Grant for Hazardous Substance Education

CWA's Occupational Safety and Health Department and the United Steelworkers (USW) Tony Mazzocchi Center (TMC), its health, safety and environment education and training division, were recently awarded a five-year grant award from the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The grant, to be initiated August 1, 2010 and run through July 31, 2015, will allow CWA and USW/TMC to join together in developing and conducting safety and health training for CWA and USW members.

The training under this grant will be based on a participatory worker-centered training methodology in which workers train other workers.

Activists who complete the train-the-trainer program will advance to train other members/workers on topics focused upon hazardous substances/materials as well as workplace safety and health hazard recognition and control.

The grant will underwrite the development of occupational safety and health education and training activities as well as the participation of CWA members in:

• Train-the-trainer training (This training would be conducted as a one-time program intended to familiarize CWA activists with the worker-centered train-the-trainer model) and
• Training targeting local union leaders and safety and health activists. Training topics, contained on the USW/TMC webpage, include effective occupational safety and health committees, hazard mapping, and general OSHA training.