Issues

Your Rights to a Safe Workplace

It is one thing to know what makes a safe workplace. It is quite another to see that management fulfills its responsibility to provide a safe and healthful workplace and implements all of the recommendations contained in this handbook.

The first thing you should do when you think there is a health and safety problem in your workplace is to ask your supervisor to correct it. If this doesn’t work, contact your union steward. Workers acting together through their union can pressure the employer into correcting problems. Your council staff may also call the International Union for help or contact OSHA.

Health and safety committees

The union’s most effective tool for addressing health and safety problems is an active health and safety committee. Health and safety committee members do not have to be experts or have advanced university degrees to help solve workplace health and safety problems. However, time and effort — to recognize hazards, gather information, and develop strategies to address the problem — is necessary to make progress toward a safe workplace.

There are two types of health and safety committees:

  • joint labor/management committees, and

  • local union committees.

Join labor/management health and safety committess

A well-functioning labor/management health and safety committee can get problems corrected quickly and effectively. Unfortunately, these committees often are not effective. Mutual respect and taking issues seriously are key ingredients in any Joint Committee

1. Committee Makeup

  • Labor and management should be equally represented. The union should select members of the local committee to serve on the Joint Committee. Members should be rotated occasionally.

  • The labor members should be chosen by the union. They should include members of the union committee and possibly a member of the union executive board.

  • The chair should rotate between labor and management.

2. Committee Meetings

  • The committee should meet at least once a month. Labor members of the committee should meet alone before the Joint Committee meeting to review strategies and priorities.

  • Labor and management should prepare the agenda together at least a week before the meeting.

  • The minutes should include commitments made by all parties to correct unsafe conditions and agreed time frames. The minutes should be approved by both parties and distributed to both management and employees soon after the conclusion of the meeting.

  • Implement a screening mechanism to eliminate issues that are not safety related.

3. Inspections

  • The committee should make regular unannounced walkaround inspections to detect and evaluate problems.

  • Follow-up inspections should be made to guarantee that corrections have been made.

4. Pay for Lost Time

  • As much as possible, all regular committee meetings and walkaround inspections should be conducted during regular working hours. Committee members should receive their regular pay for all time spent on committee functions. If workers are forced to take vacation time, or leave without pay, they will not want to participate in the committee.

5. Investigations

  • Committee members should investigate any employee complaints of health and safety problems and the causes of any work-related injuries or illnesses, and recommend solutions.

6. Access to Information

  • The committee should have access to all injury and illness records kept by the employer. Information on new chemicals, new equipment or new processes that may present a hazard must also be available to all committee members as required by OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard (29 CFR 1910.1200).

7. Training

  • Each union representative on the Joint Committee receive extensive training in occupational safety and health. Management should receive the same training as union representatives.

8. Technical

  • The committee should review the safety and health features of all new equipment and chemicals. They should recommend purchase of protective equipment, and evaluate health and safety programs such as respirator policy, medical screening, confined space entry, etc.

Negotiating for a health and safety committee

It is important to negotiate contract language that spells out the committee’s structure, functions and procedures as shown here:

The Employer and the Union shall establish a Labor/Management Health and Safety Committee. The committee shall be composed of an equal number of representatives appointed by the Employer and the Union and shall be co-chaired by a Union and an Employer representative.

The general responsibility of the committee will be to promote a safe and healthful workplace by recognizing hazards and recommending abatement of hazards and education programs. To fulfill this responsibility the committee shall:

  • meet on a defined schedule, but in no case less frequently than once per quarter;

  • conduct inspections to find and evaluate hazards and to offer recommendations for control of potential health and safety hazards including working alone situations;

  • appoint members of the Union to go on inspections;

  • receive copies of all injury and illness reports, lists of toxic materials and exposure records;

  • promote health and safety education; and

  • maintain and review minutes of Health and Safety Committee meetings.

Members of the Health and Safety Committee shall be allowed paid time off from their regular work while performing Committee duties and shall also be allowed paid time off for training relating to health and safety.

The local health and safety committee

The local committee is totally independent of management. Therefore, it can work with management when they are cooperative, or fight for safe working conditions when the employer is not cooperative. It is the union’s own committee where members can discuss health and safety problems, solutions, strategies and priorities without management interference. The local health and safety committee should be a standing committee of the local. It should work closely with stewards and the union’s grievance and bargaining committees.

Committee Structure

The local committee should be comprised of union members who are strongly motivated and committed to work on health and safety issues. The first priority for membership on a health and safety committee is interest in the subject and time to do the work. No special educational background or union office is needed. Committee members should be as evenly distributed as possible across different shifts and work locations.

The committee should meet regularly. Committees that don’t meet regularly never gather momentum, and members lose interest.

Functions of Health and Safety Committees

  • Identify workplace health and safety problems through surveys, workplace inspections, conversations with workers, and investigations of injuries and close calls.

  • Request that management correct hazards. Make requests to management in writing and keep written records.

  • File grievances and OSHA complaints, where appropriate, when management refuses to correct hazards quickly or thoroughly.

  • Educate other workers about health and safety hazards. This may also involve working to overcome such barriers as worker apathy and “macho” attitudes. Health and safety information and issues can be discussed in membership meetings, through fact sheets, local newsletters, posting information on bulletin boards and handouts. Minutes of committee meetings should be posted.

  • Review the employer’s use of toxic materials, machinery or equipment, and any remodeling or construction which may cause health and safety problems.

  • Publicize health and safety problems by using fliers, leaflets, fact sheets, press contacts, informational picketing and other means.

  • Request records (such as Material Safety Data Sheets, injury and illness records, exposure monitoring results) and keeping track of accidents, illnesses, injuries, grievances, OSHA citations and complaints made to management.

  • Start a library.

  • Inform AFSCME council and International staff about health and safety problems and victories.

Contract Language

Negotiating strong health and safety contract language is important for many reasons:

  • OSHA does not have enough inspectors or resources to protect all workers.

  • Many serious and common hazards are not covered by OSHA standards (lifting, repetitive strain injuries, most infectious diseases, etc.).

  • Language can create the structure and responsibilities of a labor/management health and safety committee.

  • Good language can protect workers’ jobs if they refuse unsafe work.

A “General Duty” clause makes the employer responsible to provide safe work and a safe workplace. A general duty clause is a catch-all way to cover just about any health and safety problem.

Be clear in the language that it is the employer’s responsibility to provide a safe workplace and to comply with OSHA and other federal, state or local health and safety regulations. It is reasonable for employers to expect that their employees will follow safe work practices. However, neither the workers nor the union should assume responsibility for providing a safe workplace.

General Duty

Occupational health and safety is the mutual concern of the Employer, the Union and employees. Employees or the Union shall report safety and health hazards of which they are aware to their supervisor. The Employer shall comply with applicable federal, state, and local safety laws, rules, and regulations. Nothing in this Agreement shall imply that the Union has assumed legal responsibility for the health and safety of employees.

Employers should provide and pay for all personal protective clothing and equipment that workers need.

Personal Protective Clothing and Equipment

Personal protective clothing and equipment shall be furnished and maintained by the Employer without cost to employees whenever such equipment is required as a condition of employment or is required by OSHA or other agency.

There are no OSHA standards for some of the most serious and common hazards faced by water and wastewater treatment workers. Contract language can provide protection not found in OSHA standards.

Communicable Diseases

The employer shall provide information and training to employees on communicable diseases to which he/she may have routine workplace exposure. Information and training shall include the symptoms of diseases, modes of transmission, methods of self-protection, workplace infection control procedures, special precautions and recommendations for immunizations where applicable. The Employer shall make the hepatitis B and/or other appropriate vaccinations available to employees who are at high risk of occupational exposure to infectious agents.

Contract language can cover other important issues. AFSCME’s health and safety staff can help you draft language to cover hazards not covered by OSHA standards.

Refusing to perform unsafe work

AFSCME tries to keep track of members who are killed on the job. Many of those who were killed worked in sewers or at wastewater treatment plants. These deaths could have been prevented because well-known hazards were not controlled. Workers have died because confined spaces were not monitored, equipment had not been locked out, trenches were not shored or workers were not trained.

While many of these members may not have recognized the hazard, some surely knew their work was life threatening. But they were afraid to risk their job by complaining or refusing work. Had they refused to do the work until the job was made safe, they would probably be alive today. They were forced to make a choice that no one should be forced to make. No worker should ever be forced to choose between a job or his or her life.

Workers covered by OSHA have a right, under certain conditions, to refuse hazardous work. OSHA prohibits employers from firing or taking other actions against a worker who is exercising his or her rights under the OSHA law in Section 11(c).

OSHA’s protection only applies in imminent danger situations. Imminent danger means that death or serious physical injury could occur quickly and that there was no time to get an OSHA inspection. Workers can also file imminent danger complaints with OSHA. Such complaints are given top priority by OSHA. Nevertheless, you still may not have time to wait for the inspector to arrive even after filing an imminent danger complaint, and you may still have to refuse to work. Some state OSHA laws more clearly state that workers cannot be disciplined for refusing to do hazardous work when there is not time to call for an OSHA inspection.

Regardless of whether you are covered by OSHA, contract language offers the best protection for AFSCME members who refuse to work because they feel they may be killed or seriously injured. Here is a sample “Right to Refuse Unsafe Work” clause:

An employee acting in good faith has the right to refuse to work under conditions that the employee reasonably believes present an imminent danger of death or serious harm to the employee. The Employer shall not discipline or discriminate against an employee for a good faith refusal to perform assigned tasks if the employee has requested that the Employer correct the hazardous conditions but the conditions are not corrected, and the danger was one that a reasonable person under the circumstances would conclude there is an imminent danger of death or serious harm. An employee who has refused in good faith to perform assigned tasks shall retain the right to continued employment and receive full compensation for the tasks that would have been performed.

How to refuse to work

In order to protect your job, there are certain steps you should be sure to take before refusing to work. An arbitrator or court may have to decide whether the worker’s refusal was justified. The worker’s case will be much stronger if:

  • The worker had reasonable grounds, based on what he or she knew at the time, for believing that the work was unsafe, and believed in good faith that performing the work would have subjected him or her to imminent physical danger. This means that you do not have to know for sure that the situation is life threatening, as long as you have good reason to believe it is unsafe. Cases have been won where the job was actually found to be safe, but the worker had adequate grounds to believe that the job was imminently dangerous.

  • The worker immediately told the employer of the hazard and asked that it be fixed. The worker should clearly state that “I believe this is a serious hazard.”

  • There was no time to fix the problem through normal OSHA or contractual procedures. In other words, you could have been dead before the inspector arrived.

  • The job was not actually refused, but was “accepted conditionally.” It is better for a worker to offer to do the job once it is made safe, or to offer to do alternative work, than to flatly refuse to work. Never leave until the supervisor tells you to go home.

Contact your union representative immediately when refusing work. Call OSHA also, if possible.

OSHA

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) does not directly cover state, county or municipal employees. About half the states, however, have passed legislation giving federally approved OSHA protections to public employees. States with such programs are known as “state plan states” and receive 50 percent of their funding from the federal government.

A few other states (for example Ohio, Wisconsin, Maine, Illinois, Oklahoma and New Jersey) have public employee OSHA laws that are not federally funded, but they may still provide important protections. Check with your AFSCME representative to find out what laws cover you.

What OSHA coverage means

Although many state OSHA plans differ in details, they all have certain rights and responsibilities in common:

  • the obligation of the employer to provide a safe and healthful workplace;

  • workers’ right to file a formal complaint if they think there are hazardous conditions in their workplace;

  • standards that protect workers from safety hazards;

  • enforcement of standards by health and safety inspectors;

  • the right to have a union representative accompany an OSHA inspector during an inspection (in some states, the worker must be paid for this time);

  • the right to get a copy of an OSHA citation;

  • protection against being fired or other retaliation for workers who exercise their rights under OSHA; and

  • union and worker access to information on injuries and illnesses, chemicals, medical exams and environmental monitoring results.

Getting your workplace inspected by OSHA

OSHA inspections can be an important tool for achieving better health and safety conditions in the workplace. However, calling for an OSHA inspection should not be the first or only action the union takes. OSHA should only be used as a supplement to union action, not as a substitute.

Before calling OSHA, the union should first ask management to correct the hazard or enforce the contract. If there is enough time and contract language permits, it may be wise to file a grievance. OSHA should be called as a last resort. To avoid retaliation against individuals who complain about health and safety problems, and to make sure that all levels of the union are involved, a health and safety committee member or a steward may want to file the complaint, instead of an individual worker.

The complaint should be in writing and contain a detailed description of the hazard, the number of workers exposed, any injuries or illnesses resulting from the hazard, documentation of the union’s attempts to get management to correct the problem, and the OSHA standard that was violated (if known). Note that it is not required to file a written complaint. Telephone complaints are also accepted, although these “informal complaints” may not result in a formal inspection.

On the complaint form or in a separate letter to OSHA, the union should name a representative who will accompany the inspector in the walkaround. Any citations found by OSHA must be posted in the workplace. The union should keep a copy and make sure that the employer corrects all violations.

What to do if your employer contests the citation

Employers have 15 working days from the time the OSHA citation is issued to request an informal conference with OSHA to discuss the citation. During this period, OSHA can revise the citation or drop it entirely. The union has a right to attend all conferences, and to present evidence and witnesses to defend the citation. Without union participation, it is much easier for OSHA to reach an agreement with management without union input. To assure that the union will be included, the union should notify the local OSHA office in writing that it wants to participate in any informal conferences that take place.

Employers and the union may also formally contest the citation within 15 working days after the citation is issued. The employer has a right to appeal all parts of the citation, including: (1) the existence of hazards, (2) the reasonableness of the abatement period, and/or (3) the amount of the fine. The union can only appeal the appropriateness of abatement dates.

If your employer decides to fight the citation, the union has a right to participate in all proceedings between OSHA and the employer by electing “party status” to the case. This is the only way to ensure that the employees’ interests will be represented throughout the hearing.

Electing party status gives the union legal rights to participate in all aspects of the case. In order to elect party status, a union representative must write a letter to the state Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (the agency that will hear the case) announcing the union’s desire to participate.

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