A few safety stories to reflect on safety management! Everyone is welcome to share their thoughts

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Author: Wang Liang. On this day, I led a team to an enterprise dealing with hazardous chemicals to inspect safety production practices there. The company’s manager stayed by with a smile, offering patient explanations and maintaining a very positive attitude. After the inspection, some issues and potential problems were identified; they were not serious, so a \"Rectification Notice\" was issued to order corrective actions. The matter seemed to be over at that point, but the company’s leader’s final statement really left me amused and puzzled at the same time. He said, “Please rest assured, leaders. We will definitely carry out the necessary rectifications in accordance with **’s requirements, and do our utmost to ensure safe production so as not to cause any trouble for you!” ”It turns out that in the eyes of this supervisor, ensuring safe production is not his responsibility; it’s done merely to \"cooperate\" and to \"not cause trouble for the management\"! If every company adopts such a \"humble\" attitude toward safe production, then the future of safety efforts is truly concerning! But upon closer consideration, the claims made by the company’s leader are not entirely unfounded. Our leaders at all levels keep emphasizing the need to \"protect the lives and property of the people.\" Since they assume such a great responsibility and go to great lengths to fulfill this duty of protection, it is only natural for enterprises to \"cooperate\" as well. It is a small factory with a staff of over 200 people, and a death accident occurred there one day. The new electrician at the factory was about to inspect the distribution box, but unexpectedly the enclosure of the box was live, causing him to die from an electric shock immediately. The work safety supervision department formed an accident investigation team to conduct a thorough investigation of the incident. It was determined that the company had failed to properly identify potential safety hazards, and that electrical circuits did not have two-stage leakage protection devices installed; as a result, the company was held primarily responsible for the accident, and penalties were imposed on it. However, the company was highly resistant to this idea; the person in charge argued that, two days before the incident, officials from the street’s safety supervision office conducted a safety inspection of the entire factory, but they failed to detect this safety hazard in time. Where have these law enforcement officers gone? How do they ensure the safety of people’s lives and property? They should bear the main responsibility for the accident; our company should not be held accountable! ” It must be admitted that the safety inspection officers failed to detect in a timely manner this obvious safety hazard of the lack of leakage protection devices, and there was indeed negligence in their work. However, the responsibility of the police can never be greater than that of the thief. The company is responsible for making such excuses on its own behalf, just like a thief who tries to justify himself in front of a judge by saying, “It’s all the police’s fault!” If the police had caught me earlier, I wouldn’t have stolen anything and I wouldn’t have been convicted! ”That excuse is really ridiculous. In a certain residential complex, there lives an elderly couple whose children are not living with them. This couple has a habit of collecting scrap to sell for money, and their house is filled with junk. If a fire breaks out, this elderly couple will die with no place to be buried. The neighbors could no longer tolerate the smell of the garbage; after several unsuccessful attempts to resolve the issue, they reported it to the **relevant authorities on the grounds that it posed a fire safety hazard. The leader wrote on the complaint: It is essential to protect the lives and property of the people, and to eliminate safety hazards without hesitation. However, citizens' residences are private property. “Everyone’s home is their own castle: the wind can enter, the rain can enter, but the king cannot enter. Illegally entering a residence is a criminal offense under the Criminal Law. Article 245 of the Criminal Law provides clear provisions on this: “Whoever illegally searches another person’s body or residence, or illegally enters another person’s residence, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention.” ” Under these circumstances, which law enforcement officer would dare to enforce the rules strictly in order to eliminate potential risks? What laws should then be applied for enforcement? It is obvious that our leaders have an overly strong sense of being ‘officials in charge’. Such safety hazards can only be resolved through civil mediation or by filing a civil lawsuit. **It’s not God; he isn’t omnipotent. **Public authorities cannot intrude into such private spaces. Similarly, there are also cases where gas appliances in residential homes do not meet safety standards (such as the use of direct vent water heaters), posing a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning; again, public authorities are powerless to address such issues. Realization: Safety is first and foremost everyone’s own responsibility. Everyone should fulfill their duty of care and carry out their legal responsibilities to protect the safety of themselves and others, keeping them safe from accidental harm. **Safety supervision is not a guarantee of safety; it is not comprehensive protection akin to parents taking care of their children. “\"Protecting the lives and property of the people\" is not unconditional. Its meaning is simply to protect the lives and property of the people from improper harm inflicted by others (including corporate entities and other citizens). **There is no obligation to unconditionally guarantee citizens' safety. The existence of the police is to protect citizens from harm by others, not to unconditionally defend all of their interests. The people’s army defends the people, but only from external aggression; it cannot defend everything. The purpose of safety regulation is to protect citizens from undue harm, particularly to prevent employers from using their dominant position to provide employees with equipment and workplaces that do not meet safety standards. The ultimate goal of safety regulation is actually to uphold social fairness and justice, rather than providing citizens with unconditional safety guarantees or ensuring the personal and property safety of everyone without exception. A typical example is when a citizen smokes; although it harms themself, as long as it doesn’t harm others, **it cannot be regulated.** A market economy is a free economy, and freedom is not only a right but also a responsibility. If one wants the right to freedom, they must inevitably assume the responsibilities and risks that come with making their own decisions. The British thinker and founder of classical liberalism, Mill, said: “If society allows a considerable number of its members to remain like children even as they grow up, unable to act based on rational consideration of long-term goals, then society itself must be held accountable for such outcomes.” ”Our companies, when it comes to safe production, prefer to treat themselves as \"children,\" allowing higher authorities to make decisions on their behalf and following whatever the leaders say. We simply carry out the necessary reforms as instructed, rather than taking proactive responsibility for ensuring safe production. Such a social atmosphere, as Mill said, is deserving of criticism. It’s all because the banner of “protecting the lives and property of the people” has been distorted and flapped high all along, because we have overstepped our bounds in regulation! **The over-reliance on centralized management of safety production has led to enterprises, institutions, and individuals losing their sense of responsibility and commitment, which causes serious harm to safety efforts.