Worker Engagement in the Health and Safety Regulatory Arena under Changing Models of Worker Representation

Abstract

This paper examines the efforts of a labor-community-university partnership in Southern California to confront violations of workplace health and safety standards by employers of nonunion workers in low-wage jobs. A worker engagement model has opened avenues for workers and worker advocates to participate in the regulatory arena absent union representation. This approach has achieved notable successes to date, including groundbreaking Cal/OSHA citations and nascent collaboration with agency officials to target enforcement of health and safety standards. We argue this model constitutes the foundation needed to support a potentially viable form of tripartism that allows nonunion workers a voice, albeit limited, in the health and safety regulatory process.

At Work in a Pandemic: Black Workers’ Experiences of Safety on the Job

“…Although deeper structural reforms will be needed to address the overall precarity of many essential jobs as well as to address the factors that have pushed Black workers into some of the most precarious spaces in the labor market, strengthening and supporting collective bargaining for these workers will be critical. In the absence of unionization, workers and union community groups should also explore the possibility of alternative engagement models that could allow workers to more fully participate in confronting violations of health and safety standards (Delp and Riley 2015).…”

Worker Representation in the Regulation of Occupational Health: Explaining the Shift to Knowledge Activism

“…Other than education, a variety of other supports are important including collective agreement provisions for more paid time, greater access to research and expert support, and assistance in developing and maintaining rep. networks (Baril-Gingras and Dubois-Ouellet, 2018). Funding and other supports for worker, immigrant and legal aid centres would also be extremely useful, especially if those organizations become conduits for KA education, technical and emotional support, and network development (Delp and Riley, 2015; Vosko et al, 2020).…”

Worker Injuries in Southern California’s Warehousing Industry: How to Better Protect Workers in This Burgeoning Industry?

“…The U.S. worker health and safety regulatory framework is not equipped to address the challenges of changing employment relations, declines in union density, increasingly concentrated corporate power with cities bidding to erode standards to recruit jobs, and an e-commerce business model driven by fueling unrealistic consumer expectations of deliveries at the snap of one’s fingers. 48–50 In this context, Cal/OSHA plays a necessary but insufficient role. Worker advocates can support worker engagement in the process to complement organizing and advocacy efforts, part of a strategy to build workers’ power at their workplace through unionization and to integrate workers’ voice into discussions and decisions about the future of sustainable work.…”

“…That example and other models of worker advocate-government agency collaboration have been described in a variety of non-union SoCal settings, including WWRC’s campaign to require staffing agencies to protect temp workers in the warehouse industry and UNITE HERE’s experience with the RMI prevention standard in the hotel industry. 48 Our Cal/OSHA data, which lists primary and inspected NAICS codes, include three citations issued against staffing agencies contracted by a logistics company for violating IIPP and personal protective equipment standards, an important practice which should be enhanced.…”