Comment by rgblambda
2 days ago
From my limited experience working in a factory environment, listening to music can be a real workplace safety issue if it reduces your ability to hear forklifts or coworkers shouting warnings.
2 days ago
From my limited experience working in a factory environment, listening to music can be a real workplace safety issue if it reduces your ability to hear forklifts or coworkers shouting warnings.
that's not a problem if the people who will be interacting with fork lifts stay in designated areas as do the forklift operators. Nothing is ever going to b 0% chance of an accident but simply adhering to basic rules should keep people on an assembly line listening to spotify from taking a forklift to the knee. Have you ever worked on a factory floor at all? Sure some positions would be impossible but not for 80-90% of them.
In the factory floor I previously worked in, you needed to cross the forklift's domain to go to the bathroom and break room. This involved using exits also used by the forklift. You needed to hear it coming.
Even setting aside the forklift, having music playing reduces your ability to hear a coworker shout "Help, my clothes are caught on the line. Push the emergency stop".
Do you hire deaf people?
I always found the laws prohibiting drivers from wearing earplugs (some exemptions for motorcycles) and the like pretty funny.
US employers cannot discriminate against a deaf person and must make reasonable accommodations to make it safe for them to do their job.
US employers are not legally required to make accommodations for people who simply want to listen to music at work.
Today's vehicles already have a lot of sound deadening (and good stereos) and it is becoming a problem for emergency vehicles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lvTBmBDPno
> US employers cannot discriminate against a deaf person and must make reasonable accommodations to make it safe for them to do their job.
> US employers are not legally required to make accommodations for people who simply want to listen to music at work.
So it would be reasonably possible, but since it's not legally required they'd rather make their workers miserable for no benefit, and then complain how difficult it is to hire people?
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If you have even the slightest amount of situational awareness sound deadening or infotainment gizmos will not render you unaware of an approaching emergency vehicle. Scan your mirrors, scan your instruments, scan the horizon, repeat. The problem is unqualified, uneducated drivers.
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> Do you hire deaf people?
I think you may start to understand the requirement once you realize the issue is where attention is and is not placed, instead of what sense is being exercised.
I mean, think about it. The recommendation was to consume forms of entertainment. In the factory I worked, there was a mandatory safety rule where you were required to establish eye contact with forklift drivers. Why is that a requirement?
Funny - eye contact is my "secret" to crossing the road in places like south east asia