By Dorothy Wigmore
Want to start a conversation about health and safety? Find out if members have aches and pains or are getting hurt or sick? Look for patterns of injuries and illnesses? Show workers they’re not alone? Have fun in the process?
It’s time to bring out the mapping tools.
Unions around the world have used them for years, often thanks to the United Kingdom’s Hazards magazine editor Rory O’Neill, who first saw these maps in the U.S. and Canada in the 1990s. (For early examples, see the “Participatory research” link in the Hazards.org resource.) In a key advance, Canadian Margaret Keith developed the “Map Your body, Map Your Workplace, Map Your World” approach, described in the 2002 book, Barefoot Research.
Map your body: Where does it hurt?
People’s experiences are a good place to start organizing around health and safety.
Originally used for aches and pains, body maps can be made to investigate violence, stress, chemicals, long-term effects like cancer or long COVID, or to see the patterns of 300 Log reports or workers’ compensation claims. A 300 Log is a form the state’s Public Employee Occupational Safety and Health (PEOSH) agency requires employers to use to record work-related illnesses and injuries. Workers and their authorized representatives can get access.
Here are some basic instructions. The resources in the sidebar provide more details.
1. Use a prepared back and front body outline on flip-chart-size paper. Try to keep the shape neutral or use a male front and female back for mixed groups. Participants can add colored sticky dots or use markers (red for aches and pains, green for stress and blue for other symptoms) to indicate each spot where they “hurt” in each category.
2. Give groups of five or six workers two flip chart sheets. Ask them to draw (in black or brown) a front body outline on one and a back on the other. Label them. Then ask them to use the same colors and categories.
3. If you have clear plastic sheets that can fit over a large, prepared body map, have small groups of people fill in a body map hand-out using the same instructions. Each group then uses colored sticky dots to mark up the layered version.
However they’re made, display the results. Ask “What do you see?” Answers often include “lots of pain” or something about having common symptoms.
“Ah-hah!” is not an unusual reaction, once patterns are visible.
“This is the first time I’ve known I’m not alone in my pain,” is how an experienced operator responded in a workshop for the Boston-area Operating Engineers union, where groups had marked their aches and pains with different colors depending on their job.
It was a profound insight. Why would he say anything if he thought he was alone? Why would he try to get the hazards fixed if he thought it was “just me”?
Patterns and “new eyes” emerge in discussion, with questions such as:
- What’s the story here (pointing to specific marks)?
- How many (of the symptoms) were reported to the employer or workers’ compensation?
- What’s missing? Who’s missing?
- What about long-term effects?
The maps and these questions lead to conversations about people’s experiences, their rights and getting hazards fixed.
Map your workplace: What makes it hurt?
Workplace maps make hazards visible. Many versions go back to the 1970s Italian Workers Model of health and safety. Guided by the slogan “Our health is not for sale,” workers and academics cooperated, making maps with four hazard categories, using them to propose solutions and inform strategies to get fixes.
It’s not enough to know where hazards exist. It’s essential to know who deals with them. That’s why a current mapping version uses six hazard categories, adds codes for people (workers, employers/management, others) and separates information into layers (the physical space, people, hazards, other information). Integrating social information, demographics and health and safety issues helps see the complexity of a workplace or job. (See the wigmorising.ca in the resources sidebar for details.)
Photographs can be added to the map, along with indications of the severity of a hazard.
Once something is visible, it’s hard to ignore situations. People talk about “seeing the workplace with new eyes.” The maps can be used to tell stories, identify those involved and start prioritizing issues. They also can be used to imagine healthy and safe jobs with the hazards fixed.
Map your world
This tool gets at the emotional and psychological toll of work and its effects on the rest of our lives. A complement to body and workplace mapping, it makes harm visible in drawing answers to “How does work affect your life?” Examples include teachers drawing stick figures being pulled apart and construction workers drawing broken hearts from a divorce related to long hours at work.
Why use these maps?
Mapping is fun, creative, participatory and revealing. The tools provide data, reveal patterns, bring order to apparent chaos, and unleash stories and members with “new eyes,” inspiring action and solidarity. They make the invisible visible and hard to dismiss.
How can health and safety committees use these maps?
- Start with body maps to identify symptoms and possible hazards, at union meetings or workshops.
- Complement them with “map your world” drawings.
- Hold gatherings to make workplace maps for input before walk-throughs and/or when issues come up possibly affecting several members.
- Use workplace maps to record walk-through findings, including photographs.
- Use the maps to report to members, brainstorm solutions and strategies and (with anonymity ensured) make the case for changes.
Dorothy Wigmore is a long-time health and safety specialist and WEC consultant. She has worked in Canada, the U.S. and Mozambique, focusing on prevention and worker participation to solve job-related hazards. She’s a pioneer of body and workplace mapping for health and safety hazards.
Resources
Hazards.org
“DIY Research”
hazards.org/diyresearch/index.htm
International Labor Organization
“Barefoot Research: A Worker’s Manual for Organising on Work Security”
By Margaret Keith, James Brophy, Peter Kirby, Ellen Rosskam
bit.ly/ilo-barefoot
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
Aurora Casket Company
“Health Hazard Evaluation Report”
Appendix B
bit.ly/cdc-aurora
New Jersey Work Environment Council
“Hazard Mapping”
bit.ly/wec-hazard-map
Labor Notes
“Using Maps to Identify Health & Safety Problems”
By Dorothy Wigmore
labornotes.org/node/329
Wigmorising.ca
“Body Mapping”
wigmorising.ca/body-mapping
“Workplace Mapping”
wigmorising.ca/workplace-mapping
“Mapping Tools to See the Workplace with ‘New Eyes’”
bit.ly/44CyiPQ