cosh network e-newsletter: summer 2013
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7/27/2019 COSH Network E-newsletter: Summer 2013
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COSH Network E-Newsletter: Summer 2013
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In This Issue:New Associate COSH MembersGearing Up for National Worker Safety and Health ConferenceSo uthern C alifornia OSH Activ ists ConferenceWorker Training in WyomingTwo Worker Advocacy Networks Joining ForcesSave the Date! New England Train the Trainer and National Temp WorkerForumNational COSH Has Gone Mobile!Need Help Building a Website?Network Updates: Think Globally, Act Locally
New Associate COSH Members The National COSH Network is thrilled to announce the addition of five new associate COSH groups! These new groups, located across the country, will add to the COSH Network’s ability to train andempower workers on their rights at work.
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The new associate members are: South Florida COSH, located in Miami; the Knox Area Worker MemorialDay Committee, located in Knoxville, Tenn.; WYCOSH, located in Casper, Wyo.; the Central New YorkOccupational Health Clinic, located in Syracuse, N.Y.; and the Houston Area COSH, located in Houston,Texas. These groups were all very active in
planning Workers’ Memorial Day eventsand reports , and helped spread ourmessages around the country. They will joinus on calls and at events or COSH Networkand Protecting Workers Alliance. Don’t take our word for it. Hear from them ! Please join us in welcoming these newgroups and providing them with advice orassistance as needed. Introduce yourself.
Find their contact info here .
Gearing Up for National Worker Safety and HealthConference
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National COSH and its allies are hardat work planning the third annualNational Worker Safety and HealthConference, which will take place onDecember 10-12 near Baltimore, Md.(The internal COSH business meetingwill be held December 9-10 in the
same location.) This year’s conference is expected tobe the biggest yet! We are in theprocess of finalizing workshops andspeakers, but we are very excitedabout how everything is shaping up. Registration is now open . Take a lookat the conference website andpotential workshops , and remind
yourself how fired up you were afterlast year’s conference ! Interested infacilitating any of these workshops?Let us know!
Safe Jobs Save Lives!
SoCalCOSH, in conjunction with UCLA LOSH andthe Los Angeles County Federation of Labor,sponsored a health and safety conference – “SafeJobs Save Lives!” – on July 12 in Los Angeles. Morethan 250 representatives of labor unions, workercenters, government agencies, and community-based organizations shared, debriefed andcelebrated the tremendous work that OSH activists
have been doing in Southern California. Worksafehelped to facilitate workshops on OSH policy.
The group heard from powerful speakers, including the AFL-CIO's Maria Elena Durazo and Cal/OSHAchief Ellen Widess. Conference awardees included leaders in the campaign for California's heat standard.
Click here for more information about the conference.
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Building Leaders, Growing a Movement! At the core of COSH organizing is leadership.Behind every strategy, every meeting, and everytraining are worker leaders. And in small cities likeGillette, Wyo., immigrant worker leaders arecreating new spaces for reflection and action, andasking important questions. These new spaces arebeing facilitated by the COSH Network and one ofits newest associate members, Equality State PolicyCenter (ESPC). ESPC is a leading advocate andvoice for workers in the energy industry and iscommitted to the fight for safe and healthyworkplaces for ALL workers.
On Saturday, June 15, SoCalCOSH’s Shirley Alvarado-del Aguila and National COSH’s Jessica Martinez
traveled to Gillette to facilitate a bilingual worker leadership training among 15 workers who had neverbefore received resources or information on workers’ rights. The full-day training covered basic workerrights, OSHA, and taking action. The reception was overwhelmingly positive, and the workers glowed withthe spirit of empowerment and solidarity. But this is only the start. Gillette workers know that their continuous involvement is crucial in their efforts to exercise their fullworker rights. Our hope is to return to Gillette one day and see a full blown COSH group or worker centerorganizing and leading programs that continues to foster leaders.
“The immigrants working in mining, drilling and other industries in Gillette feel isolated and are hungry for information about job safety and their rights. Many of them speak little or no English. Sumaq and Jessica brought the health and safety message in Spanish, which made the conversation more lively and the participants more confident," said Dan Neal, head of ESPC. “The workshop demonstrated that they have allies and that they can organize to build better lives for themselves and their community. We’re looking forward to keeping things moving there.”
Special thanks to Dan Neal, Andres Torres, Victor Pelayo, and Cristina Colling for their leadership andoutreach efforts that made this training possible!
Two Worker Advocacy Networks Joining Forces
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In collaboration with the National Day LaborerOrganizing Network (NDLON), National COSHoffered a leadership training focused on buildingactive worker committees on June 28 in LosAngeles with participants from worker centers fromacross the country.
National COSH helped to strategize and build theskill set of NDLON’s staff and worker leaders indeveloping effective worker health and safetyprograms. The training began with an introduction tothe COSH Network and finding parallels between
our organizations’ agenda in worker advocacy.
Participants noted a growing interest for local NDLON member organizations to team up with local COSHgroups to expand the reach of their health and safety programs. The two groups are currently working todevelop a worker resource booklet with information on worker rights and documentation of employerinformation.
If your local COSH group is interested in learning about or partnering with a local NDLON memberorganization in your region, please visit www.ndlon.org .
New Faces on the Federal Government Level We have a new U.S. Secretary of Labor! The U.S. Senate confirmed Thomas Perez as the new LaborSecretary in July after months of holding up his nomination.
The Senate also confirmed Howard Shelanski to head up the White House’s Office of Information andRegulatory Affairs (OIRA), the agency tasked with reviewing many regulations that would protect publichealth and safety. Many proposed rules, including standards to protect workers from exposure todangerous levels of silica dust on the job, have faced cumbersome delays – and have surpassed theircongressionally mandated deadlines. With new leaders at the helm, we are hopeful that new protections will be passed to keep workers safe onthe job. In the meantime, we are also identifying potential policies to push for on the state level. See box
below for more information. Send your suggestions to Tom .
Save the Date!
New England Train the TrainerNational COSH will hold a Train the Trainer for New England COSH groups (and others who may be
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interested) on November 7 somewhere in the greater Bostonarea.
Contact Jessica if you have questions or are interested in joining.
National Temp Worker ForumNational COSH, in conjunction with MassCOSH,APHA's OHS Section and the National StaffingWorkers Alliance, will hold a one-day forum on tempworkers' health and safety in Boston on Saturday,November 2.
Hear from health and safety advocates, organizers,researchers, and policymakers -- including OSHAChief Dr. David Michaels -- about how to improvesafety and health for our country's contingent
workforce.
National COSH Has Gone Mobile!
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We know, we know. We have a LOT of materials on our site. But navigatingour website from your smartphone or tablet just got a lot easier – we’vegone mobile! From your mobile device, visit www.coshnetwork.org (our regular website),and it should redirect you to the mobile version automatically. Or, if youprefer to see the regular site from your mobile device, there’s a link at the
bottom of the mobile-friendly site to take you back there.
To go to the mobile site directly, you can visit m.coshnetwork.org . Check itout!
Need Help Building a Website?
We know that there are COSH groups new and old who do not currently have a website. Dorry has beendeveloping a free template to adapt through WordPress to give you a quick and easy Web presence.
Contact her if you’re interested in setting one up.
Network Update: Think Globally, Act LocallyWhen we think of policy changes to improve worker safety and health conditions, we tend to thinkof legislative and regulatory changes to the OSH Act at the federal level. But given the gridlock inWashington these days, we can’t expect much of anything to come out of Congress. And federalregulatory action is painfully slow—sometimes measured in decades, as in the case of theproposed silica standard.
But we shouldn’t forget that OSH policy can be set at the state, or even local, level as well. Somestates have taken the initiative to act where Federal OSHA has not. Washington State, forexample, has passed rules protecting health care workers from hazardous drug exposures and
ergonomic hazards and retail workers from workplace violence. Some ten states have rulesrequiring that construction workers receive OSHA 10-hour training before beginning work. Anumber of other states have rules requiring certain employers to have written safety programsand/or safety committees.
The National COSH is working on developing a set of priorities for state and local action to improveworker safety and health. We would love to hear your ideas on this. What issues do you think havethe greatest potential for state and local policy action? What states or cities do you think might be
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good targets? We will be holding a series of conversations over the upcoming months to developthis agenda. Please share your thoughts with us.
As always, thank you for all you do.
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Copyright © 2013, National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. All rights reserved.
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