A few years ago, I worked for a “professional” cabinetmaking shop. Originally, I was hired purely as a warehouse guy, but I got quickly promoted by the shop foreman because I was the only person who gave a shit in the entire building. The owner of the company didn't want that because his son was supposed to have the position I ended up with (a machine operator), but he couldn't really argue with the foreman.
As part of my “giving a shit” responsibilities, I was sent on First Aid and Workplace Health and Safety training. I was still loyal to my foreman, so I kinda looked to the other way on a lot of the violations (I was young and stupid) during my inspections. Still, I wrote everything down, but I never filed anything as a complaint. Then, a cold day in February came when my foreman quit so he could take a lucrative contracting job.
Queue the rapid downfall of the company because that foreman was keeping pretty much everything together. The owner starting cutting costs, getting his “buddies” to do repairs and maintenance for the shop for beer (surprisingly, nothing worked well). In 6 months, we went through 8 foremen, ending up with this “yes man” for the owner. This guy was a total dweeb and led to me getting fired because of a stupid choice he made to not call an ambulance.
An employee blinded himself with a thinner accidentally and the foreman made me drive him to the hospital in my personal vehicle because he didn't want to call an ambulance and “upset the boss”. While at the hospital, the nurse asked a bunch of questions about how it happened and we explained everything. A few days later, we got a surprise inspection from SafeWork and each employee was interviewed. The owner wanted to be in the room, but SafeWork told him to f off.
In my interview, I gave them all my unfiled reports, from the forged vehicle inspections to the lack of fire extinguishers to the fact that the eye wash station was hooked to a hot water line instead of a cold one. They wrote everything down and thanked me for my “candid answers”.
A week later, on a day of a pizza lunch, my foreman pulled me aside. “Listen man, [the owner] is going to be out here in 15 to publically fire you for some shit he made up. He's really mad about what you told SafeWork. Here's your paycheque, get the hell out of here”.
8 months later, I find the company had closed. Talking with some old coworkers, a couple things led to the collapse. The owner's son almost lost his hand when he took over the machine I ran because he wouldn't hire an official trainer, rather handing the poorly translated 400-page manual over and saying “figure it out”. The other main reason was, unsurprisingly, SafeWork's fines for everything they found.