2009 CWA Occupational Safety and Health Conference - Panel Presentations

Panel Presentations

Through the use of panel presentations and strategy and discussion/workshop sessions, the Occupational Safety and Health Conference will:

• Emphasize tactics and strategies to identify, resolve, and prevent workplace safety and health hazards;
• Present ideas and tools which the union's occupational safety and health (OSH) activists may use to educate and involve other OSH activists and CWA leaders in occupational safety and health committees and activities;
• Demonstrate the advantages to developing and implementing cooperative workplace and environmental safety and health programs and activities with represented employers and external allied organizations.

In addition, these activities will emphasize the importance of conducting the union's safety and health functions within the context of CWA's action triangle, i.e., organizing, collective bargaining, and politics and legislation.

  Panel Presentations

• Our Jobs, Our Economy, Our Health and Safety

During the last 25 years, CWA and the labor movement have witnessed many changes within represented industries and private and public sector employers. More recently, CWA members and other U.S. workers experienced the near melt-down of the U.S. economy. This session will focus upon this economic crisis, its effect upon our health, safety, and well-being, as well as the need for a collective response to counter these actions and help build and strengthen CWA and the labor movement.

• Workplace Ergonomics, Stress, and Related Physical and Mental Stress Related Health Problems

Workplace ergonomics and related work organization design is the leading cause of workplace injuries and illnesses. Many of the affected workers are CWA members. This session will target physical ergonomics and work organization design issues and reasons why CWA members are experiencing high rates of work-related musculoskeletal disorders and stress-related health problems. Focusing upon represented telecommunications, health care, and manufacturing employers, detailed and practical identification and resolution strategies and tactics as well as information, tools, and materials will be presented.

Highlighting this panel discussion will be remarks specific to a recently-conducted ergonomics study of CWA telecommunications craft workers, data specific to workers within the health care industry, and an investigation of represented manufacturing workers. 

• Pandemic Flu

On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the worldwide pandemic alert level for H1N1 Influenza A/Pandemic Influenza to Phase 6, the highest emergency classification, thus, indicating there are community level outbreaks of H1N1 in multiple parts of the world. A pandemic is a rapid, world-wide spread of a disease which would occur when:

• There is a new influenza virus that can cause serious illness and death,
• People have little natural immunity to prevent the illness, and
• The virus is capable of spreading easily from person to person.

To date, tens of thousands of workers and their families have been affected and infected either directly or indirectly as a result of exposure to an H1N1-contaminated individual, co-worker, family member, and/or friend. 

This panel will discuss an overview of Pandemic Flu including health effects, the most affected/susceptible workers and individuals, methods of prevention and protection, as well as labor-management policies and concerns including the employer's development of an infection control program and the union's role in ensuring workers are provided safe and healthful working conditions. 

• Developing Leadership Skills through Occupational Safety and Health Training

Panelists will discuss building leadership skills among occupational safety and health activists through the provision of and participation in workplace safety and health education and training. Specific examples of how this could be accomplished will be demonstrated through a discussion of course offerings, completed training sessions, and union action. 

• Workplace Violence

Workplace violence is a major issue for CWA members, particularly those employed in jobs such as social and case workers, health care workers, corrections and public safety officers, customer service representatives, airline workers, and telecommunications technicians involving direct and indirect contact with the public. In fact, several CWA locals have reported cases in which members have been physically and verbally abused and assaulted, robbed, and shot.

This session will focus upon an overview of the workplace violence issue, a discussion of labor-management contractual agreements specific to workplace violence, as well as successful regulatory actions taken to prevent workplace violence.  

Strategy and Discussion Sessions

• Workplace Ergonomics and Stress

Workplace ergonomics is a major workplace safety and health issue and cause of thousands upon thousands of workers health symptoms and disabling injuries and illnesses. This strategy and discussion session will target information demonstrating methods used to educate workers about the importance of workplace ergonomics, identifying elements/factors (of proper and) improper design and related member repetitive motion/musculoskeletal injuries and illnesses, and suggesting methods by which these design and health problems might be resolved/prevented.

• Establishing Effective Occupational Safety and Health Committees

The establishment of effective, active occupational safety and health committees within local unions as well as the negotiation of joint labor-management workplace safety and health committees is essential to ensuring local leaders and activists are using safety and health issues to pressure represented employers to provide workers with safe and healthful working conditions as well as using safety and health issues to help build and strengthen the union.

This strategy and discussion session is designed for members of local union and/or joint labor-management safety and health committees as well as other OSH activists who want to make safety and health a priority in the workplace.

• Recordkeeping and OSHA Logs

As provided for in the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers have a legal obligation to accurately report/record employee work-related injuries and illnesses. However, often, we find employers are not adequately fulfilling the recordkeeping requirements of the OSHAct. Clearly, the identification of safety and health hazards is fundamental to the union's development of a comprehensive approach to resolving and preventing occupational injuries and illnesses.

This session will focus upon understanding OSHA injury and illness recordkeeping requirements, reading and analyzing OSHA 300 Injury and Illness Logs, and discussing the uses and limitations of OSHA 300 Logs.

• Behavior-Based Safety

For many years, employers have initiated behavior-based/"blame-the-worker" safety programs with the intention of decreasing worker reports of occupational injuries and illnesses as well as shifting the safety and health responsibilities from the employer to workers. These approaches shift the focus from identifying and addressing hazards and hazardous conditions to blaming workers for their "unsafe acts" and "at risk" behaviors. Programs include:

• Safety Incentive Programs (where workers get rewards when injuries aren't reported)
• Injury Discipline (where workers are threatened with discipline and/or drug tests when injuries are reported) and
• Behavioral Safety Observation Programs (where workers are watched doing their jobs and checklists of "critical worker behaviors" are filled out, noting whether "safe" or "at risk" behaviors were observed).  

This session will highlight specific features of behavior-based/blame-the-worker safety programs, the flawed theories that underlie these programs, and what unions can do to prevent or eliminate these programs and turn the focus back to finding and fixing hazards.          

• Pandemic Flu

On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the worldwide pandemic alert level for H1N1 Influenza A/Pandemic Flu to Phase 6, the highest emergency classification, thus, indicating there are community level outbreaks of H1N1 in multiple parts of the world. To date, tens of thousands of U.S. workers and their families have been affected and infected either directly or indirectly as a result of exposure to an H1N1- contaminated individual, co-worker, family member, and/or friend.

This strategy and discussion session will discuss an overview of Pandemic Flu including health effects, the most affected/susceptible workers and individuals, methods of prevention and protection, as well as labor-management policies and concerns including the employer's development of an infection control program and the union's role in ensuring workers are provided safe and healthful working conditions.

• Hazard and Body Mapping

The identification of workplace safety and health hazards, as well as worker symptoms, injuries, and illnesses is essential to developing a plan to prevent these problems. CWA and other unions have developed mapping techniques to address these important problems. Mapping techniques provide a participatory method for workers to use their experience to identify, document, and analyze occupational safety and health issues and problems. These techniques involve worker participation, the use of visual images to identify individual and collective hazards and health problems, as well as the development of collective solutions.

This session will focus upon the use of Hazard and Body Mapping techniques to identify and resolve worker occupational injuries and illnesses.

• Using Your OSHA and Legal Rights 

In 1970, the nation made a commitment to American workers to protect their safety and health on the job through the enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHAct). The OSHAct provides workers with certain rights and responsibilities. For example,

• Workers have the right to a safe and healthful workplace
• Workers have the right to know what hazards they encounter on the job
• Workers have the right to raise occupational safety and health concerns without fear of reprisal/discrimination
• Workers have the right to safety and health training and
• Workers have the right to file an OSHA complaint.

In turn, employers have the responsibility to provide safe and healthful workplaces and comply with OSHA policies, regulations/standards.   

This session will discuss these OSHA legal rights, as well as strategies and tactics CWA leaders and occupational safety and health activists may develop and use to ensure represented employers are providing safe and healthful working conditions.

• Microwave and Radio Frequency Radiation

Many thousands of CWA members employed as telecommunication technicians, health care, and manufacturing employees work with equipment which emits  Microwave and/or Radio Frequency Radiation and are subsequently exposed to such radiation. However, given the nature of the (low-level) exposures, the fact that you cannot see radiation, and the latency period associated with exposures and the onset of health effects/problems, most workers have very little or no knowledge that they are suffering workplace exposure and, possible, related health effects.

This strategy and discussion session will demystify the issues regarding microwave and radiofrequency radiation exposure, identify the primary occupations of concern, and put forth practical solutions.