by Jim Barham

Chuck Kokoska, the Department’s Joint Safety Institute’s (JSI) Administrator, and I have been attending some of the business unit safety meetings to discuss the JSI’s accomplishments and further goals for 2003. We are showing the 20-minute video on “How to Conduct a Worker Safety Tour”, and also introducing two new worker safety tour forms called “How to Conduct a Tour” and the “Safety Actions Request Form”. Both can be found on the JSI website.

Some of the questions we have gotten at the meetings have been very good. There seems to be some confusion over a number of different aspects about conducting a tour. One of the questions that came up almost everywhere is, who picks the labor representative for the tours, and can management choose who it will be?

The answer is, that in order for the tours to really represent labor and management, labor must pick its representative for the tours, and management must select its rep. Of course, the reps from both sides will have completed the “Worker Safety Tour Skills” workshop before going on a tour. Conducting a tour in this manner truly creates the labor-management partnership that these tours hope to instill. The tours must be conducted without rank; both labor and management are equal, with equal input into the tour.

We encourage both labor and management to try to set a tour schedule at least a few months in advance, if possible, so that both sides have a chance to make sure that they will be able to be there for the tour.

Another question that came up often concerns the “amnesty” part of the tour. If labor and management are on a tour and they see someone in an unsafe work practice or not wearing their PPE, the tour members should correct the problem, but no one should be subjected to discipline. Please remember, however, that when the tour is gone, if a supervisor or manager happens to see the same unsafe work practice, action could be taken against the offender.

Members also ask, who decides where the tour will take place. Because labor and management are equal partners in the tour process, hey both should agree on where the tour will be. A good place to start is in the areas or jobs where workers have complained in the past about unsafe conditions. The worker safety tour goal is to have open and honest communications with the workers, noting the good safe work that is taking place, and looking for employee input into how the work can be done more safely.

The tours give workers a chance to point out top safety priorities for the job, and to discuss recent near misses or incidents in their areas of responsibility. They allow employees to air their views on unsafe working conditions and offer opinions on how to correct them. During tours, workers can also point out any safety training, or any kind of training, they need in order to do their work more safely and efficiently—including any tools they see as making their work safer.

Remember: always notify the supervisor of the job you plan on touring, and if safety issues come up during the tour, always give that supervisor the opportunity to solve the problem. We want the issues settled at the local (site) level whenever possible. These are just a few things the tours need to be doing, and our new “Worker Safety Tour Form” has many other pointers you can use.

Please remember one other important thing: the worker safety tour is not a safety audit. Audits are necessary, but should be done by the supervisor in that area, on a separate tour. As union members, we should try to watch out and care for each other on the job. We should strive to leave our jobs a little better (safer) than when we took it, so that future union members will have a good and safe place in which to work.