ROBERT SASS WORKERS’ RIGHTS ON THE JOB By ROBERT SASS Director of Saskatchewan’s Occupational Health and Safety Branch In 1974 a report was published by the Workers’ Compensation Board of British Columbia, entitled ‘““The Effect of Piecework on Logging Accident Rates’. It stated that the mostimportant factor affecting accident rates for buckers and fallers in the B.C. logging industry was age, and that the “less than 25” age group has the highest accident rate. This report neglected to mention that the prevailing policy in the B.C. logging indus- try was to hire young, single men as buckers and fallers. In effect, it blamed logging accidents on the very characteristic for which the workers were hired. Unfortu- nately, this report never questioned other important factors such as the nature of training received by the young employees or the effect upon these workers of stressors inherent within the piece-work system utilized in the B.C. Interior. Workers cannot benefit from such a study. Yet this is not an unusual example of occupational health and safety research that obscures the real cuases of work acci- dents or illness. Worse examples are not hard to find. In 1958 two researchers, D. C. Braum and T. D. Truan, published a study “An Epidemiologi- cal Study of Lung Cancer in Asbestos Miners”. Knowing what we know today about asbestos, their findings appear incredible. They found no statistically significant levels of lung cancer, beyond that of the general population, among 6,000 asbestos workers from the two largest mines in Quebec. ae Braum and Truan study was flawed. Two-thirds of the workers they elected were between 40 and 44 years of age, well under the expected age for lung cancer. Only 30 percent of the workers had been employed in the asbestos industry for 20 years or more, the estimated latency period of the disease. ith so many young people in the study, too vate to have the disease although they 6/Lumber Worker/August, 1980 might well be destined to develop it, the results that came out gave the impression that there was little danger in exposure to asbestos. Workers have real cause for concern. They want to know what health hazards may be affecting them. They need to have more input, involvement, and confidence in occupational health and safety research. Workers and their representatives must have concrete rights in this area. A new approach towards occupational health and safety research is necessary which will involve labour in a meaningful manner and take cognizance of the concerns of workers. The basic elements of such an approach could bea Work Environment Fund, consist- ing of monies contributed by industry (in particular by large corporations), and a tripartite Work Environment Board, Researchers in the health and safety field would be hired on a contract basis by this Board to carry out specified research pro- jects. Management, government (the approp- riate regulatory agency), and labour would be equally represented on the Board, and research topics would be chosen on the basis of actual health and safety problems defined with the aid of input from workers and their unions. Essentially, such an approach involves the acknowledgement of two workers’ rights — the “right to participate” and the “right to know”. It is a matter of acknowledgement rather than granting of these rights, because workers really already have such rights. In order to carry out medical research, for example, the researcher must secure the co-operation of workers so that he can carry out various tests on them. Thus he is soliciting their participation. Workers, of course, usually co-operate with the re- searcher at this stage, but there is a negotiating point implicit here. The worker can say, “If I allow you to take tests and measurements on me, then in return I want to benefit from the knowledge obtained.” Under this proposal, then, workers in effect would convert their individual rights to a collective right, which would be trans- ferred in part to their representatives on the Work Environment Board. These Rights — “to Know” and “‘to Participate” must not be passive, merely involving submitting to tests and receiving a final report. Rather, they should involve workers participating in defining research objectives according to the questions that they want answered, and receiving feed-back as research progresses. This approach would involve an open communication system, so that the Board, and through it the workers, would feel that they were in touch with what was going on. They could voice their concerns at any time, and if necessary, redirect the course that the research would take as it progressed. If management objected to such an approach on the basis that a traditional management prerogative was being eroded, a counter-argument is close at hand: numer- ous examples can be cited to show that many studies controlled directly or indi- rectly by management cannot be trusted by objective scientists, government regulatory agencies, or workers. Universities and professional researchers might feel that the “arms length” require- ment of objective research would be lost by allowing more worker participation in defining occupational health research objectives. But experience has shown that both scientific objectivity and the practical relevance of research must be buttressed up with practical information coming from those who understand the nature of their workplace. Although some government regulatory agencies might at first question such an approach, it holds real advantages for them. Funding for occupational health research is limited. It makes sense to use this money in the most effective way possible by involving workers. Workers can function asa valuable source of information and experience by participating in the identification of occupa- tional health and safety problems and aiding in determining their solutions. Thus, limited funds could be directed to real problems. Control technologies could be put in place where worker feed-back indi- cated a need. Occupational health research can never be a primary goal. Prevention must be the end and good research the means. If an exposure level is too high, it must be lowered or eliminated. To take measurements for an “objective” study, while leaving conditions as they are, will not solve occupational health and safety problems. It is time to put behind us old attitudes which impede cooperation and to introduce a system in which workers can have confi- dence. Responsible worker involvement in occupational health and safety research is an issue which must be placed high on the agenda in future negotiations. tf BILL LOGAL 1-425 REPORT By BILL WHITE Safety Director Safety in most areas of our local has improved where we have good safety com- mittee and management relationships. The decrease of incidents in these opera- tions are encouraging. ; On the other hand we have the opposite in two operations — one committee is non- functional due to the lack of co-operation on the part of management. The other opera- tion is a sham. Oh yes, we have safety meetings and promises of improvements, but the accident ratio worsens. The WCB safety person has done his best, even shut it down for several hours, and also called in higher brass to inspect it and try to get more co-operation from the outfit. Well, one day hopefully, the lumber market will get back into high gear and the hammer will change hands. The less said the better. Whatever happens all is not doom and gloom. We shall get there, maybe later than sooner. But we have no doubt of the improve- ment we shall make.