Check out these tools for tackling them
By Dorothy Wigmore
There’s lots to do as the school year starts. Health and safety tools could be on your list. You likely will need at least one during the year.
To be clear, whatever you do in a school, you have the right to a healthy and safe job. It’s the law.
The state’s Department of Health enforces and consults about that law through PEOSH, or Public Employees Occupational Safety and Health. PEOSH works with the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development and other agencies too.
But the law’s just the minimum. Government resources also tend to assume the issues and processes are technical, that you just need information.
It’s much more. Workers’ health and safety is a union and labor issue. It’s a wonderful organizing topic, requiring the power of multiple voices speaking collectively from a justice perspective, to prevent and fix hazards. It recognizes that “an injury to one is an injury to all”. So the tools and skills must fit these needs.
Where to start
1. Is there a committee?
If you’ve got a health and safety question or concern, ask co-workers or someone on the local association executive board or your UniServ field representative about a health and safety committee. These committees can fall by the wayside over a summer and need reviving in September.
Committees are key tools in any school and the starting point for organizing around health and safety. If one doesn’t exist, now’s a good time to pull some folks together to start one, with help from your UniServ field rep and local association. If there is one, you could join or work with it about your issue. See the NJEA Review article from September 2020, “Health and Safety Committees Knowledge + Action = Change,” for more about knowledge activism. You can find it by searching the article title at njea.org.
2. What about training?
Whether you’re a health and safety newbie, an individual activist or a committee member, you need training. There’s lots to learn, especially for knowledge activists – people who use information and skills to get things changed. (Being a “technical expert” doesn’t work nearly as well.)
Like many topics, there are:
- Principles involved (e.g., fix the hazard not the worker, prevention is the goal).
- Rights and responsibilities to clarify (e.g., your right to know about hazards, the employer’s responsibility to fix them).
- Activities to learn (e.g., walk-throughs/inspections, making sense of a data sheet).
- Skills to learn and use (e.g., making the case for change, organizing members/co-workers).
- A framework that pulls these together.
For formal training, NJEA provides health and safety workshops at state, regional and local events. Ask your local association building rep or officer or UniServ rep about what’s planned and request topics you need.
Less formally, check out articles in past copies of the Review, or their digital versions at njea.org. Going back many years, they are full of information about a broad range of topics from rights to specific hazards to organizing members about various issues.
3. What are the issues?
Like other union activities, it’s important to know what health and safety hazards or issues co-workers/members face or care about. If you’re concerned about a hazard or issue, it may be affecting others too. Tools to find these common issues include:
- Body mapping to see patterns of symptoms, injuries, illnesses or diseases (“this is the first time I’ve known I’m not alone in my pain” – search “Maps Reveal the Invisible” at njea.org) – conduct them at membership meetings, lunch or other breaks.
- Workplaces maps to see hazards, especially stressors and other things that often are not visible (search “Maps Reveal the Invisible”).
- Questionnaires/surveys, presenting results visually (body and/or workplace maps, graphs, etc.), done in/with groups, plus discussion about what’s missing, how to find out more, who can help with what, and other next steps (search “Are Job-Related Hazards Affecting Members’ Health?” at njea.org.
- Make visual displays (e.g., maps, graphs) of OSHA 300 logs (of reported injuries, etc.) for the last few years to see patterns of symptoms/effects and where they’re found (search “Key Resources Help NJEA Members Use Health and Safety Rights” at njea.org).
It also helps to:
- List past issues and what happened with them, especially if they weren’t resolved (ask the UniServ field rep, local association officers, previous health and safety committee members and co-workers).
- Add topics based on legally required programs (search “Health and safety committees Knowledge + Action = Change”) and union policies and convention resolutions (UniServ field reps can help).
- Set priorities based on agreed-upon criteria (see Resources below).
- Ask what other local associations are tackling, their solutions and strategies to get them.
- Share the load with others, formally in a committee or informally with co-workers.
4. What about resources?
Health and safety articles in the NJEA Review and the NJEA Health and Safety Manual provide plenty of information about specific hazards, committee activities and more. So too do people and organizations. The resources list is a start.
Take a breath
Yes, there’s a lot to do when you get into health and safety. The load is less when it’s shared. It’s rewarding and can be fun. Just take a breath occasionally. You’ve nothing to gain but your health, your safety and a unique organizing opportunity for your local.
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 also a pioneer of body and workplace mapping and other tools to find and fix those hazards.
Resources
Beautiful Trouble – For principles, tactics, methods and stories
Wigmorising – Committee process toolbox (e.g., Criteria for decision-making – setting priorities about hazards to tackle), Dorothy Wigmore
Hazards Magazine – A long-time UK health and safety group’s on-line resources
LOARC – Health and Safety Representation: Writing the Workers Back In
National Council for Occupational Health and Safety – An activist health and safety
New Jersey Work Environment Council – For technical information, walk-through help, ask your UniServ field rep.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Creating Healthy Indoor Air Quality in Schools organization
NJEA
- NJEA Health and Safety Manual
- Compilation of health and safety articles by topic: njea.org/health-safety
- Organizational Development health and safety contact: Mike Rollins (request through your UniServ field rep)
- Worksite Safety and Health Committee – Find your county rep to this committee