The SEIU Education and Support Fund (ESF) and the contractors in its consortium, the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) and the UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health (LOSH) Program, are applying for a grant under the EPA-Hazardous Waste Worker Training Project for five years at a total cost of $4,589,203. Through the unique access provided to the project by the national network of local unions in the Service Employees International Union, the Project proposes to prevent acute and chronic injury and illness among workers who are exposed to hazardous materials and wastes in emergency situations. The Project will accomplish this by training 4900 workers in 8-hour awareness-level emergency response, 5000 workers in 4-hour awareness-level refreshers, and internet-based 4- hour General Industry Safety course on researching hazardous materials and improving systems of safety. The target population is employed in a wide range of jobs in acute-care hospitals, road maintenance, and waste water treatment. SEIU represents approximately 285,000 workers in acute care hospitals, 10,000 workers in highway concentrated in California, New York, Maine, and New Hampshire. Training will be conducted by an existing team of delivering the new hospital operations-level training. The Project proposes to train an additional 76 worker-trainers during the next five-year period. Curricula designed specifically for worker-trainers, and appropriate to the technical knowledge of workers in these industries, have already been developed for the awareness-level training and the operations level training for confined space entry. New curricula will be developed for the hospital operations-level training and the General Industry Safety class. Project consortium staff will provide ongoing support for worker-trainers and will hold an annual technical meeting for all worker-trainers.
| Lippin, T M; Eckman, A; Calkin, K R et al. (2000) Empowerment-based health and safety training: evidence of workplace change from four industrial sectors. Am J Ind Med 38:697-706 |
