Dusty Roach
It is indeed nice to write for this publication, in the sense of being able to have literary freedom in terms of discussing safety. While the government continues in its overreach to control everything, safety included, we still fortunately have freedom of speech. Our freedom of speech can be seen as a parallel to the stop work authority given to us at work by the government. The employee has the right and responsibility to stop any work that they deem dangerous at any time. Yes, I am aware that a previous article I wrote was about stop work authority.
Due to the times at hand, this month I have elected to write about another right, and that is the right to vote. Similarly, all employees, owners, corporate personnel, and in fact everyone in the oil and gas industry, not limited to the Permian Basin but nationwide, has the right and responsibility to speak up about any danger, perceived or otherwise, and to apply a form of “stop work authority” on our government that is out of control. No, I am not advocating anything except our right and responsibility is to VOTE.
In the oilfield, if my numbers are close, probably only 15 percent to 20 percent of our workers are bold enough to utilize stop work authority, bearing up under the peer pressure, fear of losing a job, etc. Similarly, where the general public is concerned, when it comes to voting or electing our officials, apathy sets in and most say, “What’s the use, it’s only one vote—what difference does it make?” In the Permian Basin, the percentages are similar, with approximately 18 percent to 22 percent of the people voting. Then, in the oilfield, everyone gets excited if there is an accident. Management starts asking, “How come there is not more buy-in in the stop work authority?” The same thing when it comes to elections and voting. One asks, “Why aren’t more people voting? Why aren’t more people using stop work authority?”
It comes down to accountability. We need to hold people accountable. When our rights are taken away, our rights to question authority, we become slaves to the status quo.
So I encourage all of the hard working people in the oilfield to exercise our right to use the stop work authority and to exercise our right to vote. How might we, as an industry, affect this change? I submit to the leaders in this industry the following ideas:
- Reward the employees for voting
- Give them time to take off to vote (more than an hour) in order to beat the crowd
- Consider recognition in the form of a lunch for the employees, or
- A gift card, or
- A competition between departments as to which department has the highest percentage of voting participation
Our Permian Basin oil and gas industry leads the world. Why not become leaders in voting? Affect change in our community. To this day, I am proud to be associated with this industry. We led the way in WW II. We led the way to come out of shortages. We have led the way in profitability on Wall Street. We have led the way in engineering. Why not by leadership?
I do not pretend to be Don Quixote fighting windmills thinking the windmills are dragons. (If you’ll pardon the literary reference.) I am saying of the leadership in the Permian Basin and our industry that now is time for all good men and women come to the aid of their country. It is my experience that there is NOT a shortage of good men and women in our industry.
I encourage everyone to make our country take notice and set voting records for the country to see. Now is the time to start. We are better than 20 percent for voting percentages in the upcoming elections. It’s not how many hits we have in baseball. It is how many times we reach home safely that counts. God bless America. —Dust
Dusty Roach is a safety professional based in Midland. He is also a public speaker on subjects of leadership and safety, and he maintains a personal website at dustyroach.com.