** Being Truly Involved in Worker Safety Programs ** I was a Nuclear Operations and Facility Manager at various DOE nuclear sites prior to retiring Sept. 2005. Personnel and equipment safety were/are vigorously pursued in all operations and maintenance activities. Pre-job briefings, walkdowns, hazards analysis, Lockout Tagout (including all the paperwork and isolation verification by an independent person) are mandatory for all maintenance, not just that on nuclear components. Any evidence of wilfull violations resulted in immediate termination of employment. Stupid mistakes and oversights resulted in an immediate critique involving everyone involved and normally 3-5 days off without pay for the violators. Now I'm away from the DOE environment and into one where the enforcement of regulations and laws depend on skilled craftsmen "doing what is right even when no one is watching". It did take longer to get work done at a DOE facility, but before work started you understood all the hazards and understood and agreed with the scope of work. Throughout the job you knew all applicable isolations were indeed in the proper position, and remained locked and tagged until removed by the person(s) performing the work. Although civilian contractors are trying to get the work done and make a profit doing so, worker safety has got to be more than just idle talk or buzz words. Workers need to look out for the safety of one another and when a safety step is missed or over-looked, have the guts to immediately stop the work and fix the situation before proceeding. In the arc-flash incident described it appears that the electrician acted independently and without forethought of the hazards. Short of posting guards and/or locking most everything up there's not much one can do when a worker goes off on his own.