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"One of the reasons it took so long to get this law is that TEAs were thought of as 'meter maids,'" Huntley said. "In the 1960s, the first agents were women, and that's what they were called. The name stuck. They were seen as doing clerical work that didn't require protection."

Almost nine years ago, one of the first actions taken by the Bush administration was the repeal of a federal ergonomics standard issued just months earlier by the outgoing Clinton administration. Left in place, the OSHA standard, some 10 years in the making, could have prevented tens of millions of work-related injuries. Among those most vulnerable are CWA members in customer service, manufacturing, health care and related occupations.

Workplace and hazard mapping is a tool that a number of unions are now using to identify unsafe job areas by literally producing a floor map of the worksite.

A landmark university study of CWA technicians at Verizon in California offers proof of what many telecom techs know all too well: They are working long hours, facing heat stress, electrical hazards, physical strain and other conditions that are affecting their health.