Continued . . .

While the philosophy behind such programs seemed sound (giving rewards to employees for results), there were a number of criticisms levelled at such programs by some safety consultants, some union leaders and even OSHA. First and foremost on the list of concerns was the idea that such programs could create pressure on employees not to report accidents, injuries, near misses or other incidents so as to keep the "record" intact. While one might expect that coworkers would lead this pressure (and they frequently did), there were even some documented cases of supervisors and managers pressuring employees not to report accidents. These cases tended to be in situations where rewards that were designated for teams or whole departments were on the line.