Activism Brings Safer Workplaces, Safer Communities

Without the labor movement, there would be virtually no safety and health protections in American workplaces — and fewer environmental protections against toxic chemicals and other hazards throughout our homes and communities as well.

Plagued by thousands of deaths and workplace injuries, AFL-CIO unions including CWA mounted an intense lobbying and education campaign in the 1960s leading to passage of landmark legislation to protect workers. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 created the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to establish and enforce workplace health and safety standards.

Countless lives have been saved because of OSHA and safety laws specific to industries although, "We fight a constant battle for adequate funding and enforcement against big business lobbyists and their political allies," noted CWA Health and Safety Director Dave LeGrande.

Beyond the Washington arena, union safety and health activists are active year-round in working not only to improve conditions at CWA job sites but throughout their communities as well.

For example, Steve Gauthier, for the past 10 years Local 81201's safety and health representative at the General Electric Gear Plant Division in Lynn, Mass., has successfully worked with management to reduce the number of recordable workplace injuries or illnesses from 23 to 2.7 per year.

As a member of the plant's joint safety and health committee, he has identified and helped eliminate conditions such as exposure to toxic fumes given off by solvents and known to cause death by asphyxiation, exposure to asbestos which can cause serious lung disease, and amputations due to accidents with heavy equipment.

He also is active on the labor advisory committee of the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow (AHT), advocating for the use of safer chemicals that eventually find their way into people's homes.

Through a five-year lobbying campaign, AHT succeeded in 2006 in winning a new state law requiring the mandatory industrial phase-out of mercury. A dangerous neurotoxin, mercury has been linked to learning disabilities and developmental delays in children, as well as damage to the heart, nervous system and kidneys in adults.

The Mercury Products Bill, signed into law by Gov. Mitt Romney in July 2006, calls for mercury-added products to be replaced with safer alternatives whenever feasible, prohibits the disposal of mercury-containing waste products as solid waste, and promotes and ensures the proper collection, transportation, recycling and disposal of all mercury-containing products.

Now Gauthier and the coalition are working to enact two more bills to require the use of safer alternatives to chemicals used in cleaning products and to reduce the incidence of asthma and other health threats from the emissions of toxic chemicals used in schools, health care facilities, public buildings and public housing.

Curing 'Sick Buildings'

In New Jersey, CWA locals including 1034 and 1040 joined with the N.J. Education Association and other public employees as early as 1983 to lobby for a statewide Indoor Air Quality Standard. And they have continued to work closely with the New Jersey Work Environment Council — a coalition of 70 labor, community and environmental organizations working for safe, secure jobs and a healthy, sustainable environment.

The present standard, first implemented in 1996 and enforced by the state health department, establishes regulations for controlling microbial and other air contaminants in public buildings, and requires record-keeping and investigation of employee complaints, inspections and enforcement.

Eileen Senn, a retired health department employee and former Local 1034 executive board member, worked on the standard from the beginning. An industrial hygienist, she continues as a consultant to WEC. Local 1034 Staff Representative             Mark Watson recently chaired a series of meetings between state employers and employees to formulate recommendations for updating the standard this year.

Based on those recommendations and additional research, WEC testified at a state hearing Jan. 5, asking that employers improve compliance and staff training, that water intrusion be cleaned up within 48 hours of occurrence and aired out before reoccupancy of a building, and that the toxicity of construction materials be checked before they are selected. The recommendations, expected to be put in place this June, also define "sick building syndrome" and establish it as a basis for investigation, and they expand coverage of the act to school buildings.

Said Senn, "The changes will improve indoor air quality in places of public employment frequented by state residents as well as some 1.4 million students."