the maoster:
Health & safety is the best thing in the world from an employers point of view.Just as long as it doesn’t cost anything to implement and doesn’t have any adverse effect on productivity.
The upsides for an employer:
You can stand down a driver on a regular rotate, when their hours are getting a bit on the short side - and have a nice big hug-a-long classroom session where you have to state stuff like your name, and what everyone at the depot knows you as “if different”. 40 minutes later, you then move onto the next bod around the table… 
If you want to get rid of someone the man with the golden gun - gets it done - just catch them infringing some safety aspect, and probably the fairest way to play it is some kind of “three strikes and you’re out” system, where “strike one” could be for something as little as straying off the yellow marked walkways, or walking between trailers without a torch out…
It gives someone who’s just been taken off driving for six weeks for a succession of minor tacho infringements - some “yard duties” in the form of “first aid training” along with kitting out a room to that effect, that then just sits there, locked, and doing the room equivalent of “gathering dust”…
The firm can claim back extra tax offset expenses, using these “expenses” as a reason to “keep hourly rates down” whilst they’re at it.
If you want to get rid of someone - load their vehicle at the tail end with a petrol lawn mower that has a full tank, and a pallet of fertilizer next to it…
If driver refuses on the basis that “it ain’t safe” - then they can be sacked for insubordination, when in fact the real reason is some kind of Hazard Goods training required, which - does it pay more these days or not? comes into play…
If a driver carries on without question - sack them for attempting to pull out of the bay with a clearly hazardous load, when they don’t have the right cards to do that particular job…
Red Lights - Serious safety infringment in many places. Make sure the buggers inside don’t do that annoying thing where they give you a green light, and just as you get your keys back, jump in your cab, and start your engine - it goes to red again, because “they forgot to load one pallet”… I reckon most “fall down the gap” accidents - happen because of this bit of corner cutting - but it’s the driver who gets it in the neck for what amounts to “lousy DEPOT safety procedures among their own staff”!
Trailers dropped at wrong height - ever thumped the back of the 5th wheel into the umbilicals panel, the trailer has been dropped so low? OR under-run the pin, even with the suspension on the tractor lifted up all the way? If you check thoroughly, you’ll probably end up with arms like popeye trying to wind the legs on low gear in either case… OR you could just take five out to find a shunter to alter the dropped height for you, of course… Is the safety infringement “being in too much of a hurry to find that shunter”? - I suggest that it is actually. 
The upsides of being an employee:
You’re less likely to get killed as an agency/visitor driver - but more likely to get sacked as one of their full timers, because over time - a full timer is more subject to many “small, near-miss” incidents than any visitor… 