This week (August 10 to 16, 2026) is national Safe + Sound Week. It is the tenth year that employers throughout Illinois, Indiana, and the rest of the country are invited to participate in specific events and activities during the workday where workers and management join together in building safer work environments and safety strategies.
The public service campaign is a coordinated effort between the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”); the National Safety Council (“NSC”); the Center for Construction Research and Training (“CPWR”); the American Society of Safety Professionals (“ASSP”); the Voluntary Protection Programs Participants’ Association, Inc. (“VPPPA”); the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (“NIOSH”); and the American Industrial Hygiene Association (“AIHA”).
Participation is voluntary. No state or federal agency is requiring any company or employer to take part in Safe + Sound Week.
As the National Association of Home Builders explains:
Participating in Safe + Sound Week is an excellent opportunity to promote your company’s workplace safety practices and show the strength of your safety culture. Successful safety and health programs can proactively identify and manage workplace hazards before they cause injury or illness, improving sustainability and the bottom line. Participating in Safe + Sound Week can help start your program, energize an existing one, or provide a chance to recognize your safety successes.
Safe + Sound Week is popular with all sorts of industries as a way to help those with legal duties of safety and care better protect their workers from harm. Workers should be alert to the events offered this week and importantly, workers should be aware of the implications if their employers are failing to participate or recognize this very public and popular worker safety initiative.
Core Focus for 2026 Safe + Sound Week: Recognition of Safety Goals
Each year, the campaign has a theme. This year’s focus is not upon known workplace dangers (like 2025’s preparing for workplace emergencies) but instead on various industrial safety and health recognition programs, with employers putting the spotlight on those people as well as plans and protocols that make their safety efforts successful.
OSHA wants workers to be very involved here. Workers are encouraged to take part in this year’s campaign, not only sharing how safety in their particular jobsite is important but providing their input on how to make things safer in the workplace, including identifying challenges and dangers that may be putting workers or colleagues in danger.
From OSHA: Workers often know the most about potential hazards associated with their jobs. When they are involved in finding solutions, they feel invested in the program. To maximize participation, however, workers must feel free of any fear of retaliation for reporting an injury or hazardous conditions.
Workers can participate in many ways, including:
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- Developing the initial program design.
- Reporting incidents (including near misses) so they can be investigated.
- Analyzing hazards associated with routine and nonroutine jobs, tasks, and processes.
- Defining and documenting safe work practices.
- Conducting site inspections and incident investigations.
- Training current coworkers and new hires.
- Evaluating program performance and identifying ways to improve it.
Worker Rights and Reporting Workplace Dangers and Safety Risks
During Safe + Sound Week, employers are being urged by the campaign sponsors to set up various types of reward systems, including things like certificates and awards, that encourage workers to help advance workplace safety. The campaign provides lots of resources and support here, including help in “Better Safety Conversations” and “Encourage Workers to Participate in the Program.”
This includes a reminder to employers, and others with possession, custody, or control of aspects of the worksite that workers have legal rights regarding participation in workplace safety matters.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) of 1970 guarantees workers certain rights when it comes to participation in workplace safety and health issues. These include:
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- The right to information that employers collect on hazards in the workplace.
- The right to attend any training required by an OSHA standard during normal working hours.
- The right to know about chemical hazards in the workplace.
- The right to file a complaint with OSHA or request an OSHA workplace inspection.
- The right to participate in an OSHA workplace inspection and ask questions of the OSHA inspector.
- Make sure workers are aware of these rights as you design and develop your program. This will help ease concerns they might have about participating or speaking up.
For many workers, an undercurrent remains that there can be ramifications from voicing concerns over hazards or risks they see on the job. Retaliation is a very real threat to many workers, not only from their immediate supervisor, but from company management; other companies or contractors; and even co-workers on the site.
Things like creating a “Safety Wall of Fame” may sound encouraging, but for workers in everyday life, things like earning a Champion Safety Certificate may not carry much weight when perceived realities are a lost job or being blackballed for coming forward about a safety risk.
Whistleblower protections may not be enough to overcome the concerns of many workers about things that can happen to those who speak up about dangers at their workplace. Boosting a respected safety presence as part of this year’s safety campaign is admirable, but may not be sufficient to overcome the threats, real or perceived, by many industrial workers who are considering speaking up about risks and hazards.
For more on OSHA Whistleblower protections, read Whistleblowers Given New Online Protection by OSHA; Whistleblower Illinois Rail Employee Wins Against Railroads That Fired Him; and Important Things to Know About OSHA Protections and Work Accidents in Illinois or Indiana.
Worker Safety Participation and Work Accident Injury Claims
Another reality here is that foreseeability of a serious or deadly workplace accident is a factor that helps establish legal liability for all those who failed in their legal duties of safety and care after someone is hurt on the job. Workers have the legal right to investigate the facts surrounding their accident under state personal injury laws that are independent of any claim for benefits under an employer’s workers’ compensation policy.
For these worker victims, the fact that in the past there have been workers voicing concerns over situations or circumstances that existed at the time of their accident can be very important.
- Did a worker tell a supervisor they were concerned about a loose-fitting railing on a scaffold before there was a fatal fall?
- Had a trucker warned their dispatcher about a shipper’s bad acts before a bad truck crash?
- Were there lots of complaints in a breakroom drop box from workers at the factory about an absence of safety guards on some of the machinery in the weeks or months before someone suffered a traumatic amputation?
Some of these things may be protected by OSHA Whistleblower regulations, but they may not be required to be recorded or stored within company records by the powers-that-be in the same way as official accident reports. For work accident victims, this information about foreseeable risks and past knowledge or accident dangers may only be revealed in the “discovery process” that happens after a civil lawsuit is filed.
Working with their legal advocates, the worker victim may be able to not only request the production of documents regarding any safety concerns voiced by workers within the past twelve months before the accident, but also to inquire in interrogatories about things like “did any employee report an issue regarding this area/hazard/machine etc. before the accident that hurt the worker victim?”
And, of course, for employers and others with legal duties of care, having these types of safety concerns discovered in the history of the accident is not favorable to their defense.
To workers in Illinois and Indiana, what does this mean during Safe + Sound Week? For companies and organizations that are clearly concerned about the safety and well-being of their work force, the 2026 campaign is an invitation to make things even safer for everyone. Worker participation will be recognized and appreciated as true experts on the site giving invaluable input into protections in sometimes notoriously dangerous jobsites.
However, for workers that are not being asked to participate in this type of safety campaign, concerns must be considered. How vital is workplace safety for those signing their paycheck? And how dangerous is their work environment, are there dangers being unaddressed and disrespected?
For more, read:
- Stopping Work In the Face of Danger on the Job: Stop Work Authority
- Dangerous Work Site: Your Right to Stop Work to Avoid Injury or Death
- Damages are Different: Workers Compensation vs. Third Party Personal Injury Claims
- The Steel Industry is Dangerous: How Can Personal Injury Attorneys Help Steel Workers Hurt on the Job?
- Manufacturing Work in Indiana and Illinois: Can Workers Force Manufacturers to Make Job Sites Safer?
Safe + Sound Week is a national safety campaign to be applauded for its efforts to keep our workers safe in some very dangerous industrial worksites. Encouraging the respect and recognition of the worker in site safety is smart. Nevertheless, workers still face threats of retaliation and many still have employers that choose profits over people, with accident risks skyrocketing as a result. Please be careful out there!
