Rony Jabour spotlights cultural safety gaps at NSC Congress

United Safety Net founder and CEO Rony Jabour used the 2026 National Safety Council Safety Congress in Indianapolis to argue that workplace safety can fail when workers and leaders hear the same message differently. His framework, The Cultural Safety Gap, focuses on culture, communication, authority, education and trust in multicultural teams.

Why it matters: - Multicultural workplaces can have safety breakdowns even when training, policies and procedures are in place. - Jabour’s message targets a growing risk for U.S. employers as more workers come from different countries, education systems and cultural backgrounds. - The issue affects whether workers understand hazards, question unsafe tasks and actually stop work when needed.

What happened: - Rony Jabour, founder and CEO of United Safety Net, presented “Why Safety Programs Fail Immigrant Workers — and How Leaders Can Fix It” on Sept. 14, 2026, at the National Safety Council Safety Congress & Expo in Indianapolis. - Jabour introduced The Cultural Safety Gap™, a framework built around culture, communication, authority, education and trust in multicultural workplaces. - Jabour said the framework grew out of nearly two decades of work with multicultural and immigrant workforces.

The details: - Jabour said the topic is personal because his father died in a workplace accident when Jabour was six years old. - Jabour is an OSHA Authorized Outreach Trainer and international speaker who has trained more than 50,000 workers. - United Safety Net works with employers and workers in English, Portuguese and Spanish. - The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 5,070 occupational deaths in the United States in 2024. - Hispanic or Latino workers accounted for 1,229 of those deaths, more than 24% of all workplace fatalities. - Asian workers accounted for about 4% of workplace fatalities. - Among Hispanic or Latino workers who died on the job, 68.5% were foreign-born. - Foreign-born workers made up 19.2% of the U.S. civilian labor force in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. - Jabour said language matters, but translation alone does not solve communication problems. - Jabour said two people can hear the same instruction and interpret it differently. - Jabour pointed to a common workplace exchange where a supervisor asks, “Do you understand?” and a worker says “Yes.” - Jabour said a nod or a yes can signal respect, fear of disappointing a supervisor or reluctance to admit confusion. - Jabour said multicultural teams may vary widely in how they relate to authority. - Jabour said “A nod is not a competency assessment.” - The Cultural Safety Gap focuses on the space between what leaders think they communicated and what workers actually understood, trusted and felt able to act on. - Jabour challenged leaders to ask “obvious to whom?” when they assume safety instructions are common sense. - Jabour said some immigrant workers arrive with years of experience in workplaces that had very different safety systems and expectations. - Jabour said stop-work authority on paper is not the same as using that authority under pressure. - Jabour said workers may hesitate to stop work when production is behind schedule, when they strongly respect authority or when they depend on the job. - Jabour said frontline supervisors shape whether workers speak up after questions, mistakes or concerns. - Jabour said organizations should ask what workers understood, whether they can explain the hazard, whether they feel safe asking questions, whether they can challenge unsafe decisions and whether they will stop work when something is wrong. - Jabour said companies should evaluate not only the message they delivered, but the message the worker received.

Between the lines: - Jabour is arguing that safety failures in diverse workforces are often a leadership and communication problem, not just a training problem. - The framework shifts attention from compliance paperwork to day-to-day supervisor behavior and employee trust. - The message also reflects a broader challenge for employers: a one-size-fits-all safety program may not match how different workers interpret authority, risk and instruction.

What's next: - Jabour said United Safety Net will continue helping employers build safer multicultural teams. - The company is framing its work around stronger leadership, clearer communication and better understanding of worker background. - Jabour also pointed readers to more information about Rony Jabour, United Safety Net and the National Safety Council.

The bottom line: - Jabour’s central warning is that safety programs fail when leaders assume workers heard, understood and trusted the message the same way they did.