Jackson advocate. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1939-current, 1960-12-03

"put union label on safety" by
directing its Committee on Safety
and Occupational Health, headed
by Vice President Richard F.
Walsh, to establish an AFL-CIO
trade union safety movement.
It instructed the committee to
invite all national and interna-
tional unions, state bodies and de.
partments to an annual national
conference on safety and occupa-
tional health dedicated to the
principle of cooperation between
labor and management so that pro-
gress shall be achieved by positive
prevention of accidental death and
injuries rather than through trag-
edy.
Delegates to the first conference
couldn't help wondering about the
extent to which labor-management
relations have been utilized to pro-
mote occupational safety and
health through collective bargain
ing agreements. So they recm-
mended that the committee con-
duct a survey to find out just how
many contracts have safety clauses
and what they cover.
The first fruits of the study
are now available. Some 80 un-
ions cooperated, an indication in
itself that unions are seriously
concerned with the problem. The
resulting picture was rather
strangely notified; it showed broad
use of labor-management relations
to achieve the goal, but the depth
of the approach has not been uni
formly developed among AFL-CIO
affiliates.
The cooperating international
unions submitted approximately
1000 contracts to the committee
for examination. Nearly two-thirds
of them contained safety clauses.
By comparison, a somewhat SINH
lar study in 1866 showed that an
estimated so to so percent of all'
union contracts had safety clauses.
Some international unions had
no contracts containing safety
clauses. Indeed, some of the gov
eminent employee unions - but
not all - lacked even agreements.
Other affiliates reported that mat
tiers of safety were controlled by
federal legislation which was hard.
ly more than mentioned in the con-
tracts. Still others operated under
state or local health and safety
laws.
While some affiliates in the
sample had safety clauses in 100
percent of their agreements, there
were others with only rare safety
proviso in the contracts they sub
mitted.
There is a need to add to the
depth of this form of protection; a
need for a major effort in collec-
tive bargaining to stimulate every
affiliate to work toward the 100
per cent goal of safety by con-
tract" wherever it is practical. This
goal is within reach, thanks to the
past efforts of individual unions.
Safety and occupational health are
as much a part of the contract as
wages, hours and other working
conditions.
Of all the contracts submitted
which had safety clauses, 40 per-
cent gave union members an ac-
tive role on safety committees. OF
course, what an "active role
means has many interpretations.
1t can mean that the safety COM
mittee has equal labor and man
agement representation; it can
mean several management repre-
sentatives and just one lone I'M
ion representative; or it can mean
several committees, related though
separate, with one made up ex-
clusively of worker representatives.
Only about Is percent of the
contracts with safety clauses
granted equal joint participation
on safety committees to labor and