You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans

Unions and Mining Companies have dug in for a long battle of meaningless aphorisms and condescending platitudes, started for safety reasons. Multinational Safety Organisations including Anglo American, Rio Tinto and BMA have recently diversified into mining and this has been the main catalyst for the war and Unions are not happy that safety is no longer the main focus of production. As a slap in the face of ZERO, Unions have decided to use the word GAIN in their new safety slogan. Read more here

Showing that they truly care more about promoting safety than themselves, Unions are plastering these stickers on anything that moves and most things that don’t. But mining companies, keen to show that they care even more, are threatening to sack anyone who worships a safety slogan other than their own. Said one company manager, Mr Barry Slate: “We must keep control at all costs, we have our focus firmly set on real and tangible punishments to encourage zero tolerance and the observance of our safety policies in the workplace” Opening up with both barrels, he then said: “Safety is our No1 Priority, All Injuries Are Preventable When You Choose To Be Safe”

In a true act of defiance, but not wanting to waste his ammo, union rep Frank Fixer countered the attack with: “Safety Starts at The Top and, these bosses must have rocks in their head, the stickers do not pose any breach in the codes of workplace safety and are not even safety hazards themselves. It took ages on Google and a lot of donations to come up with that catchy rhyme. Our new tactic will be to print it on band-aids – we know they count them”

We spoke with veteran safety crusader Barry Spud to get an unbiased, expert opinion on this. He said: “Its an outrage and will just force safety underground! These workers don’t know anything about safety, they can’t go promoting safety amongst themselves, it’ll never stick! Having read several articles on your blog, I am an expert on everything to do with safety and risk, including semiotics and unconscious messages. Look at their stupid sticker for example, and what it is really saying. Stickers are for warning about extreme risks like hot toasters and kettles, this one is frivolous and will just be ignored. You cannot promote quality as the number one priority over safety, that is for another department to worry about. I have fought a long, hard campaign for many years promoting harm and zero – we cannot now have these contradictory slogans promoting pain and gain, even though they do rhyme nicely. Look at that big thumb – we all know where that has been and where it’s about to go, and that’s gonna hurt. That sticker just looks like a big, wry smilie face to me – we need to take safety seriously. I’ve just come back from Risk Savvy Mine – they don’t do any of this rubbish. A much better tactic would be to place signs on the bathroom mirrors saying: You are looking at the person responsible for your safety”.

UPDATE: We have just learned that two dump trucks have collided on a haul road and careened off into the pit, early reports say that the driver’s vision was impaired by little round stickers placed all over the windscreen and someone has attempted to cover them with duct tape?