°

12 : THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER ‘NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1979
LS LR NTI FE I RS

L. North America, labor-management “cooperation”
iS usually an empty slogan. But in Sweden, it works

because the unions have real power.
a I EL I I PI I

trol meant that the budget was being
spent on solutions to the most serious
work environment problems—con-
trol of noise, dust, and chem-
icals—rather than being siphoned off
for projects to improve productivity.

eApprove the selection and
direct the work of the company doc-
tor, murse, safety engineer, or in-
dustrial hygienist. At the Ala Com-
pany sawmill, for example, the fact
that the doctor and nurse report to
the safety committee seemed to allow
them to worry more about the health
of the workers than about company
profits.

““We have the advantage that
when we treat a worker, we know
what his working conditions are,”’’
explained Dr. Bertil Jonsson. ‘‘And
it is part of our job not just to treat
the patient but to recommend ways to

_ conditioned to control noise, dust, and stress. UPPER
RIGHT: A tree planter is provided with a tube through which
he drops seedlings into holes without having to bend over.
LOWER RIGHT: Bob Whitmarsh, Local 3-38 (right), tries

out @ brushcutter used instead of chemicals for thinning.

LOWER LEFT: A company’s choice of chain saws must be

union.

change the working conditions so the
health problem won’t happen
again.”

eReview all corporate medical
records, monitoring results, and
other information on hazards. The
Swedish unions have made access to
information such a high priority that
often when the group met with top
company officials and a local union
safety committtee member at the
same time, the managers would refer
most questions to the union repre-
sentative because he was more know-
ledgeable about safety and health.

‘*The whole idea of the Swedish
system is that workers have the right
to be involved in workplace planning
and design so hazards can be pre-
vented,’’ explained Denny Scott, the
IWA researcher who led the study
tour.

“‘The system is set up to minimize
the number of cases in which workers
must either accept hazards or lose
wages while something is corrected,”’
he said.

To monitor conditions on a daily
basis, enough union safety stewards
must be elected to cover each work
area on each shift at all Swedish
workplaces with five or more
employees. These stewards, as well as
individual workers, have the right to
shut down any dangerous operation
until it can be corrected—without
fear of punishment. The mere threat
of shutting down an operation seems
to be quite effective, because stew-
ards have had to actually use that
power only about 25 times per year
since it was established by law in
1974,

Union stewards, safety committee

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“e : {

members, and regional represent-
atives have the right to determine
how much time they need to carry out
their duties. Although chosen by the
union, all are paid from employer
funds.

Providing training for these union
personnel is considered a cost of
doing business in Sweden. In 1972,
the unions won passage of a law
creating a national Work Environ-
ment Fund. It is financed by a 0.1
percent payroll tax on all employers,
and guided by a union-dominated
board. :

The Fund has paid for the train-
ing of more than 4,000 safety stew-
ards from the Swedish Woodworkers
union, which represents 67,000

‘workers in sawmills, board mills, and

other wood products manufacturing
plants. Training has been provided to
about 2,000 stewards from the
Forestry Workers union, which has
25,000 members.

Classes are given during normal
work hours, with employers paying
lost time. In the two-and-a-half years
ending in June, 1979, woodworkers’
employers paid $/ million in lost time
wages for safety training. Forestry
employers have been required to
spend more than $700,000.

- The 40-hour basic courses cover
such topics as workplace planning,
noise, ventilation, toxic substances,
illumination, ‘‘ergonomics’’ (the
science of fitting the job to the
worker rather than the worker to the
job), and ‘‘psychosocial factors’’
such as job satisfaction.

Courses are taught in ‘‘study
circles’ rather with the formal class-
room approach usually used in North.
America.. Trained study circle
leaders, who generally are workers
rather than safety technicians, guide
the discussions.

Safety stewards say the study cir-
cle method teaches them to work
together and to rely on experts only
for technical advice. Written mater-
ials and film strips explain basic prin-
ciples, which are then applied by the
students during special workplace in-
spections. A study circle graduate
goes back to work with lists of condi-
tions which must be corrected.

Lennart Olsson, chief safety
steward at a large government-owned
hardboard mill, told the IWA group
that the basic course ‘‘worked very
well.’’

“It used my own workplace as the

subject matter,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s the
best way to learn.’

Practical research

Both the forestry and woodworking
industries have national work envi-
ronment. research committees, ‘run
jointly by the employers and the
unions. Much of the research is
financed by the union-dominated,