CWA Occupational Safety and Health Bulletin - August 2006
CWA Occupational Safety and Health Retreats
Specific to organizing and conducting the District Occupational Safety and Health Retreats, the Union's Occupational Safety and Health Department conducted four District Retreats during 2006. The primary purpose of the retreats was to bring together local union occupational safety and health activists and staff with workplace safety and health responsibilities to:
- Discuss, coordinate, and develop tactics and strategies focused upon identifying, preventing, and/or resolving member workplace safety and health hazards and related illnesses, injuries, and fatalities,
- Share information on successes and failures, and
- Establish and further communication and networking between and among national, state, and local occupational safety and health activists.
Further, to allow safety and health activists an increased opportunity to participate, the designing and conducting of the District retreats was coordinated with district vice presidents and staff. It was believed input and direction from these personnel was essential to conducting successful retreats and developing and implementing future safety and health activities involving national, district, and local union safety and health activists.
Conducting the Union's Safety and Health Retreats
During 2006, in coordination with the respective district officers and staff with occupational safety and health responsibilities, the CWA Safety and Health Department organized and conducted district safety and health retreats in District 1 (June 9-10), District 3 (June 16-17), District 7 (May 5-6), and District 9 (May 19-20). Due to scheduling conflicts, retreats were not conducted in Districts 2, 4, 6, and 13.
One-hundred seventy-one (171) participants representing 86 local unions, as well as national, district, and sector offices participated in the safety and health retreats. As demonstrated in the table below, local union participants represented all but one of the Union's sectors.
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CWA OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH RETREATS |
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INDUSTRY |
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NUMBER OF LOCAL |
NUMBER OF |
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PARTICIPANTS |
LOCALS |
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TELECOMMUNICATIONS |
115 |
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62 |
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MANUFACTURING |
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20 |
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10 |
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AIRLINES |
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6 |
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5 |
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PUBLIC, HEALTH |
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CARE AND EDUCATION |
8 |
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3 |
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PUBLIC SAFETY |
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6 |
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3 |
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BROADCASTING |
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2 |
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2 |
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PRINTING |
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2 |
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1 |
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TOTAL |
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159 |
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86 |
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In addition, 12 union staff participated in the district retreats. These personnel included CWA staff with occupational safety and health responsibilities from each of the participating districts, as well as District 3 Vice President Noah Savant and District 7 Vice President Annie Hill. Also, staff from the AFA-CWA Air Safety, Health, and Security Department participated in each of the district retreats.
Participants represented a broad array of occupations and industries contained within CWA including telecommunications service and craft; automotive, electronic, and furniture manufacturing; airline; public, health care, and education; public safety and ski patrol; broadcasting; and printing jobs. Such representation allowed the safety and health activists to gain a greater understanding of the many and varied workplace hazards encountered by members employed in different occupations and industries.
Initiated in 2003, the district retreats were designed as one-day (i.e., Saturday) strategy and discussion sessions. The topical content of the retreats consisted of a general introduction regarding the purpose and goals of the one-day session and the manner in which the retreats (and, in general, workplace safety and health activities) could be used to build and strengthen the Union. Each of the retreats featured panel and discussion sessions that addressed the following subjects:
- Ready for the Future: Occupational Safety and Health,
- Local Union Issues,
- Developing Occupational Safety and Health Education and Training Activities/Programs,* and
- Using Joint and Union Occupational Safety and Health Committees to Identify/Resolve Safety and Health Issues.
These sessions, led by local union, as well as national and district staff, were designed to provoke discussion and interaction between and among participants. In turn, specific to the targeted topics, these discussions led to the sharing of information and initiatives, as well as successes and problems that had been experienced by the activists. Topics included:
- Occupational safety and health hazards encountered by our members including workplace ergonomics and work organization/job stress, working with exposure to chemicals and other hazardous substances, occupational safety, and performing work under hazardous environmental conditions,
- Safety and health concerns and problems faced by telecommunications service and craft members, as well as manufacturing and public, health care, and education workers,
- Hazards encountered by airline, broadcasting, public safety, and ski patrol workers,
- Examples of using collective bargaining language to ensure represented employers are providing safe and healthful working conditions,
- Establishing and maintaining effective union-only and joint labor-management safety and health committees,
- Using safety and health issues within existing collective bargaining structures and to organize new members and educate/unionize existing members, and
- Developing working/coalitional relationships with other labor, environmental, public health, and community organizations for the purpose of identifying, preventing, and/or resolving occupational and environmental safety and health hazards and problems.
*Specific to the District 3 Retreat, the topic was replaced with "Hurricane Katrina/Rita Safety and Health Issues."
The level of discussion and the leadership demonstrated by the local union and staff safety and health activists set the stage for the development and implementation of future occupational safety and health activities within all of the represented bargaining units/sectors and organizational levels within CWA.
In conjunction with the District 1, 3 and 9 retreats, additional training was offered on "Emergency Response/Hazardous Materials" and "Emergency Response/Hazardous Materials/Anti-Terrorism. These training sessions were funded by a grant CWA has with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
