Union role
not seen in
discipline

Where I.W.A. national president
Dave Haggard left off in his open-
ing speech to delegates at the SAFER
conference on the theme of disci-
pline for safety infractions, the
union’s national safety director
Tom Lowe picked up during his
workshops.

Lowe hammered away at the
theme that union members on joint
health and safety committees, or in
any capacity for that matter, should
not be involved in disciplining their
fellow workers for safety violations.

His workshop on “Achieving a
Neutral Zone,” in other words when
both management and the union
can work on joint health and safety
committee and take their manage-
ment and union hats off, addressed
the serious issue that some employ-
ers are dragging the union into the
sphere of disciplining their fellow
workers.

Lowe posed the question as
whether today it is “OK” to talk
about safety and safety issues freely
in front of the employer and fellow
workers,

“I've been around the been around
the bend a dozen times in the last
30 years and there aren’t many
places where that co-exists and
takes place,” he said.

He said achieving a “Neutral Zone”
takes co-operation, commitment
and the real sharing of responsibili-
ties. It means mopresenting: all
employees, regardless if they are

. management or not.
He said union participation in

imposing discipline is outside of the
zone,

Nowhere in occupational health
and safety acts or in the scope or
rules and regulations is the union

¢ National I.W.A. safety director Tom Lowe said that safety “goes underground” when workers see union repre-
sentatives participating in disciplinary procedures.

expected to participate in a discipli-
nary procedure.

Their role as committee members
are primarily to identify problems,
report on them to the joint commit-
tee or co-workers and make recom-
mendations to correct procedures.

“Where does discipline fit in?”
queried Brother Lowe.

“Would you not agree that it is
the union’s role to protect the worker
from unfair discipline and unjust
discipline?”

He said union people can’t fulfill
their roles acting like management
on joint OH&S committees.

“How can we think that we are
fulfilling our role as a joint health

and safety committee members
when we think in the back of our
minds we’re a supervisor or we’re
going to give an authoritative direc-
tion?”

Lowe said real discipline, by the
dictionary meaning, is to assist,
guide, seek training for and encour-
age self-involvement of workers. He
said it is better to employ a correc-
tive approach versus punishment.

He said workers depend on the
union to assist, help and educate.

If-workers see the union doing ~

management roles in disciplining
workers, Lowe said safety goes
“anderground.”

“Then they (the workers) got no

one to talk to and no one to rely on,”
he said. “There’s a loss of confidence
in the committee’s ability to repre-
sent all workers.”

e Workshop participants got a lot
out of the proceedings.

™,

° During his opening remarks national first vice president Neil Menard, like others, was pleased by the large turnout for the SAFER conference in Victoria, B.C.

LUMBERWORKER/Aptil, 2001/13