Hi,

My husband has his first face to face interview tomorrow since being terminated after 16 years. This was due to an accident that was reported as a policy violation. It was his first incident and he does take responsibility but it was one of those things that all the supervisors did but never considered the consequences'.
So, my question is should he tell the truth or just say he was laid off? He's gone through recruiters and temp agencies and has told them everything but after a couple of phone interviews it didn't seem like they were told why he left his job. Anyway, I know he would rather be honest & get it off his chest but he's been unemployed now for 8 months and the previous employer did not let him get unemployment, he only rec'd a 3 month severance pkg which has ran out.
Any advise would be helpful. Thank you

If he lies and the truth is discovered he will have absolutely no chance of being hired. I don't know that anything but the truth is an option.

That sounds like a severe penalty for a single incident - ?

What safety requirement was violated (you don't mention the word safety but that is what this was- a safety violation or "safety policy violation" if you prefer)? And what accident resulted?
Were there deaths or injuries?
Workers and supervisors ignore safety requirements often. The fact that they gamble and get away with it doesn't help the supervisor who is in charge of the operation where the accident finally occurs.
Any supervisor who doesn't understand the consequences of violating safety requirements shouldn't be a supervisor. The main consequences of safety violations are death and injury of the employees he/she supervises. The consequence of the supervisor losing their job is a trivial one.
It would be to the benefit of all for him to seek employment in a job where he won't be supervising workers. I wouldn't hire him and I would definitely fire him if he didn't tell me about his past problem and I found out about it after I had hired him.
If his other skills and supervisory knowledge (other than safety) are outstanding and documented, there is a possibility that a company would be willing to hire him and give him extensive safety training which he obviously needs if it took him 16 years to learn that safety is important.