{"id":491249,"date":"2026-02-22T03:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T03:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/491249\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T03:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T03:32:11","slug":"report-explores-workers-reasons-for-not-reporting-hazards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/491249\/","title":{"rendered":"Report explores workers\u2019 reasons for not reporting hazards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Edmonton, Alberta \u2014 A fear of negative repercussions \u201cappears to be a strong driving force for why someone might hesitate to report a hazard\u201d at work, a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/ualberta.scholaris.ca\/server\/api\/core\/bitstreams\/59a0eca0-fcfc-4629-b6a0-c6ed0288ed51\/content\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">report<\/a> out of Canada suggests.<\/p>\n<p>University of Alberta researchers surveyed nearly 4,700 mining workers and contractors while examining thousands of incident reports across five mining operations. Survey respondents were prompted for the top reasons why hazards aren\u2019t identified or reported.<\/p>\n<p>A \u201cnovice and developing workforce\u201d \u2013 described as a lack of knowledge and hazard awareness among employees \u2013 was the leading response at 18%. That was followed by multiple reasons related to fear, including career (15%) and social (12%) repercussions.<\/p>\n<p>Further analysis identified multiple negative consequences sensed by workers:<\/p>\n<p>Changes in how crew members or supervisors viewed their competency (someone attributing blame or fault for the hazard, for example).<br \/>\nLosing their job or not being offered future positions or overtime (especially among temporary or contract workers).<br \/>\nBeing shifted to less desirable tasks or pieces of equipment within their crew.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe predominance of fear shocked us,\u201d Lianne Lefsrud, lead author of the report and professor in the university\u2019s chemicals and materials engineering department, wrote in a report published by The Conversation. \u201cWorkers described being more afraid of the social consequences of reporting hazards than of the hazards themselves. As a result, they were putting their own lives at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the report, the researchers offer strategies for preventing fears of job insecurity related to hazard reporting:<\/p>\n<p>Discuss hazards in a supportive and open way.<br \/>\nWork on hazard solutions as a crew or department.<br \/>\nProvide positive reinforcement for hazard reporting (verbal encouragement and expressed appreciation, for example).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edmonton, Alberta \u2014 A fear of negative repercussions \u201cappears to be a strong driving force for why someone&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,40210,197303,84,112061],"class_list":["post-491249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-employer-retaliation","tag-hazard-reporting","tag-health","tag-retaliation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}