CWA Health and Safety Training

Each year, CWA, working in partnership with the Steelworkers union and the Tony Mazzocchi Center, trains about 1,000 workers across all our sectors. The goal: to train a new generation of health and safety activists using the most up-to-date training programs and methodology and to build even stronger links among CWA activists and with health and safety activists throughout the labor movement and allies. 

A key part of CWA’s safety and health program is to link these campaigns to the broad fight for workers’ rights, said CWA Safety and Health Director Dave LeGrande. “It’s about union members taking aggressive action to identify, investigate and resolve workplace hazards, and not waiting around for employers to do the right thing,” he said.

CWA and the Steelworkers hold a joint conference to develop strategies to improve day-to-day member working conditions, as well as expand workplace safety and health activities.  Participants tackle topics like workplace stress, hazard mapping, attitudes about workplace injuries, and comparing management and union goals for health and safety.

The participants go on to conduct one and two-day training sessions with locals, districts and sectors throughout the country.

“We have to be vigilant,” LeGrande said. “The employer’s message is that health and safety problems occur because of worker carelessness, which totally avoids the issue of the hazard itself. Our message is the hazard must be fixed.”

Grants from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and CWA’s Health and Safety Strategic Industry Fund support this important work.

By the Numbers
The High Toll of Job Injuries, Illnesses and Deaths, for 2013

4,585 workers were killed on the job in the United States and an estimated

50,000 DIED FROM OCCUPATIONAL DISEASES.

150 workers die each day from hazardous working conditions.

There are 7.6 million to 11.4 million work-related injuries and illnesses each year.

Workplace violence is the second leading cause of job fatalities in the U.S., responsible for

773 WORKERS DEATHS & 26,520 LOST-TIME INJURIES.

There are 1,882 inspectors (847 fEDERAL and 1,035 STATE INSPECTORS) to inspect

the 8 million workplaces under the OSH Act’s jurisdiction.

This means inspectors for federal OSHA can inspect workplaces once every 140 years and state OSHA plans can inspect workplaces once every 91 years.

Source: AFL-CIO report, “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect,” 2015.