Why do you do it?

Through our travels the Aluminium Plant Safety Blog is asked the following questions including but not limited to:

Why do you not mention the plant by name?

Answer: The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog chooses not to name the plant nor the victim under the notion (that in this forum) it would assign blame to the company nor the worker(s). The APSB knows the stories of the injured and dead. We know the names of the fiancés, wives, children.. We can only imagine the pain that the worker (injured) and the family, friends, and coworkers deal with on a daily basis. One family member of worker said the pain associated of losing a loved one in a workplace never ends. It’s a never ending ache.

Why is your blog anonymous?

Answer: Initially we were afraid of how the blog would be received in our industry. So we left our names off it and were we surprised by the industry’s positive reaction to our little blog. The readership has grown more than we ever thought. The amount of countries where our readership is amazes us. We continue to leave our name off because of tradition.

How do you hear about the incidents?

Answer: All of the posts come from news media article. We do not post incidents that we hear about through rumors or grapevine. Why? Because there is simply not enough time to post all that occur in our industry.

What is the difference between the good and bad plants in our industry?

Answer: First we make the assumption that no one purposely tries to hurt a worker. The “bad” plants in terms of safety simply lack the awareness, education, and acknowledgement of hazards that the good plants possess. These plants also tend to shun industry trade meetings where the sharing of best safety practices is presented. Their isolation is for a myriad of reasons including but not limited to financial resources, lack of safety personnel, ignorance that their personnel will get “nothing” out of attending, etc. We hope that overtime that these plants who have isolated themselves will realize that our industry’s willingness to share safety information will benefit their company.

Why do you do it?

Answer: Initially we thought this blog would be something easy to do. We were wrong, this blog has become one of the hardest things we have ever done. Why? Because we write about injuries and death. Though we do not write the workers' names down, we remember them, all of them. We do not write down the painful quotes that friends and family members state to the news media. But we remember them. But, we take the view that our pain and sadness of writing about these incidents pales in comparisons to worker(s), worker's family, friends, and coworkers sadness and pain associated with an incident. 

Our knowledge of what occurs in our industry is sometimes a crushing weight. There are times where it it is simply overwhelming. We have shed many tears writing this blog. It is those times where our family asks why don't you stop? 

Recently, we were honored to meet a coworker who told us his story. Through his tears he told us about the day that his coworker died. The incident had occurred years ago, but the pain that he felt was fresh. Sadly, he blamed himself for his coworker’s death. We use his story as motivation to continue.