Originally posted on May 15, 2021 @ 9:39 AM
Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright in Safety
One of Dylan’s greatest songs is about the power of indifference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Y3KfJs6T0 ), not just to love but to people in general. There’s nothing quite like the masquerade of care when in reality you don’t give a s&*t.
The clip that captures the movement of people through life with the track overlay of Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright really speaks to me about the tokenism played to safety when we know that lives are expendable in the crusade to get the job done.
I got a phone call from a friend today on a building site where he experienced a near death incident. The managing contractor is a well-known Tier 1 builder that spruiks all the ‘safety first’ spin to mask the real agenda, make money, pump the job, get the job done and screw down the subbies.
Unfortunately, nothing changes because the industry hasn’t much a clue about culture so they don’t even know what to do. Many don’t. If your looking for guidance on culture in the AIHS BoK, good luck. Tweaking the edge of behaviours with a few slogans is not culture change. Shifting vigilance to systems and paperwork actually makes culture worse. This is why nothing changes in Building and Construction and neoliberalism rules the waves.
Dylan knew all about disappointment and the pain of nihilism.
· ‘There ain’t no use to sit and wonder why babe, if you don’t know by now’ captures beautifully the indifference of an industry to care and helping workers who are viewed as fodder for financial outcome. There is no ethic of care or helping in the AIHS BoK (how convenient).
· ‘There ain’t no use to sit and wonder why babe, it’ll never do somehow’. Tells us that all the talk and spin doesn’t make up for the reality that the contractor simply doesn’t give a s*^t, its dollars, dollars dollars with a fake slogan tacked on the end – zero harm!
· ‘When the rooster crows at the break of dawn, look out your window and I’ll be gone’ yes, another fatality in the industry accepted as normal and normalised through cultural indifference.
· ‘You’re the reason I’m travellin’ on, Don’t think twice it’s alright’ tells us why so many leave the industry and why bashing your head against a brick wall is soul destroying.
In my friends near death experience I can bet the generic SWMS was completed. I could bet there was a toolbox lecture that morning. I bet the CEO of the company spruiks ‘safety first’ every day and that managers lecture workers about ‘safety first’. But when the job is behind and money is the be made, ‘don’t think twice it’s alright’.
Maybe that’s that’s call that comes from the police to tell you that your loved one is dead?
Dr Rob Long
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Bernard Corden says
Dear Margret,
Your name is quite appropriate for this blog. Indeed, Margaret Meade was married to Gregory Bateson for many years and spent some considerable time in Papua New Guinea during her cultural anthropology studies. She was a remarkable and fascinating lady.
Here are some additional links:
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0199283273/counterpunchmaga
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/11/neoliberalism-free-market-fundamentalism-or-corporate-power/
Margret Meade says
” This is why nothing changes in Building and Construction and neoliberalism rules the waves. ” Will you please explain the use of the word ‘neoliberalism’ in this sentence? I’m a long-time reader from the US and i am curious.
Rob Long says
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot
https://theconversation.com/what-exactly-is-neoliberalism-84755
Bernard Corden says
Jay Gould, the US railroad magnate and financial speculator during the Gilded Age, once proclaimed that he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
This was the intent of David Cameron back in 2010 when he declared that he would smash the health and safety monster. He did not require any external assistance, it has devoured itself via an autophagous process expedited by zero harm:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros
Rob Long says
There is nothing like poets, musicians and artists to subvert the common narrative of power and freedom to harm. There is nothing like the Poetics of music to tear down the delusions of measurement and controlling people. Dylan and many other musicians describe well the delusions of control and the real threat of indifference of people in power who believe their own lies. I think if Dylan ever heard about Safety/Zero he’d write a scoffing song like All Along the Watchtower (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT7Hj-ea0VE).
I was chatting to a friend the other day who used to be in safety in construction and it occurred to me that no-one I knew in safety 5 years ago are still in the sector, all have left. They were all really compassionate caring helping people and all gone, only the police remain.
Bernard Corden says
Wonderful stuff Rob
……”He not busy bein’ born is busy dyin’ and if my thought dreams could be seen they’d probably put my head in a guillotine but it’s alright ma I’m only bleedin'”
My favourite Dylan track is Visions of Johanna from the Blonde on Blonde album.
He turns 80 in less than ten days.