The Other Side of Safety: From Corporate Compliance to Worker Advocacy

Stéphane Maminindriana*

 

A Journey of Rethinking Safety Regimes

For several years, I worked in the field of Safety Management. I believed in the role, in the systems I upheld, and in the importance of making workplaces safer. My days were filled with audits, checklists, safety briefings, and the steady rhythm of compliance documentation. I genuinely thought I was doing work that protected people. But over time, a sense of discomfort began to grow—an unease that intensified when I stepped away from the corporate environment and began to engage more critically with the world of worker rights and safety advocacy.

This paper reflects on that rethinking. It traces my journey from managing safety as a corporate obligation to reimagining it as a matter of worker empowerment. The turning point came during my postgraduate studies at SOAS, particularly through a virtual placement with TPOLS (Transnational Palm Oil Labour Solidarity) Network, a network focused on building alliances and promoting transnational solidarity to amplify the voices of grassroots actors while fostering democratic systems within the palm oil industry.  It was here, listening to testimonies from workers and union leaders, that I began to see the limitations—and the harm—of the very systems I used to uphold.

I also encountered the book Safety Differently by Sidney Dekker, which helped me name and make sense of what I had previously felt but not fully understood. Dekker’s critique of audit-driven safety regimes resonated with what I was witnessing on plantations: a system more concerned with managing liability than with fostering real protection. The term protection refers to the physical and emotional well-being of workers, while real protection implies a holistic, proactive approach that goes beyond compliance to genuinely safeguard workers’ rights, health, and dignity. Through this dual lens—academic reflection and practical engagement—I came to question the politics of risk. In this context, the politics of risk refers to how corporate priorities and power structures shape who bears the responsibility for safety and how risk is perceived and managed. As I learned through my placement, corporate safety systems often prioritize business continuity over the well-being of workers. This realization led me to critically assess the performative nature of corporate safety.

This paper explores the other side of safety: the lived realities of workers navigating hazardous environments, the power structures that shape those realities, and the emerging possibilities for a safety culture grounded not in surveillance and control, but in solidarity and justice. Drawing on my experience at TPOLS and informed by critical safety theory (which challenges traditional safety practices by advocating for worker agency and empowerment), I argue that true occupational safety can only emerge when workers are recognized not as problems to be managed, but as agents of change in their own right. This approach, which emphasizes collaborative safety practices and worker-led advocacy, represents the other side of safety, where safety is not imposed top-down, but instead co-created with workers to address the root causes of unsafe conditions.

 

The Politics of Risk and Control in Plantation OHS

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) in the palm oil industry is often presented as a system designed to protect workers. However, it frequently functions as a tool for corporate control, used to manage company liability, maintain production targets, and create a public image of compliance. During my placement with TPOLS, this contradiction became increasingly apparent, as behind the formal policies and procedures, workers continue to face unsafe and unfair working conditions.

A clear example of this is how companies rely on symbolic compliance. They create the appearance of responsibility through visible signs of safety—posters reminding workers to wear gloves, periodic training sessions, and the distribution of basic PPE like masks and boots. These measures are easy to document, photograph, and include in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. However, they often have little impact on the actual safety and well-being of workers, especially when implemented without genuine engagement, adequate resources, or consistent enforcement on the ground.

Rudi, a union leader I interviewed during my placement, explained how OHS policies look good on paper but lack real enforcement. Workers might receive annual medical checkups, but they are often not informed about the results. PPE is often low quality or insufficient, and safety training tends to be a one-off event, disconnected from the everyday risks workers face. More concerning still, when accidents or illnesses occur, companies often find ways to shift the blame onto the workers themselves.

This blame-shifting is part of a broader trend where workers are made to bear the responsibility for managing risks they have no power to control. Many are required to sign documents stating that they understand the dangers of their job and accept the risks. This creates a false sense of consent. In reality, workers accept these risks out of economic desperation, not because they feel safe or empowered. If something goes wrong, the company can point to the signed form and avoid accountability.

This strategy is particularly effective with migrant workers, who are often preferred by palm oil companies precisely because they are more vulnerable. Migrant workers are less likely to organize or demand better conditions due to their precarious legal status, language barriers, or lack of local networks. As Rudi noted, this makes them easier to control. They are paid less, expected to do more hazardous tasks, and are the first to be dismissed if they speak out.

Gender plays an additional role in how risk is distributed. Women are often assigned the most dangerous and least regulated jobs, such as pesticide spraying. These tasks carry serious health risks, including reproductive harm, but they are rarely discussed openly. Women workers I learned about through TPOLS shared stories of irregular menstruation and miscarriages—issues that are not even acknowledged in most OHS frameworks. There is little to no support, no compensation, and no real consideration of how gender shapes vulnerability in the workplace—leaving women exposed to long-term health consequences that remain invisible in both policy and practice.

Through these mechanisms—symbolic compliance, false consent, selective vulnerability, and gendered neglect—companies in the palm oil sector maintain control while avoiding real responsibility. OHS becomes a shield that protects the company, not the worker. It is designed to document that safety measures exist, rather than ensure that workers are actually safe.

This insight challenged many of my assumptions as a former OHS manager. I used to think that having policies and procedures in place was enough—that if you ticked all the boxes, you were doing the right thing. But the reality I encountered through TPOLS showed me that policies are only as good as the power structures that support them. In plantations, those structures are tilted heavily in favour of the employer. Unless that imbalance is addressed, OHS will remain a performance, not a protection.

Understanding these politics of risk and control is essential for anyone who wants to engage with labour rights and safety in a meaningful way. It’s not enough to demand more audits or stricter checklists. What’s needed is a shift in power—towards systems that are driven by workers’ voices, not corporate interests. This is the kind of OHS we should be fighting for.

 

Rethinking Safety: From Managerial Compliance to Worker Agency

Reflecting on my past role, I now see how deeply embedded I was in a system that prioritised documentation over genuine safety. At the time, I believed I was doing the right thing—enforcing policies, overseeing audits, and making sure procedures were followed. But it wasn’t until after I left that role that I began to understand how narrow and limiting that vision of safety truly was.

It was only after my experience in the industry that someone recommended I read Sidney Dekker’s Safety Differently. That book marked a turning point. Dekker challenges the very foundations of traditional OHS thinking. He argues that safety, as commonly practiced, has become too focused on bureaucracy, audits, and control. It’s about ticking boxes rather than asking whether workers actually feel safe or have a voice in shaping their working conditions.

Reading Dekker helped me make sense of the discomfort I had started to feel in my old job, but couldn’t articulate. I had been part of a system that saw workers as problems to be managed, not as people with insight and expertise. We reacted to accidents by creating more rules, more restrictions—rarely stopping to ask if our methods were part of the problem. Dekker’s message that “humans are not the problem; they are the solution” forced me to reconsider everything.

When I joined TPOLS for my placement, I was already beginning to question my former practices. But it was hearing directly from workers like Rudi that brought these reflections to life. He described how, before union organising, accidents and injuries were common, and management ignored workers’ concerns. When workers found ways to cope or adapt, they were punished for breaking rules, even if those adaptations were the only thing keeping them safe. The link between union presence and improved safety is clear—unionized workers were more likely to have a say in their working conditions, which led to better safety practices and stronger advocacy for worker rights.

This experience mirrors what Dekker refers to as a “drift into failure”—a slow erosion of safety as risk becomes normalised in pursuit of productivity. In the palm oil industry, where efficiency is everything, this drift is particularly dangerous. Unsafe practices become routine because they are seen as necessary to meet targets. When something goes wrong, the company responds with more training or stricter monitoring, rather than addressing the root causes. This process is marked by an over-reliance on bureaucratic measures that only mask the deeper issues at play, much like the corporate safety systems I once enforced.

TPOLS, however, offers a different vision. Their approach to safety isn’t about surveillance—it’s about solidarity. They build relationships with workers, treat them as experts on their own conditions, and advocate for systemic change rather than superficial fixes. They recognise that real safety is political: it’s about power, voice, and agency. This shift from managerial compliance to worker agency highlights the transformative potential of worker-led safety systems, where workers are not just recipients of safety protocols but active participants in shaping their own protection.

This contrast has had a lasting impact on me. I now see that safety should not be something done to workers, but something built with them. It’s not about managing risk in isolation—it’s about creating environments where people can speak, adapt, and protect one another. My old approach relied on rules; my new understanding values relationships.

Learning from Safety Differently and from TPOLS has reshaped my professional and ethical orientation. I no longer see OHS as a corporate function—I see it as a space for advocacy, empowerment, and justice. And I believe that for OHS to truly work in places like palm oil plantations, it must start by recognising workers as agents of safety, not objects of regulation. This shift is, in essence, the “other side of safety”—a system that grows from trust, not surveillance; from dignity, not discipline.

To conclude, this paper has explored the limits of corporate OHS systems and the transformative potential of worker-led safety advocacy, drawing on both my professional past and my experience with TPOLS. I have come to understand that the systems I once enforced—audits, protocols, and compliance checks—were more about shielding companies from liability than protecting the people doing the work. They were built on the assumption that safety is something that can be imposed, measured, and controlled from the top down.

But through my study, my placement, conversations with workers, and the insights of thinkers like Sidney Dekker, I now see that true safety cannot be achieved without addressing the underlying power relations that shape risk. When workers are excluded from decision-making and held responsible for risks they cannot control, safety becomes a performance rather than a protection. In contrast, when safety is rooted in worker agency, collective knowledge, and solidarity, it becomes transformative.

This is the other side of safety—the one we rarely see in corporate reports or glossy CSR brochures. It is the safety that grows from trust, not surveillance; from dignity, not discipline. It recognises that workers are not obstacles to manage but experts to listen to. For me, embracing this perspective has not just been an academic exercise, but a personal reorientation. I now see OHS not as a compliance function but as a site of struggle, politics, and possibility.

Moving forward, I intend to use my background not to reinforce corporate safety regimes but to support those who are working to dismantle and reimagine them. I believe that a just and meaningful OHS system must start with the people most affected by unsafe work—and be built in partnership with them, not imposed upon them. That is the kind of safety worth fighting for.