The topic of this article is driven by the objective need to analyze the semantic meaning of the concept of the "human factor" to solve the problem of ensuring occupational safety. There is a widespread understanding of the human factor as something negative, since the main cause of accidents and injuries is seen as accidental or intentional non-compliance with HSE rules, as well as inadequate decisions and actions by production participants ranging from workers to enterprise directors. During comprehensive inspections and investigations of negative events (incidents, accidents, and injuries), specific violations of HSE rules are identified, and the violators are determined — usually the direct executors: workers, foremen, and section managers — and a measure of punishment is assigned to them.
Strictness in observing HSE rules is necessary, but an excessively repressive focus of such a policy harms the cause, failing to contribute to further improving occupational safety and reducing the level of operational risk. Workers perceive punishments as an injustice because the shortcomings they see in the production organization system and its safety provision remain outside the scope of consideration. These shortcomings create conditions for violating safety requirements and often provoke workers into committing them.
Below are manifestations of the human factor at various hierarchical levels of production management.
1. The experience of high-speed driving of capital mine workings during the Soviet period, when setting All-Union records, showed that the interaction of people and technical devices in each technological cycle can be so carefully planned and organized that, despite even a very high labor intensity and a lack of experience in organizing the process, no failures, accidents, or injuries occur. The fact is that the entire personnel of the enterprise — from the director to the team leader, squad leader, and worker — participated with interest and responsibility in the planning, organization, execution, and control of such production processes.
2. In the mining face team of the two-time Hero of Socialist Labor M.P. Chikh, there were no serious accidents or injuries for many years, because the team leader organized and controlled the production process in such a way that there was simply no place or time for accidents and injuries.
3. A mining foreman of an extraction section at a mine in the south of Kuzbass shared his experience:
— I do not let my workers violate safety rules. If gas appears, I stop the shearer. The dispatcher calls me: "Why did you stop?" I answer that gas appeared. He asks: "Don't you know what to do?" I reply: "You write down for me what needs to be done, and I will do it." The dispatcher remains silent in response.
— And how has such a truth-seeker not been fired from the mine yet?
— Well, I fulfill the plan regularly. And the gas doesn't appear all the time.
— And how do your workers treat you?
— Wonderfully. They see that I care about them, their safety, health, and salary.
— And the mine management?
— They tolerate it.
4. One of the directors of a major mine shared his experience: "I invited a Gosgortekhnadzor inspector to my office (I had two of them at the mine) and asked: 'Why didn't you stop the head of the tunneling section yesterday?'
— 'Well, he is on track to become a Hero of Labor.'
— 'I know. I am the one leading him to the title. You didn't stop him, but I did. And if I have to stop him after you again, I will make sure your management removes you from the mine.'
But I knew it would be of no use, because the inspectors had become 'family' with the section heads. Therefore, I invited three guys who had graduated from university two years ago and offered them to become my inspectors. And I set a condition: stop the work wherever it goes against safety requirements. I issued an order, and off they went. A day later, there was an indignant uproar of section heads in my office: 'What are these stoppages all about?'
— 'This is the fulfillment of my lawful demands, since you cannot stop yourselves.'
A month later, the noise died down, and six months later, I had a completely transformed mine."
5. On August 31, 1971, the Minister of the Coal Industry of the USSR, B.F. Bratchenko, issued Order No. 393: "For weakening control over the state of safety engineering at the combine's enterprises, failing to take effective measures to reduce occupational injuries, and failing to improve technological discipline among the engineering and technical personnel (ETP) of the mines, to reprimand the head of the Karagandaugol combine, P.M. Trukhin, and warn him that if the necessary measures are not taken to improve the state of safety engineering at the Karagandaugol combine, he will be dismissed from his position." After this, the head of the combine, P.M. Trukhin — a Hero of Socialist Labor and a highly experienced leader in the coal industry — together with the combine's management personnel, quickly found and implemented an effective system for reliable control of personnel injury risks. It became a network of route inspections by ETP, from the mine director to the shift mining foreman. Each of them mandatorily and periodically inspected their assigned area, recorded identified violations, and put forward their proposals for eliminating them and preventing them in the future. Based on the data from such control, specific measures were determined when planning work for the month, and subsequently, their execution was monitored. As a result, the injury rate was reduced by 4 times.
6. The Head of the Chelyabinsk District Directorate of Gosgortekhnadzor, V.Yu. Skovorodkin, set a task: "I want to learn to see trouble before it happens. If I see it, I will have time to take action."
The research he conducted made it possible to divide all hazards into five levels.
Based on the typification of operational risks and the assessment of their level, V.Yu. Skovorodkin developed a programmatic method for creating safe working conditions. Over two years at the district board, he took control of 200 programs from the most problematic enterprises. Over 5 years, the level of severe and fatal injuries at the district's industrial enterprises was halved.
The given examples show that the purposeful activities of managers and specialists at mining enterprises, aimed at steadily improving occupational safety and labor efficiency, as well as the overall level of production, will inevitably lead to positive results in the short, medium, and long term. This activity does not allow for negative manifestations of the human factor. Negative manifestations include:
It is known that 20 – 25% of HSE rule violations are caused by insufficient discipline and qualifications of the executors, while 75 – 80% are due to inadequate production preparation, which is the direct responsibility of management. However, for some reason, it is mostly the executors who are punished, causing their sharp dissatisfaction. Workers and junior ETP know very well that production is not prepared with sufficient quality, and circumstances force them to violate HSE rules to fulfill planned targets in volume indicators. They also understand that they are being punished for "someone else's fault." Workplace conflicts are the main source of accidents and injuries caused by manifestations of the human factor.