LABOR

PERMANENT INJURY FROM REPETITIVE TASKS

Post Office automation health threat

By MIKE PHILLIPS

The post office is a dangerous and unhealthy place to
work, and since the introduction of automation in the
mid 70s, working conditions have worsened for postal
workers. :

This is the indictment of life on the job at Canada Post,
made in a background paper for its 23,000 members, by
the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Entitled ‘‘Our
health at risk”’, it is a call to action by the union at all
levels to conduct a daily battle to force the employer to
Provide a safe and healthy workplace.

In today’s ‘‘state-of-the-art”’ postal system CUPW
members are immersed in a sea of noise, harassed by
Speed up, numbed with boredom, and many even crip-
pled by the repetitive strain on their muscles of per-
forming the same task over and over again.

At the heart of the battle for better health and safety
conditions is the question of who will control the tempo
and implementation of technological change and
whether the workers will benefit from the innovation it
produces.

CUPW is fighting to make sure the workers gain from
automation and that their lives aren’t sacrificed on the
altar of ‘financial self-sufficiency’’ at which Canada Post
bureaucrats worship.

Automation in the post office has left in its wake postal
Coders afflicted with painful ailments like tendonitis and
carpal tunnel syndrome. The former also known as ten-
nis elbow and bursitis can only be effectively treated
with rest and work station modifications to remove the
Stress on the overworked muscles.

Carpal tunnel syndrome, however is a much more
Serious affliction which if left untreated can develop into
a permanent disorder only correctable through surgery.

_ Both ailments affect the wrists and forearms of the cod-

ers who are required to code a minimum of 1,800 letters
an hour.

Occupational Fatigue
With the introduction of some 140 video display ter-
minals (VDTs) and the implementation of computer as-
sisted learning programs, (CAL), management is aiming
to increase the accuracy and productivity of the coders
without regard to the impact this will have on the health
of the workers.

_,sdded to muscular strain from repetitive functions
like coding letters, are a whole galaxy of ailments, in-
Juries and afflictions rooted in the automated post office.
They run the gamut from eye strain, produced by the
Inadequate lighting on coding machine screens, the heat
of the machines and the dryness of the air created by the
Coding machines — all the way to the harmful effects of
dangerously high noise levels and the harmful impact of
too much night shift work.

Noise, nightwork, eyestrain, fast repetitive work all
add up, CUPW warns, to occupational fatigue. The toll
this can take on postal workers includes greater rates of
Sickness and less resistance to disease, more injuries due
to reduced mental alertness, less participation in family
and social activities, and an increase in nervous dis-
Orders.

ee
NUMBER,

“Now is there anybody here who’s not from the Post Office.”

Noise, CUPW points out, is the most insidious health
threat and at the same time the single worst change in
postal working conditions since the advent of auto-
mation.

Aside from the damage prolonged exposure to ex-
cessive noise will have on workers’ hearing, noise is also
linked to voice loss, stress, blurred vision and color
perception malfunction, problems of balance and co-
ordination, blood pressure and the heart, psychological
disorders, ringing in the ears and fatigue.

1,000 Times Louder

Post office noise levels are considerably higher today
than they were before automation, when they stood at
around 55-60 decibels. Today’s noise levels can reach 85
decibels on the A scale and more.

(The decibel A scale is a way scientists use to measure
the average intensities of various sound frequencies.
Each increase of three decibels represents a doubling of
sound pressure. An increase of 10 decibels would repre-
sent a ten fold increase in sound intensity.)

An automated letter sorting machine, the union points
out, would be 40 times louder than traffic noise on a busy
street and 1,000 times louder than a non-mechanized
post office.

It is commonly accepted by the world’s leading health
authorities that prolonged exposure to noise levels
above 80 decibels (A) over an eight hour period can
produce hearing loss. Studies have shown 8 to 15 per
cent more workers will show hearing loss in a workplace
with noise levels of 85 decibels A, than would normally
be expected of workers in the same age group in a job

Edmonton labor calls on city >
to take up jobless problem

By DAVID WALLIS

EDMONTON — Labor council
ere, wants a joint meeting with the
municipal government to discuss the
a growing unemployment prob-
em.

Delegates to the Edmonton and

_ District Labor Council voted Jan. 18

in favor of the joint meeting in the

_ Wake of an increasing number of
_ Plant closures in the city.

Letter carriers’ union delegate
Doug Elves told the labor council
that if city council agrees to the meet-

ing the social and economic prob-

Ms generated by the closures
uld be the topic of discussion.

Canadian Brotherhood of Railway
and Transport Workers delegate
Gary Cuthbert, supporting the mo-
tion, said the spin off effect of the
plant closures will add to the city’s
growing welfare rolls and to the bur-
den on local taxpayers.

Jim Crowell, also of the letter car-
riers noted the growing demand on
city council by local businessmen for
reduced taxes and he noted that this
viewpoint needed to be countered by
labor expressing its demands and
views to the city council.

In other business, labor council
executive secretary and Edmonton
city councillor Ed Ewasiuk reported
on the city’s month-long publicity

campaign to demand the pro-
vincially-owned Alberta Govern-
ment Telephones, (AGT) pay its just
share of long distance telephone re-
venues to the city-owned Edmonton
Telephone company.

Under Alberta law, AGT is pro-
hibited from paying a fair share.
Ewasiuk said Edmonton is currently
getting $2-million instead of the
$20-million a year they are entitled
to. .

This campaign by the city of Ed-
monton is a major attack on the Tory

government of Alberta which has -

been riding rough-shod over the
people of this province since it first
came into power in 1971.

Ke own health and safety.

where the noise levels aren’t as high. At 90 decibels A,
ieee per cent more workers would experience hearing
Oss.

Federal standards are currently set at amaximum of 90
decibels (A) for more than eight hours. This is higher
than some provinces in Canada and a number of Euro-
pean countries where the maximum level allowed during
eight hours of work is 85. Even the U.S. Pentagon says
that such a level (85) can only be tolerated four to five
hours without endangering workers’ hearing.

CUPW maintains there is virtually no noise which
can’t be reduced through engineering controls and urges
its members to exercise rights under the contract they
won after their 42-day strike in 1981, to have the
employer eliminate all adverse effects of technological
change, and provide workplaces free of health risks. In
addition to these rights, postal workers also won the
right to demand environmental surveys of workplace
noise.

Never-Never Land
The reduction of night shift work and dramatic expan-
sion of day work is another target the union is aiming for,
not only to create more jobs but to free postal workers
from the ravages to their health resulting in the dis-
ruption of natural body rhythms brought on by night
work,

The increase in night work that accompanied the post
office automation program also brought the workers di-
gestive problems, gastric ulcers, disruptions in their
Sleeping patterns, nervous disorders, problems related
to drug and alcohol abuse, and harmful effects on family
and social lives.

Shorter night shifts, increased shift premiums and
large scale expansion of day positions and services to the
public are among the union’s demands to tackle this
critical health threat.

The union has pressed management for action on each
and every health hazard and unsafe working condition.
CUPW has demanded 10-minute rest periods every hour
for the coders to rest their hands and let their muscles
recuperate. More frequent job rotation has been de-
manded, as have modifications of equipment and work
stations to lessen muscular strain.

Management’s constant reply is either outright re-
jection of the union’s demands or the shunting of prop-
osals off to a never-never land of high paid consultants
and endless studies. *‘When it comes to equipment mod-
ification to improve productivity and to destroy jobs, the
employer is prepared to devote tremendous resources at
a cost of millions of dollars’, the union notes.

Workers’ health and safety doesn’t occupy the same
importance in Canada Post priorities as does the drive
for ‘‘financial self-sufficiency.”’ The answer, CUPW
tells its members, lies inimplementing the union’s action
program and relying on no one but themselves to defend

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_ PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 1, 1984 ¢ 7

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