Document 7RLnLNOMqRNxQqL8okkrbw0xE

1966 National Safely Congress Mr. IVhilehousc: For years I lave been ing extremely well and practically every one preaching for joint lalior-managcmcnt safety that I know of has worked very successfully. committees to do this very tiling. They should sit down and work out the procedures that arc to be followed so that it becomes the rcsj>onsil>ility of both labor and man agement to see that they arc enforced. Moderator: Do you think safety programs should be in the labor contract? Dr. Dan /'Ilia: Certainly I A contract has to do with conditions of employment, and one of the major conditions of employment In the past two years the IBEW and is your continued life. It seems to me that various managements have established over labor groups, in general, have been most 800 joint labor-management safety commit remiss in that conditions of employment tees. I am very strongly in favor of these have not been included under safety. How committees establishing ground rules. This ever, this is certainly no excuse for this to is a definite advantage for management. We continue. have had eases in some of onr locals where the union member was. brought before the executive board and informed that the union agreed to these rules and regulations .and lie, as a member of the union, must comply. Mr. Greene: The contractors in the Dis trict of Columbia must comply with the regulations of our department.. One of the problems with safety by reference is that most of the workers, and some of the man Mr. Dowling: We deal with tire Ontario agement, do not have any idea of what Federation of Labor and favor its support of joint labor-management methods of rule and regulation writing, but I would like to add that once these rules and regulations arc adopted they should be put into the working man's language. They should lie de these regulations arc. They don't understand them. If safety is in the contract, the work ers ought to have enough information so that they can know whether the regulations arc lieing complied with or not. If they arc not, the workers can act accordingly. veloped in such a way that the working If their wages under the contract were man knows what they arc and lie under not being paid, they would do something stands them clearly. In Canada, we print about it immediately. I believe that a union these rules and regulations in French for should act immediately if there is a hazard our French workers. The union also has an ous situation that needs correcting in accord obligation to see that these rules arc ex-, ance with accepted codes and regulations. plained. However, if people do not understand the Moderator: A number of years ago Re public Steel Corporation wanted to commu nicate to all of its employees a belter un derstanding of the economic problems of the company and how they affect the work ers. They went to Brookings Institute for advice, then developed a play with 13 char acters such as a farmer, business man, stock holder, manager, etc. The employees were assigned various parts and participated in the play at various locations all over the country. The principle idea was that par ticipation would improve understanding and respect. regulations they do .not know when the regulations arc violated. . The answer, of course, is training. Without training, the regulations will be unimplcincntcd. Dr. Van /Ilia: I have read a significant amount of contracts which were signed by people who thought they had negotiated safety into the contract. The standard phrase is "the company will continue to provide safe and healthful places in which to work." This is really just saying that the company will continue its existing bad practices. That is not negotiating safety. It is as worthless as a contract that says the company will con tinue to pay wages. The company paid thousands of dollars for that idea, and it is .believed that the same results can lie obtained if the union is allowed to participate in developing safety rules. An example of such cooperation is the Carborundum Company's joint safety work with the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union. This relationship is work There is meaningful language which can be negotiated into union contracts and nearly all of the international unions can provide this type of language. Mr. Ilurch: If the union has already sat down with management and worked out acceptable safety rules, the contract can con tain meaningful language that is also simple. 40