Bringing Down the Safety Guy

About the Book

Chapter 1 - What safety programs existed, or lack thereof, at the turn of the last century. Working conditions in the early 1900´s.

Chapter 2 - The early days--several stories of manufacturing processes in the 1970s, with description of old machinery, working conditions, horror stories about injuries.

Chapter 3 - Office technology in the 1970s,

Chapter 4 - The safety consultant life; several fatal tragedies–China, North Carolina–caused by poor fire evacuation procedures and padlocked

exits.

Chapter 5 - Machine guarding hazards, pitfalls,

maimings, amputations, fatalities.

Chapter 6 - Accidents: Whose fault are they? Description of a machine-assisted suicide; being mixed to death by a giant blender; several OSHA citations; how the media handles coverage of accidents; lack of public interest or outrage about same; OSHA’s schizophrenic personality.

Chapter 7 - Working as a subcontractor

for insurance companies.

Chapter 8 - The joys of traveling on

business.

Chapter 9 - Personal Protective Equipment (PPE); the Turtle Club; the Golden Gate Bridge construction; Lockout/Tagout; Trenching; Confined Space Entry; things that worked.

Chapter 10 - Industrial Hygiene, stink detectors, legal liability on conducting in-house testing. Exxon Valdez–surprising environmental consequences.

Chapter 11 - Malden Mills fire; it is possible to be a benevolent capitalist.

Chapter 12 - OSHA mandates Workplace Violence measures; some reasons why America is becoming more violent.

Chapter 13 - Another textile mill closes; steady workers in an unsteady marketplace.

Chapter 14 - Unions’ lack of interest in safety & health; too busy with corruption trials.

Chapter 15 - Designer sweatshops. Lip service to improving working conditions reigns supreme.

Printouts from Liz Claiborne’s hypocritical web page.

Chapter 16 - “Extreme” trend of risk taking, driving, glamorization of death give safety a stodgy, “no fun” image.

Chapter 17 - Changing the nature of American

jobs, what today’s workers will look back on.

Chapter 18 - Diversifying our company’s product mix, having fun with games and belts.

Chapter 19 - George and Al - OSHA? Isn’t that a small town in Wisconsin?

Chapter 20 - All the President’s Men Go Bungee

Jumping, What the future holds, or Do You Want Fries With That?

Chapter 21 - Lincoln’s squirrel.

Books by Richard Hughes:

Bringing Down the Safety Guy

Bringing Down The Safety Guy is one man’s observations within a declining niche of the loss control profession from1978 to present through human interest anecdotes and the often adversarial relationship between management, employees, workplace conditions/practices and government, particularly OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration).

Twenty years ago OSHA and worker safety were considered growth careers.  What happened?  Bringing Down The Safety Guy attempts to explain the mix of politics, management greed, union disinterest, and globalization assignation among other causes that has led to a declining need for professionals like the author.  Told with the irony, humor, wisdom and insight of a twenty-year veteran, this book will find a strong audience with business people of all descriptions as well as the engineering, political, and social sciences readers of contemporary non-fiction.  Not a twenty-year trek, rather a joy-ride with a safety pilot with plenty to say about his issues in places as diverse as America’s factories, amusement parks, airlines, cruise ships, paper mills, logging camps, big rig trucks, among dozens of other enterprises.

Brimming with details from the Malden Mills fire in Lawrence, Massachusetts, to the plight of Kathy Lee’s  textile workers in El Salvador, from 1,503 lives lost on the Titanic to the tragedy of a single industrial amputation, this fact-packed book forces its r

About the Author

Mr. Hughes graduated from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay and quickly entered the industrial safety community. He also holds a Masters in Business from Lesley University. Bringing Down the Safety Guy, his nonfiction book, sardonically chronicles his career up to the present day. His two novels Hazard Elimination Inc., and Shaken, But Not Stirred, wistfully narrate the adventures of a world class safety consulting firm. He currently resides with his wife of 24 years, Lin, in Waquoit Village in Falmouth, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. He welcomes your thoughts at eis@cape.com.