Management, Workers & OSHA Guidelines for Health and Safety

Your firm manufactures pesticides for farmers. Your co-worker has noticed multiple times that the boss habitually violates safety protocols while using a particularly noxious pesticide. The boss is careless handling the pesticide container and keeps leaving the open container around. When left open for too long, the pesticide releases vapors that cause dizziness and nausea. When the co-worker brings this to the boss's attention, the boss becomes very defensive and threatens the co-worker with job termination if he does not keep quiet. His argument is that leaving the bottle open has never affected him adversely and so he feels it is not an issue at all. In reality however, the boss's negligent behavior is a direct violation of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines and safety measures. To make matters worse, the boss enters in the daily safety sheet that "the product has been handled by him with care."

Based on the above-mentioned scenario:
•Describe the OSHA guidelines for health and safety and explain why they were established, and when.
•Describe the course of action you and your co-worker would take in the above-mentioned scenario. Bear in mind that whatever decision you choose to make should be in accordance with the OSHA guidelines and safety measures as well as legal and ethical business procedures. Also, for hypothetical purposes, assume that getting the boss fired is not an option.
•Describe the effective strategies you would bring about in the organization to avoid further violating the OSHA guidelines and safety measures.
•Explain your step by step plan of action while trying to show the boss the various ways in which his illegal practices would prove to be detrimental to the organization in the long run.
•Explain how you would negotiate with your boss to agree to bring about ethical business practices which are in accordance with OSHA standards to replace his current, illegal and unethical methods.
•Explain how you would sell the alternatives to your boss if they are more resource exhaustive than the current decisions taken by him.
•Remove yourself from the scenario, take an objective look at a person in a similar situation. Identify the areas in which the person would commit mistakes in decision-making in this scenario. Describe the effects of these mistakes.
•Provide an alternative business decision which solves or avoids each of these mistakes. Give reasons for your proposed alternatives being superior business decisions compared to the mistakes committed in their place.

If applicable, support responses with examples and cite any sources.