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Health and Safety Committees
First Defense Against Job Hazards

Every local union should have an effective safety committee. Most safe­ty committee activities can be started right away and do not require an agreement with management.

In addition, every local should try to establish a joint health and safety committee with management.  The following is an overview of some of the responsibilities of the local union safety committee.

1.  Listening to the membership. What complaints do workers have about unsafe conditions? About chem­icals, noise, dust, or other health haz­ards? About illnesses which might be related to the job?

The safety committee can't merely wait for workers to bring up com­plaints. You have to go to the workers, stewards, and local union officials and ask.

2.  Looking at the workplace to find hazards. On a regular basis, the com­mittee should check each area to find new hazards and make sure old ones have been fixed.

Some committees have the contract right to make walkthrough tours or inspections, either independently or with management. Without that right, committees must piece together information with the help of stewards and members from each department or work area.

3.  Investigating accidents, near misses and illnesses.

One of the best ways to prevent health and safety haz­ards is to study accidents and illnesses which have already happened or nearly happened.

What were the contributing causes ‑‑ overloading the worker, poor equip­ment design, lack of maintenance, lack of training?

If some carelessness was involved, how could the job be designed with proper safeguards so a mistake could not become an injury?

4.  Keeping written records. The committee needs good records in or­der to prove its case in discussions with management and to back up grievances, bargaining demands, and OSHA complaints. Records the committee should keep include:

• Results of workplace surveys, includ­ing what hazards were found and when they were corrected.
• Grievances on health and safety issues, and how they were settled.
• Copies of all papers related to OSHA inspections.
• Government or union reports or articles on hazards in your type of work.
• Information collected from the employer such as names of chemicals; results of tests for noise, chemicals, or dust; and results of employer-sponsored medical exams.
• Local union records about sick­ness and accident claims, workers' compensation cases, or other infor­mation that might tell something about work hazards.

5. Helping to negotiate safety protections into the contract. Con­tract language should spell out the employer's safety responsibilities and the safety committee's rights. The contract may also provide some way of settling safety disputes without long delays, since delay in correcting a safe­ty hazard may mean injury or even death. The safety committee can prepare the information negotiators need to argue for contract changes and can help rally membership support.

6. Filing grievances. Grievances will be most successful if you have specific safety rights and protections in the contract. But even if your contract does not cover a specific hazard, you can file grievances if the contract has some kind of general language saying that the employer recognizes the need to reduce injuries.

7. Using OSHA rules and rights. The committee should have copies of federal or state OSHA standards and stay up to date on new ones. If necessary, use OSHA rights to ask for an inspection or to be protected from punishment for safety activities. If an OSHA inspector visits your workplace, a committee member should go with him or her at all times to make sure the inspector takes ac­tion on all of the hazards.

8. Using employer safety rules. The committee may want to insist on being informed ahead of time so it can give its ideas before employer safety rules are issued.

Once employer rules are established, the committee can make sure the employer itself lives up to them. For instance, if the rules say, "Get help when carrying heavy, bulky objects," the committee should make sure supervisors are allowing workers to get that extra help.

If the rules say, "Fork lifts, trucks and other vehicles will be operated at a safe speed at all times," the committee should make sure operators are not given so much work that they cannot get everything done without driving too fast.

Study the employer rules to see which ones are not being followed. If a worker is required to violate the rules, you may want to file a grievance, arguing that the employer is forcing the worker to risk both injury and discipline for not following the rules.

9. Staying in touch with union representatives on safety issues. They may have useful information.  Keeping them informed helps them let workers in one workplace know about the experiences of committee members in other workplaces.

10. Educating the membership and, if needed, the public. Keep everyone in the local informed of hazards, successes in getting them corrected, and other activities. Share the information you get from training sessions or publications.  Education can be done by:

• Talking to workers individually at work, on the phone, or off the job.
• Having group meetings during breaks on the job.
• Using union meetings or special events.
• Passing out and posting leaflets and newsletters.

The committee also can work with others in the local to build public support if needed to convince management to remove hazards.

Courtesy of TheWorkSite.org.