Rationale
The reasons for establishing good occupational safety and health standards are frequently identified as:
• Moral - an employee should not have to risk injury at work, nor should others associated with the work environment;
• Economic - many governments realize that poor occupational safety and health performance results in increased costs to the state (e.g. through social security payments to the incapacitated, costs for medical treatment, and the loss of the "employability" of the worker). Employers also sustain costs in the event of an incident at work (such as legal fees, fines, compensatory damages, investigation time, lost production, lost goodwill from the workforce, from customers and from the wider community);
• Legal - occupational safety and health requirements may be reinforced in civil law and/or criminal law; it is accepted that without the extra "encouragement" of potential regulatory action or litigation, many organizations would not act upon their implied moral obligations.