Health & Safety with the United Steelworkers

Hello from Pittsburgh! Our first 24 hours here have been educational- Pittsburgh is a beautiful, interesting city. Old and young neighborhoods flow over the hills of the city and the rivers cradle the edges of Pittsburgh with bridges crossing in all directions. I don't want to speak for Miss Becky but I think she had the same reaction that I had when I first came here- it felt immediately comfortable. It's an industrial city with a serious history and waterfront- much like Chicago.

We wandered around the campus of Pitt in the morning as we waited for our camera to charge. We ended up at Pitt's Cathedral of Learning, a 1930's neo-gothic steel tower erected to a better life with amazing reading rooms. In the afternoon, we hopped the city bus downtown to go to a conference on Health, Safety and the Environment organized by and for the United Steelworkers of America (USWA.) We were lucky enough to secure an interview with Mike Wright, the union's director of Health and Safety and the chief organizer of the conference. The story of the union and Mike's story were both compelling. Mike explained that the USWA has about 850,000 members at present, both in the U.S. and Canada. The union no longer just represents steel workers. Massive changes in the steel industry and numerous union mergers have brought oil, chemical, paper, forestry, mining, and health care workers into the union. Almost all of the integrated steel mills left in the U.S. are still with the USWA, as are about half of the country's mini-mills, "boutique" mills that process steel for specialized uses.

Mike's stories about the USWA's experiences with the oil industry were especially interesting. Because his department is dedicated to health, safety and environmental issues, they have firsthand experience with some of the major spills and explosions that have taken place in the last several years. Mike explained that of any industry, the oil industry has the greatest gap between potential hazards and regulation of such dangers. Mike's 25 person department coordinates emergency response services for workers (union and non-union) who are injured or killed in oil industry accidents. Currently, there is one serious fire in the oil industry per week. Mike talked about the growing focus on "behavioral safety" in the workplace, which targets human error as the cause of any accident. The end result is that workers are often singled out as the culprits for industrial accidents, as opposed to systemic problems with management. As an example, he explained that when the surviving workers for the Deepwater Horizon were rescued from the Gulf earlier this year, those who did not have life-threatening injuries were first tested for drugs before they received medical treatment or were able to contact their families. For the last several years, Mike's department has handled the fallout from the Texas City explosion of a BP refinery that killed 15 workers.

The USWA's Health & Safety department coordinates education on worker and industrial safety, assists local unions with accident investigations, and develops legislation to push for better protections for workers and the environment. They are heavily involved in pushing for stronger OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health) regulations. One of the most interesting things that Mike said was that enforcement of worker protection standards has improved significantly under the Obama administration.

Mike came to this work as a veteran of the 1960's civil rights and anti-war movements. After studying engineering and public health, he joined the Steelworkers in 1977 and has been part of the movement to build global health and safety standards for industrial workers ever since. As steel production has globalized, the USWA has remained active in the fight for better conditions for steel workers, whether they are in Brazil or Nigeria. The USWA is part of two global steel worker federations. In Mike's opinion, perhaps the greatest contribution the American labor movement has made in the last 50 years has been the development of the "right to know" concept into a set of global standards. Becky should clarify this but the "right to know" concept asserts that workers are entitled to understand the materials they are handling and any risks involved. [Becky: Yes, this is correct.] This is particularly pressing for oil and chemical workers. Mike has been part of the effort to build a global "right to know" set of standards and has worked with unions from Poland to Zimbabwe.

Mike said he has never regretted his decision to join the Steelworkers. He was generous enough to be our first full-on interview. We learned a lot talking to him, and he was kind enough to invite us back after the conference to visit some of the plants represented by the USWA. More to come!