District 1 Retreat Expands Safety and Health Goals

District 1 brought together 44 local occupational safety and health coordinators from nearly every CWA sector Nov. 16 to talk about safer workplaces and using safety and health as a platform to mobilize and organize.

Local safety and health coordinators from the IUE-CWA manufacturing sector, telecom, state and local government, health care and media shared a wide range of experiences during a full day of panel discussions in Albany, N.Y.

"I have never seen this kind of diversified leadership at any CWA event," said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen, whose office oversees the union's safety and health programs.

Jeremiah Hayes, assistant to District 1 Vice President Larry Mancino, welcomed participants to the district's occupational safety and health retreat, put together by CWA OSH Director David LeGrande and Micki Siegel de Hernandez, a health and safety professional employed in the District 1 office under a grant from New York state.

LeGrande, IUE-CWA Industrial Division OSH Director Charlie Barrett and CWA Representative Ann McQueary are planning similar retreats with each of the other six districts prior to the CWA Occupational Health and Safety Conference in 2004.

LeGrande and Siegel alternately served as moderators for three panels of local safety and health activists who presented case studies drawn from a variety of work settings.

For example, John Vasko of IUE-CWA Local 81381 talked about how social workers his local represents sometimes face physical retaliation when they remove children from violent homes. Steve Barreres of NABET-CWA Local 51016 spoke on the hazards of electronic newsgathering and Edward Karecki of IUE-CWA Local 81416 described the danger of lead poisoning faced by workers in a battery plant who wear respirators their entire shifts.

"That kind of protection is the least adequate," LeGrande said, emphasizing the need to strengthen contract language to provide safeguards to prevent exposure.

LeGrande said the group discussed OSH practices and violations at Verizon, GE, Delphi Battery, Kaleida Health, ABC, New Era, and New Jersey state and New York City governments.

He cited four model agreements establishing national, state or corporate-wide joint safety and health committees:

• IUE-CWA's and Delphi Automotive Systems 1999 pact established a national joint committee with two union and two management representatives who meet monthly to review Delphi's OSH programs and federal, state and local standards as well as unusual situations that develop at individual plants and worker training guidelines.
  
  The Delphi pact also provides for local joint committees with up to two full-time paid union representatives, depending upon unit size, and health and safety training for shop committee chairs in locations where there is no other designated representative, and for several levels of review boards.
  
  
• CWA and Qwest's 2001 agreement builds upon collective bargaining language established in their 1989 contract, which set up a corporate-wide OSH committee with four management and four union representatives each and statewide committees with one co-chair each from union and management. Problems are solved at the state level, and information is shared with the corporate committee and with committees in 13 other states.
  
  
• Since the 1980s, CWA has negotiated occupational safety and health language with the state of New Jersey. The 1999 agreements for higher level supervisors, primary level supervisors, professionals, and administrative and clerical service workers indicate that it is the state's responsibility to develop and enforce occupational safety and health standards and to provide a safe and healthful work environment. The pact provides for separate OSH and VDT safety committees at several levels.
  
  In addition, CWA and the state have agreed to set up a state health and safety committee on VDTs (computers). With four union and four management representatives, the committee monitors compliance with Health and Senior Services Department guidelines and recommends improvements.
  
  
• CWA Local 1168 and Kaleida Health Care Systems 2000 agreement provides for a full-time, paid CWA health and safety director and establishes joint safety and ergonomics committees at the corporate level and at each of seven facilities: Buffalo General Hospital, Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital, Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital, DeGraff Memorial Hospital, the Center for Laboratory Medicine, Children's Hospital and Deaconess Hospital.

Shifting topics, Local 14177 President Jane Howald reviewed how National Labor Relations Board and Occupational Safety and Health Administration filings by CWA helped leverage a settlement in July of the local's yearlong strike against the New Era Cap Co. Local 14177 members' myriad repetitive strain injuries, exposure to blood-borne pathogens from needle sticks, and risks from working on unsafe machinery were well-documented in government citations and investigative reports that established the company's reputation as "a sweatshop employer."