INCREASING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
SAFETY & HEALTH COMMITTEES
Today’s workers and unions in the basic steel industry are confronted daily with many health and safety issues and hazards. This range from exposure to toxic chemicals, to heat stress, to unsafe equipment, to problems associated with work organization and work restructuring (including but not limited to: understaffing, mandatory overtime, overwork, stress and fatigue). In addition, workplaces often lack comprehensive worksite health and safety programs aimed at identifying and eliminating hazards.
Many unions have formed health and safety committees to help the local union deal with health and safety issues in an on-going and effective way. There are two basic types of health and safety committees:
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Local union health and safety committees, composed exclusively of union members, and
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Joint labor-management health and safety committees, composed of representatives fom union and management.
These are two different kinds of health and safety committees. Both can be very important in efforts to improve workplace health and safety committees.
LOCAL UNION HEALTH & SAFETY COMMITTEES
Local union health and safety committees primarily investigate health and safety conditions and issues on behalf of the union. They also communicate with the union membership and leadership on health and safety matters, and recommend strategies and actions to improve conditions.
Who Serves on Local Union Health and Safety Committees?
Members of the local union health and safety committee are generally appointed by local union officers or elected by the membership. Committee members often represent different departments and/or shifts in a workplace. Some unions have a representative from the local’s negotiating committee and/or a local union officer serve on this committee as well. Local unions with negotiated joint labor-management health and safety committees frequently have their members who serve on the joint committee also serve on the local union’s health and safety committee.
Functions of a Local Union Health and Safety Committee:
The local union committee should be involved in these types of activities:
1. Identifying current and potential health and safety hazards and problems,
2. Identifying appropriate measures to eliminate or control hazards and problems,
3. Identifying effective union strategies for getting improvements in health and safety conditions,
4. Assisting the union representatives on a joint labor-management health and safety committee in identifying union concerns for discussion and resolution by the joint committee,
5. Evaluating the effectiveness of control measures put in place,
6. Communicating with and educating union leadership and membership, and building member involvement in the union’s health and safety efforts.
With this in mind, some of the specific activities that local union committees can undertake to accomplish these functions include:
- Surveying the membership regarding their health and safety concerns as well as work-related symptoms, injuries, illnesses and stresses.
- Conducting body mapping, hazards mapping and other activities for identifying and tracking hazards and their impacts on the membership.
- Conducting investigations of incidents, illnesses and near-misses.
- Participation in any monitoring of workplace conditions performed by the employer, a consultant or an OSHA inspector.
- Getting and regularly reviewing information on hazards, monitoring data, incident reports, OSHA 300 logs of injuries and illnesses, workers’ compensation records, health and safety complaints, and summary data from work-related medical examinations (such as hearing tests).
- Getting and reviewing information on contemplated workplace changes for the presence of hazards. This would include reviewing plans for new equipment, new work processes, new technologies, work restructuring/changes in how work is organized, etc., to see if adjustments need to be made to assure that the change will not be hazardous to workers’ health or safety.
- Engaging in regular two-way communication with union leadership and membership on health and safety issues.
- Educating union membership and leadership about particular health or safety issues and concerns.
- Selecting priority health and safety issues and recommended solutions to raise with management.
- Assisting with the development of strategies for getting priority health and safety issues addressed.
- Filing and following up on OSHA complaints. Some unions, when filing OSHA complaints, involve their members by asking those who are exposed to the hazards specified in the complaint to sign the complaint..
- Participating in informal conferences with OSHA and management following a citation for an OSHA violation.
- Following up on any citation formally contested by management. (Note: The union can file for “party status” with the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission to give the union rights to be involved in the proceedings. For more information on filing for party status, contact your local union officers, Staff Representative, and/or the USW’s Health, Safety and Environment Department at 412-562-2581.
- Preparing for joint labor-management health and safety committee meetings.
Resources Needed by a Local Union Health and Safety Committee
To be effective in their roles on local union health and safety committees, committee members need several things: time, access to the workplace, resources and training.
Time:
Union health and safety committee members need time to engage in the activities listed above. Some unions provide lost-time to committee members in order to complete these duties; other unions have negotiated contract language providing time to union health and safety committee representatives to engage in these functions. Unions that are just starting a union-only committee may begin by encouraging committee members to meet at lunch or break time to discuss ideas and begin a planning process for investigating and solving problems.
Access To The Workplace:
Ideally, union health and safety committee representatives should have regular access to the workplace to speak with members about health and safety issues and concerns, investigate problems, and conduct incident and accident investigations.
Access to Resources:
In order to stay on top of legal, technical and strategic information regarding workplace health and safety, local union health and safety committee members should have a basic library of health and safety texts and materials, access to the internet and to a list of resource individuals and organizations to help understand problems, solutions and strategies. Some union halls have set aside a space with a library and computer for use by the union’s health and safety representatives. (Note: the USW’s Health, Safety and Environment Department can suggest basic resources for this library).
Access to Training:
Union health and safety committee members need access to health and safety training, including union-based training and education. Local unions can arrange this training though their local union officers, Staff Representative and USW Health, Safety and Environment Department. Other sources of training may be the state AFL-CIO, COSH groups and university-based labor studies programs. The training should cover issues related to “traditional” hazards (for example, toxic chemicals, unsafe equipment); hazards associated with new technologies and with how work is organized or being restructured (like hours of work, staffing levels, work load, work pace); and strategies for getting hazards corrected.
JOINT LABOR-MANAGEMENT HEALTH AND SAFETY COMMITTEES
Joint labor-management health and safety committees are most often established by contract language. They provide a forum for unions and management to interact on health and safety issues and problems and to improve safety and health conditions at the workplace. These committees include representatives from both labor and management, and usually meet on a regular basis (such as monthly).
Some joint labor-management committees have been very effective in identifying and addressing health and safety problems on an on-going basis. Other joint committees are less effective in solving health and safety problems.
The next section includes a list of questions regarding joint labor-management health and safety committees. The more “yes” answers, the more likely a joint committee is to be effective in addressing health and safety problems in a workplace.
Questions to Ask About Joint Labor-Management Committees:
1. Do union and management have equal numbers of members on the committee?
2. Does the union select the union members who serve on this committee?
3. Does the union have a role in chairing or co-chairing the joint committee?
4. Are the management members of the committee senior enough to make real decisions that cost money?
5. Can the committee make decisions and put them into effect?
6. Does the union have an equal say in establishing the joint committee’s agenda and priorities?
7. Can the committee make inspections of the workplace?
8. Can the committee shut down unsafe jobs?
9. Does the local union regularly monitor the effectiveness of the joint committee in dealing with the issues raised by the union?
10. Does the committee have regular access to information on safety and health kept by the employer (such as OSHA 300 Injury and Illness Logs; records of medical testing and exposure monitoring; material safety data sheets; proposed or planned changes in technologies, work processes or work organization that could impact job safety and health)?
11. Do committee members have the right to take samples in the workplace and carry out simple monitoring?
12. Do union members of the committee receive lost-time pay for carrying out their functions and for receiving training?
13. Do the union representatives serving on the joint committee meet prior to each joint meeting to review and prioritize concerns and plan for the joint meeting?
14. Does the employer provide resources for these union-only meetings (for example, paid time and health and safety-related data to review)?
15. Do joint committee agendas regularly include time to identify current (or continuing) problems, appropriate solutions, who will be responsible for implementing the solution, and deadlines for action to be taken on each problem?
16. Does the committee help in planning in-service health and safety education for workers, including orientation of new workers?
Some employers have established departmental or area health and safety committees that include members of management and the workforce, or committees that deal with particular issues such as ergonomics. It is important that the union view these departmental, area or hazard-specific committees in the same way they view the larger joint labor-management health and safety committee and apply the same guidelines above for ensuring the effectiveness of these committees.
In general, one of the most important things a local union can do to increase the effectiveness of a joint labor-management health and safety committee is to assure that the local union’s own health and safety committee (which in most cases will include the union’s representatives to the joint labor-management committee) meets regularly to plan for the joint meetings, evaluate the effectiveness of the joint committee and identify strategies for improving health and safety efforts.
Functions of a Joint Labor-Management Health and Safety Committee
A joint labor-management health and safety committee should have the following responsibilities:
- Identifying current and potential health and safety hazards and problems,
- Identifying appropriate measures to eliminate or control hazards and problems,
- Getting recommendations acted upon, and
- Evaluating the effectiveness of control measures put in place.
Some of the specific activities that joint labor-management health and safety committees can undertake to accomplish these functions include:
- Reviewing all information and data (like OSHA 300 logs, incident reports, complaints, workers compensation data, monitoring results, inspection and walk-through reports, etc.) to identify problems, hazards and trends;
- Investigating incidents, illnesses and near-misses;
- Reviewing information related to contemplated workplace changes for the presence of hazards, and
- Tracking the effectiveness of hazard control efforts.
Joint labor-management health and safety committee members will also need time, access to the workplace, access to resources, and access to training to effectively carry out their functions.
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