Salary and benefits surely top the priority list of any local union leader or member. Health and safety issues might not come to mind at the same time. But in today's working environment, a growing number of AFT affiliates are discovering a strong desire among their members to get some help in upgrading their working conditions.

This health and safety focus might take the form of a joint labor-management committee dedicated to the subject. Or the union might form its own committee. Just as likely, an unforeseen crisis might force the union to tackle the issue without the benefit of previous planning.

Every local union that represents PSRPs—in fact every local, period—should have a health and safety committee. PSRP jobs involve some of the most dangerous substances and conditions in schools, such as hazardous chemicals, hot kitchens, heavy lifting and repetitive tasks. With input from members, a health and safety committee can focus on the specific needs of each job category.

The Association of Cincinnati Public School Office Personnel (ACPSOP), for example, has made ergonomics and, more specifically, better workplace design and equipment, a priority for the 400 clerical staff it represents. The union, a part of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, has long been represented on a districtwide health and safety committee, but the secretaries focused on ergonomics during contract negotiations four years ago. The union got the school board to agree to create an $80,000 annual ergonomics budget.

The first priority, says ACPSOP president Betty Grawe Hodson, was to get new computer chairs for everyone. Buying high-quality chairs, which can run up to $300 apiece, more than used up the first year’s budget. In subsequent years, the local has been able to get its members new lamps, footrests, ergonomic keyboards, glare filters, copy holders and more. Further, the union has worked with the district’s health and safety expert to redesign some workspaces to make them more comfortable for the clerical staff.

“I can’t remember any time there was a request that we weren’t able to facilitate,” Grawe Hodson says. “People are thrilled to death to have the new equipment. Some of the things they were using were really bad.”

Some of the contract language in Cincinnati is similar to what the AFT College Staff Guild, which represents PSRPs in the Los Angeles Community College District, negotiated for its members more than 10 years ago—before the term “ergonomics” was widely used. In addition to upgrading office equipment, the guild contract provides for training, eye exams, regular breaks and other measures designed to prevent work-related stresses and strains.

Begging for training

A wide range of AFT affiliates (even those lacking a formal committee structure) have been able to take advantage of the national union’s effort in the past two years to expand health and safety training opportunities in all PSRP job categories. The train-the-trainer model equips members to then train other colleagues in health  and safety issues.

One local that jumped on the opportunity to get a group of members and staff trained on health and safety issues is the Norfolk (Va.) Federation of Teachers. The union now has four trainers, some of whom have completed training in two different areas. Sessions have been offered for every segment of the union’s diverse membership except maintenance—and training for them is set for the fall.

“Our people have [wanted] some kind of substantial training here. They’ve literally been begging for it,” says Barbara Howard, a Norfolk federation field representative who has conducted some of the training. “When we offer it, they jump on it. It’s something they can take back and use right away.”

Custodians and bus drivers—two groups that often get left out when the school district plans any training—have been especially enthusiastic about the health and safety workshops, Howard says. The training is usually offered on a Saturday to accommodate different work schedules. Although the training is open to nonmembers, they do have to pay a small fee, so Howard reports that many nonmembers have joined the union because they want the training.

Another benefit has been an increased awareness among PSRPs about health and safety issues. “The training is making them more vocal,” she reports. “People are starting to feel more comfortable about speaking up” if they have a workplace concern. In addition, during the training sessions some members have brought up issues they have encountered in their workplaces, which helps the trainers modify their materials to make them more relevant.

Crisis response

Like its counterpart in Norfolk, the Jefferson County (Ala.) AFT had also been conducting health and safety training for its members. But then a catastrophe, as local president Vi Parramore describes it, hit a middle school in the district last fall when more than two dozen staff and students were sickened by fumes and other emissions from a roofing and renovation project. Some staff at Rudd Middle School are still suffering the effects of the fumes, Parramore says.

It took a concerted effort by the AFT local, including bringing in outside doctors and federal health and safety experts—along with intervention by the governor—to get the building shut down for a week. The district eventually spent $400,000 on cleaning expenses to make it safe to reopen. One good thing that emerged from the fiasco, which was major news in the area for weeks, was an initiative to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The outgoing superintendent created a districtwide health and safety committee that included union representatives. The AFT local has two representatives, one a school secretary and the other a teacher from the middle school who was chosen to chair the committee.

The AFT’s health and safety department, which helped the local union respond to the crisis, is putting together training this fall for more than 300 health and safety team members districtwide. The focus will be on indoor air quality, incorporating a program from the Environmental Protection Agency. Each school already had a health and safety team, but their focus was more on natural disasters, such as tornadoes, Parramore says. The team’s mission will be expanded to cover indoor air quality; each team will include the principal, a custodian, a lunchroom manager and a teacher. The local president expects there to be followup training after the initial session.

With a new interim superintendent in place, it’s not clear how far the district is willing to go in addressing health and safety issues, notes Parramore. “The school leaders here don’t want to put anything down in policy because if they put it in policy, they have to do it,” she adds. But they do want to avoid another public relations disaster like the one at the middle school. Parramore hopes the effort can deal with other issues that affect air quality; mold and mildew, for example, have popped up even in newly constructed buildings in the district.

Whether it’s a large districtwide initiative on an issue like indoor air quality or a smaller workshop for a group of bus drivers, a focus on health and safety is something that appeals to AFT members across the board. “I hope the training expands,” says Barbara Howard in Norfolk. “I don’t think there’s a local out there that can’t use it.”