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Despite what you may have read in an article posted on UPOnline "
Twin
Cities TSC Gains Support of All Crafts " , the Twin Cities Service
Unit have 4
transportation locals/divisions and all have chosen not to participate in the TSC.
The article was false and misleading. In this article TCSU means Eagle Grove, Altoona, Adams, Mason City, Itasca and Des
Moines, NOT the Twin Cities. We are at the doorstep of the regime and we are
not endorsing nor participating in TSC.
BLET Division 333 voted unanimously not
to be involved in this new TSC program because we feel it shifts responsibility
for maintaining a safe workplace from management to workers. The theory
behind TSC is that almost all injuries are caused by worker unsafe acts.
Instead of assuming the responsibility for providing a safe workplace,
management tries to shift the blame for accidents and injuries onto
employees. We also feel that TSC not only blames the worker for unsafe
working conditions, it often pits worker against worker. We will continue to
oppose any program that starts with the idea that employees are the cause of
accidents and injuries. Our position is
that the carrier should focus on identifying hazards and eliminating or
reducing them, not implementing programs showing workers how to work around
hazards that shouldn't be there in the first place. Instead of the carrier
fixing a hazard, we are encouraged to duck, dodge, tip toe, lift safely, and
wear personal protective equipment around the hazard. Brainwashing us to
believe that it’s our fault if we do get injured, it’s our fault for not
working carefully enough around the hazard. The TSC program gives the
carrier a free pass when it comes to being responsible for creating a safe
workplace.
Discipline has already become carriers preferred response to worker injury.
Workers face getting pulled out of service and fired when they report
injuries to determine what "unsafe behaviors" they were engaging in. Workers
avoid harassment, ridicule, inquisitions and discipline, by ceasing to
report accidents and injuries. When injuries aren't reported, hazards don't
get identified or corrected.
TSC also undermines union efforts
to address hazardous workplace conditions through concerted action.
As we have already seen in our own union TSC inhibits
solidarity among the workforce. Workers are assigned to watch, analyze and
document what your fellow workers do right and wrong. In behavior
observation programs, the primary safety problem that needs fixing is the
conduct of your union brothers and sisters. Workers do not like having the
boss or anyone else looking over their shoulder. Rather than focusing worker
attention on organizing collectively to fix the workplace, behavior based
programs have workers target each other for individual change.
Documents on Behavioral Safety Programs
US House of Representative Committee of Education - Underreporting of
Workplace Injuries
Blame the Worker - The Rise of Behavioral-Based Safety Programs
Behavioral-Based Program
Anti-BBS Program Slideshow
Bargaining over Injury Discipline Policies
AFL-CIO fact sheet, "Safety Incentive and Injury Discipline Policies
The Steelworker Perspective on Behavioral Safety
It's the Hazards, Stupid
Why FELA is important ..... Don't buy into
the "unsafe worker myth"
Links on Behavioral Safety Programs
http://www.safetyperformance.com/Resources/Articles.asp
http://ohsrep.org.au/index.cfm?section=12&category=106
http://www.hazards.org/bs/hazardsbriefing.htm
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Nancy Lessin video on
Behavioral Based Programs |
TOTAL SAFETY CULTURE
TAKES PRIORITY |
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This is
where bulletins used to be posted. |
This is
where they are now. |
It was reported to
the "Safety Hotline" on May 14th that Total Safety Culture has
removed important BNSF - CP and CN Bulletins and replaced them
with TSC posters. These important bulletins have been thrown in
a pile near one of the computer terminals. The response
from local management is that the yard office is being
remodeled. As of May 25th.............they are still in a pile,
and apparently not current.
This sends a clear
message from local management what their priorities really are.
Instead of important and critical information concerning train
movement over foreign railroads taking priority, we have posters
of water bottles that were deliberately thrown on a rug for sake
of a picture. If posters and pictures are going to take
priority, why not take REAL pictures of the hundreds of REAL
hazards in the Twin Cities Service Unit.
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RWU continues it's campaign to fight
behavior based safety on our nations
railroads, such as Union Pacific
Railroads total safety culture
program. Behavior based safety like
TSC blame workers for accident
instead of removing the hazards that
led to the injury in the first place. Tell
the bosses just how you feel and get
one of these new pins! Send us self
addressed stamped envelope and we
will send you one for free! Send
mail to Railroad Workers United,
P.O. Box 1053, Salem, IL 62881
ATTN: Hazards Pin
.
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Railroad Workers United
Organizes Vote No campaign |
Railroad Workers United
Organizes Vote No campaign on Union Pacific's Total Safety Culture
Railroaders and Unions need
a real safety program, not "blame-the workers" safety programs!
For those of us employed by the railroad we have seen many programs
implemented by management come and go. The new flavor of the month for
Union Pacific TE&Y employees is the system wide implementation of a
behavioral based blame-the worker safety program knows as Total Safety
Culture, TSC for short.
Blame the workers
safety programs include:
• Behavior-Based Safety
• Safety Incentives
• Injury Discipline
BBS
(behavioral based safety) programs shift the responsibility for hazards
that exist in the workplace away from the employer and place the blame
on the worker for unsafe acts. Nowhere in TSC is there a place for
management accountability in terms of hazards that exist in the
workplace or a place for correcting them. What TSC never recognizes is
the fact that, "All workplace injuries are a result of exposure to
hazards. There are NO exceptions!" Instead TSC looks at things like PPE
(personal protective equipment) such as safety glasses, earplugs,
communication, body mechanics, training, environment and awareness. TSC
in no way initiates the removal or lessens the exposure to hazards. The
use of PPE is the least effective way of avoiding hazards on the job, in
TSC however it takes center stage. The best way to avoid injury in the
workplace is using the "Hierarchy of Controls."
Hierarchy of Controls
Most Effective 1. Elimination or Substitution
2. Engineering Controls
(Safeguard technology)
3. Warnings
4. Training and Procedures
(Administrative Controls)
Least Effective 5. Personal Protective Equipment
Unfortunately in BBS programs like TSC elimination or substitution of
hazards is considered least effective. In the diagram to the left the
most effective way to deal with hazards is clearly "Elimination or
substitution." TSC would place PPE as the #1 way of avoiding injury and
turns the hierarch of controls upside down. With TSC, "why eliminate the
hazard when you can simply buy personal protective equipment?"
Historically as we look back, railroaders remember conditions that
previously existed that have been eliminated. For example the "link and
pin" method of coupling freight cars together. Surely this method of
connecting freight cars left thousands without fingers and hands. No
more is the "footboard" which undoubtedly led to the injury or untimely
death of many switchmen. No longer do brakemen walk the tops of cars to
tighten hand brakes. Reduced are our hours of service from the sixteen
hour day to the twelve. Employees in the car shop are aided by
advancements and pneumatics and rigging that reduce lifting strains and
injuries. The simple fact is that elimination of hazards and the
substitution for previous risk exposure are in part what lead to real
safety in our work environments.
TSC is the brainchild of Psychologist E. Scott Geller and Safety
Performance Solutions. To provide some insight into how Mr. Geller
thinks, here is a quote from him while speaking at the NACOSH (National
Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety & Health) in Washington, D.C.
on April 9, 1997, "So putting up a guard might encourage them (workers)
to get closer to the hole that's being guarded, or encourage them to
take more risks because of the extra perceived safety by that guard."
TSC has another
insidious aspect as well; it provides perks for our fellow workers who
implement it. For example, time off the job away from the work that the
individual would normally do in their craft. How seductive this is must
be, to have a 9-5 job Monday through Friday, in an air-conditioned
office. This is surely a far cry from a life lived on call, working in
extremely cold or hot climates with time spent away from family and
friends. Working in the dirty environment of the car shop, the right of
way or any of the work environments our respective railroad crafts work
in. It provides access for the TSC implementers to "the back office,"
and the managers who are there. TSC degrades rank and file solidarity in
a major way. Union members are co-opted to be a tool of the company
instead of working for their own craft union towards building a real
union based safety program.
RWU and its
members seek to provide an alternative to TSC. In place of TSC we are
building a movement towards a principled union based safety program such
as the following:
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
OF A UNION APPROACH TO SAFETY & HEALTH
• Injuries and illnesses are a result of exposures to hazards
• Labor and managements goals differ
• Union only mechanisms to protect our interests
• Worker and union involvement in every aspect of program
• Union representatives need time, access and resources
The union
approach to worker safety is far different from that of management's.
Elements of a union based program would include a real commitment from
management in any agreement, worker and union involvement, hazard
identification and assessment, hazard prevention, elimination and
control, worksite inspections and incident investigations as well as the
evaluation of the effectiveness of the program and medical care. The
mechanisms unions can use for this are as follows. Health and Safety
committees (union only & joint), procedures to shut down hazardous jobs,
the right to refuse unsafe work, mechanism to review workplace changes,
measure hazards and control efforts (not just reported injuries),
training and education.
The rank and file members of the various crafts on the Union Pacific
Railroad will soon be exposed to TSC. It is time that our various craft
unions become involved in union based safety program that:
• Identify the
root cause of injury and illness
• Communicates problems to a Union Health & Safety Committee
• Files health and safety grievances when needed
• Refusing hazardous or unsafe work
• Honesty and accurately reports injuries or illnesses
• Identifies managers who are not addressing health and safety problems
Remember
health and safety is a mandatory subject for bargaining! There are
documented cases where management refused to bargain over the
implementation of BBS and the union won! For example, in an unfair labor
practice charge filed by the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) -
Philadelphia Local - the National Labor Relations Board supported the
unions position that management must bargain with the union over a
safety program which affects its members. RWU is currently hard at work
looking at the RLA and how unions can bargain over TSC instead of merely
accepting it.
In short TSC focuses on ways to identify workers who are behaving
"unsafely" and coax, cajole and/or threaten them into behaving safely on
the job, while ignoring the job hazards that can cause workers to be
injured or made ill. TSC ignores the fact that all workplace injuries
and illnesses are caused by workers' exposure to hazards and hazardous
conditions on the job. TSC focuses on railroad employee behavior NOT
where it should be - on fixing workplace hazards. TSC condemns railroad
workers as the problem while never asking "why" in regards to real
safety. Railroad companies like behavior-based approaches because
management is taken off the hook for fixing hazards.
Issues like adequate staffing levels, limits on extended work hours,
humane work load and the pace of work are not even considered. The
solidarity of union power is weakened, to the delight of management.
Behavior-based safety is a win-win proposition only for rail carriers,
while for railroad workers and our unions, the opposite is true.
Behavior-based safety programs focus attention away from hazardous
workplace conditions and thwart hazard identification and control
efforts, with harmful and tragic results.
Instead of TSC, Railroad Workers United recommends that unions redirect
the focus towards building real union safety programs that work and
holding management accountable for their action or lack their of.
Total Safety Culture is
a sham with a hidden agenda!
Even in
cases where a behavioral safety program is implemented with assurances
that there will be no discipline, there are several problems. When
workers report injuries, they often suffer inquisitions & investigations
to determine what "unsafe behaviors" they were engaging in. The total
emphasis for corrective action remains on promoting safe worker behavior
rather than eliminating or reducing hazards.
Please join Railroad Workers United in its "Vote No to Total Safety
Culture" campaign in your terminal. Show your solidarity with your
brothers and sisters in all the various rail crafts by fighting against
this atrocious program.
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UTU Local 807 Defeats Total Safety Culture by 4 to 1
vote! |
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Things are hot at Union Pacific's Tucson terminal and it is not
because of the weather. In July UTU Local 807 members voted
4-to-1 against participation in UP's "Total Safety Culture" (TSC)
program. TSC is a behavior based safety (BBS) program that
focuses on workers' behavior instead of removal of hazards in
the workplace. TSC finds ways to blame workers for accidents in
the workplace and also works as a union busting tool by default.
If you need more information on what unions say about behavior
based safety programs like TSC and why BBS programs are bad for
unions and workers, there will be more information and links at
the end of this article as well as tools to fight TSC in your
terminal.
Starting in September of 2007, TE & Y employees working at Union
Pacific's Tucson, Arizona terminal were notified they were to
attend one day of classroom training on UP's newest idea to
create a safer workplace, a gimmick known as "Total Safety
Culture".
Most everyone who has been through the class will tell you that
they see glaring problems with the program and that they feel
there is a hidden agenda, but participants in the class are
often not quite sure what it is?
Those of us at RWU share similar concerns and during our
founding convention in April of this year we had the chance to
finally have our questions answered when we attended Nancy
Lessin's workshop, "Ain't Misbehavin, Confronting Managements
Blame-the-Worker Safety Programs."
Ms. Lessin has a career that spans more than 30 years working
towards real safety for working men and women. She is employed
by the United Steel Workers, Tony Mazzocchi Center for Safety,
Health and Environmental Education. Ms. Lessin pulled back the
curtain to reveal the awful truth behind UP's TSC program and
showed us what the real motives are, and they are in no way
about worker safety!
Most Effective
1. Elimination or Substitution
2. Engineering Controls
(Safeguard technology)
3. Warnings
4. Training and Procedures
(Administrative Controls)
Least Effective
5. Personal Protective Equipment
There is one crucial point to remember when talking about
injuries in the workplace, "All injuries and illnesses are the
results of exposure to hazards. There are no exceptions!" With
this statement Ms. Lessin opened our eyes and thus began our
education on BBS programs.
Safety professionals agree that using the "Hierarchy of
Controls" is an effective way to resolving safety and health
problems. The consequence of a BBS program like TSC turns the
"Hierarchy of Controls" upside down and relies on the least
effective methods of preventing injury to workers. TSC also
co-opts union members and uses them as tools of the company to
run a built-in union busting component and the carriers know
this. Union members would be observing and reporting on their
union brothers and sisters as part of TSC process and turning in
those reports to the carrier.
The TE&Y employees who run TSC in Tucson have the perk of air
conditioned offices, full time OS status and a wonderful 9 to 5
workday and access to "the back office." You may have heard of
many other locals who love TSC and are behind it. Well, it is no
wonder, as the seductiveness of being in full time OS status
instead of being on-call or working a midnight switch job is
simply too alluring for some.
Upon returning from the RWU founding convention, armed with the
new found knowledge of TSC, RWU members went to work on a
campaign to fight it. RWU kicked off a "Vote No on TSC" campaign
with a workshop held in Tucson, AZ on May 20th. All union
members were invited to view a video presentation of the
workshop Ms. Lessin gave at the RWU founding convention.
Participants in the workshop also received an informational
packet on BBS programs and joined in on a question and answer
discussion.
This was surely the flash point that started the real battle
against TSC in Tucson. For the first time the trainmen and
engineers of Tucson were shown the ugly truth about Total Safety
Culture and what Union Pacific's true motives are. Pro-TSC "I
Team" members were present at this meeting as well, paid to be
there by the Union Pacific Railroad.
The July vote by Local 807 (which represents conductors) not to
participate in TSC is the most recent event in the short life
that TSC lived in Tucson within TE & Y. From the onset BLE&T
Division 28 (representing engineers) and UTU Local 1800
(representing switchmen) did not participate in TSC. UTU Local
807 would decide on TSC participation by rank-and-file ballot
vote. RWU's effort in defeating TSC was aided by the fact that
on the heels of the July vote a letter from the Brotherhood of
Railway Carmen division instructed all Unit 320 local chairmen
that all participation in TSC was strictly voluntary. In a
letter written on May 14th International Representative L.C.
Bauman further stated, "Effective with this letter my office
will no longer participate in Total Safety Culture." RWU efforts
were further buttressed in a June 19th letter written by BLE&T
General Chairman D.W. Hannah to A.C. Hallberg, Director of Labor
Relations at Union Pacific Railroad. The letter was also sent to
all local chairmen, secretary/treasurers as well as the Division
president, N.L. Pruitt, ND V.P. At the time there were a number
of engineers and trainmen in the Tucson terminal in OS status
(other service) that were being paid to do so by the company.
These engineers and trainmen were on the TSC "I" Team, "I" being
short for implementation. Mr. Hannah's letter stated in part,
"regarding the use of engineers as "safety captains" or any
other name or positions not covered by the existing agreement(s)
with the general committee." Mr. Hannah stated that, "this is to
advise that when engineers leave the service of the Carrier as
an engineer, then performs work in another position not covered
by the agreement covering engineers and not protected by the
leave of absence agreement, when and if the employee returns to
work as an engineer his/her seniority will be at the bottom of
the respective engineers seniority roster at the locations where
he/she returns to work and will be treated as a newly promoted
engineer."
The message was clear, the BLE&T did not want its membership
co-opted by the carrier and participation in TSC was out. Upon
receipt of D.W. Hanna's letter, BLE&T Division 28 Local chairman
James H. Booth III informed UTU-E Local 807's Local Chairman
Tony M. Trejo that the engineers within his local had seven days
to, "return to active status as full-time locomotive engineers."
Soon after this letter those engineers participating resigned
from the TSC "I" Team.
At this point in the battle against TSC the message was very
clear. There were no unions on the property in Tucson
participating in TSC and UTU Local 807 was set to vote on
whether or not their members would participate. Now that the
leadership of Local 807 had been educated about the realty of
TSC and were backed by the knowledge that the Carmen, BLE&T, UTU
Local 1800 switchmen and the UTU-E 807 engineers were off of the
"I" team a core group within UTU 807 acted.
Funds were raised for a mailer and in a letter to all members of
UTU Local 807 ten elected officials within the local urged their
members to "Vote no on TSC." The effort worked and the members
of UTU Local 807 voted down participation in TSC 4 to 1. This
was by many accounts the first time in memory that the Local 807
decided not to have another program shoved down their member's
throats. The members of UTU Local 807 stood up to the carrier
and won a real victory. This is a victory not just for Local 807
but for all union members in the Tucson terminal.
No matter what your craft or terminal, if you work on the Union
Pacific Railroad, TSC is certainly headed your way. In fact it
may already be present in your terminal and members of your
local may already be participating. RWU encourages you to take
the time to look through the links at the end of this article
and educate yourself on the true nature of TSC and what other
unions have said about behavior based safety.
If your union local makes the decision to fight TSC/BBS in your
terminal RWU has the material and an outline for you to fight
and win your own battle. As railroaders we need a "union based"
safety program that has the health and wellbeing of union
members as the first order of business. We have known for
generations now that what the working men and women on our
nation's railroads want and what the carriers' desire are at
opposite ends of the spectrum. The fight against TSC is a
spectacular chance to create a union based safety program that
truly has our interest in mind while building unity and
solidarity amongst the members of not just your local union, but
also amongst and between all the crafts in your respective
terminal and property.
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Here is what unions around the country have to say
about Behavior Based Safety Programs |
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AFL-CIO Policy Resolution - Health & Safety
"At the same
time work restructuring and changes in employment are raising
serious safety and health concerns, many employers are moving to
shift responsibility for job injuries to workers by focusing on
worker behavior instead of hazardous conditions. Across
industries, a variety of programs are being implemented ... that
provide incentives and awards to workers who do not report
injuries, establish elaborate procedures for observing and
documenting workers' behavior and "unsafe acts "while ignoring
employer mismanagement and the root causes of injuries,
institute policies to discipline and fire workers who are
injured and impose drug testing for every worker who reports a
job injury regardless of the cause.
"These programs and policies have a chilling effect on workers'
reporting of symptoms, injuries and illnesses, which can leave
workers' health and safety problems untreated and underlying
hazards uncorrected. Moreover, these programs frequently are
implemented unilaterally by employers, pitting worker against
worker and undermining union efforts to address hazardous
workplace conditions through concerted action.
"The AFL-CIO opposes employer programs and policies that shift
responsibility for worker safety by focusing on worker behavior
instead of workplace hazards and employer mismanagement and that
create disincentives to reporting injuries or hazards. We
believe such practices undermine worker protection."
United Food and Commercial Workers
"Because they often require employees to critique each other's
work practices, behavior based safety programs generate fear and
conflict amongst members. By shifting the focus away from
workplace hazards, such programs leave significant safety and
health problems unaddressed."
Transportation Workers Union of America
"Behavior based safety programs generate fear, institutionalize
the use of low level controls over higher level engineering
controls, create conflict between workers and discourage the
reporting of injuries and illnesses and drive problems
underground and have no place in a health and safety program."
United Auto Workers "Unfortunately,
behavior-based safety programs are just a retread of old
outdated ideas and strategies that have never been proven
affective. Other managers are interested in behavior based
safety because they realize this approach shifts responsibility
for health and safety to their workers and does not require
significant change in the management system. They understand
that the emphasis will be on changing the worker and holding the
worker responsible for injuries and illnesses."
United Steel Workers "Behavior-based
safety programs attempt to change worker behavior. What we have
found is that the workplaces using these programs are much more
likely not to address the hazards that are in fact the root
cause of worker injury, illness and death. At a behavioral
safety workplace, hazards often do not get identified; and even
when identified, do not get fixed. Workers receive feedback from
observers that encourages them to work more safely around a
hazard, but the hazard itself does not get eliminated or
controlled. As long as the hazard remains, the potential for
injury or illness remains."
Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International
"The basic premise of behavior modification programs is
that the primary cause of accidents is worker error. This
blame-the-victim concept provides little opportunity for
effective accident prevention. Behavior modification does not
focus on the fundamental safety problems that we face."
Thomas Creswell, "Thoughts on Behavior-Based Safety
Approaches," The Communiqué, National Safety Management
Society, Nov. 1997 "Back in my days as a general
manager, I kicked more behavioral scientists out of my
facilities than you can shake a stick at. I would not let them
come in and screw up my work force. Behavioral scientists
usually have a very limited work experience and can do more
damage to an organization in a day or a week than you can
straighten out in 10 years. I have experienced it, I've seen it.
I don't feel bad for these guys for cashing in on their
education but I wouldn't give them 15 cents to conduct a class
for me on anything."
Links to information on behavior based safety:
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LEGAL DISCLAIMER:
This is only a informational website only. Information and
statements contained on this web site has been provided for the benefit of
BLET Division 333 Members. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, Division 333 and this
webmaster
are not liable for discrepancies, omissions, opinions, whether
expressed, implied, false or misleading content. All content ©
2008 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen Division
333.
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