Just Culture?

[Steve_68]

Hi All – ‘newbe’ here.

I just saw an article in this month’s Airliner World magazine on Just Culture and that got me thinking; how many of you are happy with your employer’s Just Culture policy?

Apparently under EU law, organisations must have a Just Culture in place by November 2015 – Personally, I welcome this but at the same time, I appreciate some operators (including mine) may have some way to go to be ‘EU compliant’.

[Piltdown Man]

If James Reason's Deminishing Culpability Decision Tree (cobbled together in 2006) is used, this will be one of the most regressive steps in aviation. But I fear it will be. As admirable as this man is in his own imagination, he hasn't said who will decide which route will be taken from each decision box. Call me old fashioned but I suspect it will be managers, government officials and prosecutors who will take the decisions and then have the gall to tell us that this is approved by the World's leading aviation safety authority. God help us all! This will be the most unjust move that has been taken in aviation and I would strongly advise every pilot to only report what is strictly necessary. This is because to get to the last box "History of Unsafe acts" you don't want your name on any file. Because if the entry point you are basically screwed should anything "unsafe" happen. The ones to suffer first will be those with names on FDM/FOQA data.

The reality of incidents and unsafe acts is that they are generally pretty complicated affairs. Redneck justice is unable to look into the subtleties, vagaries and nitty gritty that makes up the environment in which we operate. Only when we are judged independently, have our peers to draw the line, see the evidence and gave the right to appeal will any form of "Just Culture" even start to exist. So guys, welcome to the Aviation Inquisition, brought to you by those reckless, out of touch, unmentionables in EASA.

PM

ps. For a saner view of life, may I suggest you read "Just Culture - balancing safety and accountability" second edition, by Sidney Dekker.

[megan]

A brief Dekker article on "Just Culture" to give you a taste Steve of Piltdown's reference.

http://sidneydekker.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/JustCultureCTW.pdf

[Dan Winterland]

The problem with the 'Just Culture' philosophy is that it means different things to the various stakeholders. A good way to get the ideas aligned is to subscribe to an objective analysis which is rigidly adhered to. My company uses Baines Simmon's FAIR system which seems to keep the managers, crews and safety system happy. On the few occasions we have had to use it, it has worked well in this respect.

[PEI_3721]

Blameless Post Mortems and a Just Culture https://codeascraft.com/2012/05/22/blameless-postmortems/