time to focus on the technical work related to their duties. If management really speaks in such glowing terms, why is one-third of those who want to be promoted from frontline workers to team leaders or managers refusing? Fourth: Safety issues that are likely to arise during the production process are ignored, resulting in an inverted approach to safety management. That’s somewhat true, but the root cause of this problem is still that managers are too busy. Especially in state-owned enterprises, where special measures are needed to improve leaders’ performance, various miscellaneous tasks distract the managers’ attention. For those responsible for ensuring safe production, it’s very dangerous when managers are too busy. It is certain, however, that such a serious incident as the one at Rongshui would never occur in large state-owned enterprises. But accidents resulting in the death of two or three people from time to time are inevitable. Beyond the issues mentioned earlier, there is actually an economic logic at play here: for state-owned enterprises like the three major oil companies, paying some money as compensation for the death of one or two people is sufficient and will not lead to catastrophic bankruptcy for the company; of course, no one will have to face imprisonment as a consequence.

I agree with what was said on floor 9. Front-line managers have it extremely tough. We are also part of an old coal chemical enterprise; under normal circumstances, the workshop supervisor is busy on site while the operators sit in the control room enjoying the air conditioning, and it is still the workshop supervisor who has to step forward when problems arise.