The words “work safety” sound like the slogan on the factory wall. It's cold. But you threw it into our conversation, and i understood it at once — you're talking about people, every living worker, on their way home to feed their families。
Let's start with a scene, see if it's summer, midday, 40 degrees above the surface. The sanitation worker crouched on the road teeth, chewing on cold buns and next to a tricycle full of garbage. He left at 4:00 a. M. And now his uniform is wet three times. He's sweating, sighs, not tired, feeling a little dizzy。
It's not called safety at work, it's called "manager."。
And look on the other side, the young white collar in the writing building, staring at the computer screen, sitting for 10 hours, with a vertebrae, vertebrae, eyes, none of which is good. They think they have no safety risks at work, but they hide them in invisible places — successive overtime, stress, excessive death, news every year。
As a result, safety at work is not only the helmet on the site, but also the shield in the factory. It also includes: if it's hot, if it's tired, if it's time off, if it's too stressful, if it's okay to talk。
Let's talk about fat tung. Why do we get the prize? Why did you have to close on tuesday? Why didn't you let your staff work overtime? Because it extends labour safety from “injury” to “insensitiveness”. I like the saying that if an employee can't sleep well, why should you make him laugh at his customers? That is so clear — the bottom line of labour safety is to treat people as people, not as parts。
Another neglected group: the night-market vendors, we talked about the night-market economy in the last round, complimenting it on living and feeding. But you go to the night market and cook, or you come closer to the stalls: the gas cans are attached to the fire, the wires are drawn like a web, the pans are full of oil and no one changes them, and the next day you work as usual. The matter of safety at work is largely “self-sustaining” in the night market。
One of the vendors said to me, "we know it's dangerous, but we can't stop. One day, the rent, the money for the family's food, is gone.” that sounds bitter, but that is the plight of many ordinary workers — not knowing, not stopping。
Fortunately, some cities are now undergoing night-market renovations, consolidating oil cushions, regulating the placement of electrical lines and gas tanks, and even security inspectors. What does that mean? It is clear that safety at work is based not on personal care, but on institutional support. For the night-market economy to be sustainable, a little attention has to be paid to these human security issues。
You remember when we talked about the big difference in pensions? One angle we didn't go on: why are some old people sick when they get older? A large part of this is due to the fact that safety at work is not kept up at a young age。
A lifetime of dust has been smoked on the site, and the lungs have become too old for it; the freezer has been in there for decades, and the joint pains have grown; and the textile factory is too noisy to hear. These are “labour debts” that were owed at a young age, and paid back at the expense of old age. So, to be safe at work is to “reduce” the pension after decades — one less patient, one less heavy medical expense, and one less ruined home. We often say “prevention is more than cure”, and safety at work is the most fundamental prevention。
Moreover, a safe working environment, not just for the good of workers, is cost-effective for enterprises and society in the long term。
In the ai era, labor safety can be smarter, but what's missing is "discretion."
We talked earlier about what ai could do: monitor tired driving, smart identification workers with safety caps, drones instead of people to check high-risk pipes. These technologies do make work safer. But technological advances cannot replace a fundamental problem: the boss is willing to spend the money on safety rather than on a bonus。
In some factories, “safest” is said to be, in fact, impossible to replace even a fire extinguisher; in others, companies that cry “staff are the greatest wealth” are slow to provide workers with work injury insurance. At this point, it's useless for ai to be as good as it is -- data can call the police, but no one can fix it。
On the other hand, as fat tung has done, the “what if anything” of his own family, even if not so high-tech, human and institutional, would hold the line. So, the very essence of safety at work is three words: human beings. That's not all technology can replace。
What can we do
We're ordinary people. We can't change the big system, but we can do little things around us。
If you're a worker: remember, no job is worth fighting for. Seat hats, seat belts, gloves. Don't get in trouble. That's your second life. You're not feeling well. Just rest. Don't take it. You fall, your home falls。
If you're the manager: don't just look at the profit statement, look at the back injury and the black eye. With an extra pair of slippers and an extra hour of lunch break, it's not gonna cost much, but it's getting warmer and more efficient。
If you're just a man of the road: see the sanitation workers hiding under the roof of the house, don't lose sight of the red light, and don't yell at them — they're racing with time and gambling with safety. What you can do is say, "no hurry, safety first" at takeout, maybe slow him down。
Finally, let's return to our long text conversation
From the warmth of fat east, to the depths of the health reform, to the pyrotechnics of the late-night fried chickens, to the old age, to the pension gap, to the night market economy, to today's safety at work - we've been talking about one thing: how to make every ordinary worker live with dignity。
Safety at work is the bottom line of this dignity. One earns little but securely. A person can work hard, but he or she must return to his or her family in full, eat a warm meal and hug his or her family。
So let's not use “work safety” as a slogan. It's every time it's “safe” before going out, it's the safety cap on the site, it's the word that the boss said during overtime, “enoughly enough, go back”, and it's the night market owner's look at the gas tank。
May every worker earn his living in peace and security and return home in dignity。
