We need your input. Please send stories of Scandals and Scoundrels (Corporate, Political or others) along with citations of the source to: cekey@bellsouth.net
Updated 12/15/2006
The Article below was written for a National Labor College Course by Brother Ralph Anderson of IBEW Local 613.
LBST 2070
Employment Rights
Ralph Anderson
Winter 2005
Safety in Private Sector Training Facilities—No Protection for Students under OSHA
Under the Federal Guidelines set out under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, the General duty clause guarantees “every working man and woman a safe and healthful workplace” (29 CFR 1926).However this clause and the OSHA standards that follow it do not apply to students in training facilities.
The Issue
The question is: How can the OSH Act be amended or enforced on a federal, state or local level so as to afford students in a trade/technical school environment the same protection afforded workers under the Act?
With a growing need for skilled workers and the expanding market in the area of vocational training and education, more and more individuals are being subject to hazardous conditions that warrant protection under the law.
The majority of union training programs have agreements and partnerships with the United States Department of Labor and OSHA that not only ensures a hazard free training environment, but also provides OSHA certifications for the apprentices. “With the help from the local National Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee (NJATC), OSHA, NECA and the IBEW have worked together to develop and build improved, effective, meaningful safety and health training programs specific enough for the trade, yet broad enough to be effective in every facet of the diverse industry.” ( Penn- Del-Jersey- NECA-IBEW- OSHA Construction Industry Partnership).
However, this is not the case in private sector facilities that have been found to be lacking in the area of safety training and certifications. These schools and institutions have no enforced regulations to protect students, and many times put the students’ health and safety at risk as a means of protecting their bottom line profits. They rely on the future employer to provide training once the student enters the workplace. Students should not only be afforded proper training to take into the workplace, they should be guaranteed a hazard free learning environment. If a student is given a safe and healthful learning environment, then that is also what they will learn to recognize and expect in the workplace, making them less dependent on employer training.
My Experiences
Case in point: Decker College of Construction presently operates schools in four states around the country, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky and Indiana, The Atlanta campus has had two OSHA complaints filed against them in the past four months. These complaints filed by myself (a former Instructor at the school and an OSHA authorized trainer), included violations such as no Material Safety Data Sheets, empty first aid stations, lack of ground fault protection and lack of hearing protection to name only a few of the 17 different violations named in the complaint.
In their answer to OSHA, the school stated that these violations had been corrected. In the case of the instructors, yes they were, but as it pertained to the students they even go as far as saying that OSHA had no jurisdiction because the students were not employees, therefore not covered under the law.
In OSHA’s letter of November 5, 2005 addressing the first complaint filed against Decker College, it was stated that the students themselves were not protected under the guidelines set forth under 29 CFR 1926; thus, unless the employees were in fact placed in unsafe and hazardous conditions, OSHA had no real enforcement powers.
Using this response issued by OSHA’s Southeastern Regional office, the Director of Training for Decker at the Atlanta Facility, Dexter Cummings, replied to OSHA that “the unsafe conditions were in fact purposely created by the instructors in order that the students would recognize the hazard.” This is basically an admission that students are put into conditions that are both unsafe and hazardous without the proper training.
How can a student recognize a safety hazard if they have not had the proper training? Considering the background of the students that have been recruited by this “construction school,” most of whom come from either the inner city or are low income demographics, what one of the partners referred to as the “chronically unemployed”, these students would be hard pressed to identify any type of safety hazard. It is reasonable to see why these students would be unable to recognize even the most obvious of safety violations such as noise levels and lack of ground fault protection, let alone know the hazards of chemical exposures. Why would a training facility create a condition that would put the safety of a student in jeopardy?
In discussions with several students, those who are still in training and those that have since left this training environment, it has become clear that safety is a big issue to them. While still teaching, several students approached me to ask, “Is there any type of training that I could provide them to learn more about safety issues?”
The students in the field that no longer attended classes have recognized that the work environment can be a dangerous place and they wished that they had been better trained to recognize and deal with safety issues prior to entering the workforce. These students say that, although many employers stress safety, there is no training provided. Many of my former students had come to me saying that once on the job or while in the process of interviewing, they had been asked basic safety questions that they had been unable to answer due to the lack of training provided to them while students.
In the second OSHA complaint, filed in November of 2004, as a result of my taking Employment Rights and Workplace Hazards and the Law courses at the National Labor College, the safety and health issues were more clearly addressed. This action prompted a closer look at the safety issues at Decker College by the Administration.
The approach was taken that the employees were affected, as well as the students, thus putting the violations under the jurisdiction of OSHA. By addressing the issues in this manner the administration took a harder look at the violations that had been alleged in the complaint and demanded proof of remedies to the violations. This included conducting a noise level study that resulted in the school having to provide hearing protection to students and faculty in the affected area, not because the violations affected the students, but because the employees’ health and safety was affected. This second complaint, at the time of this writing, is still under investigation and has not come to a final decision.
While union training facilities take extra precautions to assure safe training practices, these private-sector schools have no laws that enforce these very same practices. This allows these schools to operate in a manner that exposes the students to sometimes life threatening hazards.
Although some states and private sector schools have adopted the OSHA regulations as a part of their safety programs, putting in place safeguards for the students, many private sector entities have chosen the easier path at the expense of the student’s safety. As profitability is the bottom line in many of these institutions, as is the way with most corporations, it becomes a game of we will do it this way until we get caught. Even with the simplest of things such as hard hats and safety glasses the students are given the cheapest available product instead of ones that provide ample protection. They use the very laws that are meant to protect the worker by stating that the laws and regulations covered under the OSH Act only apply to workers and that they are unenforceable when it pertains to students in the same environment. They deny the protective gear and a safe learning environment because OSHA and the students’ regulations that it enforces does not cover students in a training environment.
Laws and Research
Georgia is one of the states that at present have no law on the books that requires private sector schools to implement safety programs under OSHA guidelines for students. While it does have guidelines for school safety, (O.C.G.A 20-2-751), these laws only pertain to acts of terrorism, hazardous materials emergencies, natural disasters and acts such as bullying; they do not address the immediate need for personal protection for students in a work-like training scenario.
However, states like North Carolina and Utah have addressed this issue to some degree. Both of these states have recognized the need for at least minimal protection for students. In 1969, North Carolina passed the Face and Eye Protection Act and then in 1995 adopted the OSHA Standards 29CFR 1910 and incorporated it into NCOSH (North Carolina Safety and Health) that required training schools to provide face and eye protection to students and faculty in this type of facility.
Utah has also adopted the OSHA regulations under UOSH (Utah Occupational Safety and Health), and several colleges such as Brigham Young University and Utah State have chosen to apply these laws to students as well as faculty.
In the private school facilities, the most widely used curriculums are ones provided by the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER). This curriculum stresses the importance of safety training and even states on its website that its safety orientation meets OSHA standards. It also states that upon completion of the safety orientation, an OSHA 10 hour card may be provided by an OSHA 500 certified instructor.
Although this decision as to certification is left up to the discretion of the individual institution utilizing its curriculum, as to the extent of the certification, it may be that greater pressure needs to be put on either the certifying institution or the accrediting bodies to require OSHA certification of the students.
However in its instructor certification process, it does not require instructors to be certified in safety. It also does not require schools using its certification to have an OSHA 500 certified instructor on staff. This is an area where the unions and the AFL-CIO may be able to exert some political or social pressure to obtain this training certification for students in the private sector
Few of the private sector schools actually provide this training and certification for the students. In a survey conducted of schools which provide vocational training nationwide, it was found that safety training, while addressed, was not always provided especially when it came to OSHA certification. This survey conducted as a joint effort by the CDC and NIOSH and presented these facts to the National Conference on Workplace Safety and Health Training in March of 2004.
Although the training in itself is important, the certification that a student may receive is also very valuable. This certification is proof to a future employer that this person is competent and qualified in safety and hazard recognition, therefore decreasing the employer risk of accident and overall net cost of training. This makes this employee more valuable to the employer, thus justifying a higher wage.
In this growing field of construction education, the need to properly train our future workforce to work safely begins in the educational process itself. How can these students and our future workforce understand the importance of workplace safety if: 1) they are not provided the same protections afforded to workers, and 2) they do not receive the proper training and certifications to enter the workplace safely.? It is the duty of all of those who govern, educate in, and administer these training facilities to ensure that all students are protected and properly trained in all aspects of safety and health.
Possible Solutions
Should the OSH Act be amended to include the future workforce of America? Yes! Should we as Trade Unionists shirk the responsibility of making their safety our issue? No! However, given the current political atmosphere in the present administration where worker rights are constantly being eroded, this may not be an opportune time to initiate such a campaign.
However, there are ways that this change can be brought about. Although this may seem subversive we as members of organized labor can approach this matter from the perspective of private citizens. By taking this grass roots approach we do not at initiation succumb to the roadblocks that the republican administration would put into place against a move by organized labor. Use the political arena as those who now control our lives have done, play the game of politics. Although Machiavellian this approach does work.
After having several conversations with a former Republican Georgia legislator and educator, this issue will, however, be looked into over the next year in Georgia. I have had several conversations with this gentleman in regards to what can be done to ensure student protections in these types of learning environments and he has given a sympathetic advice. His advice was to approach this not as a labor force issue, but as an educational issue.
Although our current political powers are Republican, he feels as though the protection of students would be the more viable approach. It is more likely that after these protections are entered as a House Bill that that may be the time for labor to enter the arena, as an all out frontal assault by organized labor would most likely hinder the progression of the Bill. A copy of 29CFR 1910 has been given to this former legislator for review so that he may better understand the standards set forth under the OSH Act.
Further, an investigative reporter has been in contact with this writer and is looking into the complaints that have been filed for an expose. If approached from the proper perspective, which is one from an educational standpoint, the prospects are at least good on the state level. Given the success of the different state adopted programs in terms of safety and the hundreds of thousands of dollars saved by corporate America due to accident loss prevention even under the current administration, such legislation stands at least a fighting chance.
Local and municipal governments hold far less power here in the South and are even harder to motivate on such issues. It is the feeling of this writer that to approach this on a state level is more prudent and all encompassing.
However, for this to gain momentum and become implemented, it will take the work of a united front in the community. This program is one that not only initiates a change in the laws of the state; it also brings forth a social change. This change signifies that vocational students are worth training and protecting. These are not only our future workforce -- the builders of our cities, our factories and our homes -- they are also our children and we should afford them the same protection in education as we are given in the workplace.
Health and safety in the workplace has always been at the core of trade unionism. This issue of the safety of students should also be one in which we take up the flag and wave it high. By protecting the safety of the students, we are in fact protecting the rights of future working individuals, those that may at some time or another have the opportunity to make the choice of union or non-union and due to the protections that we have afforded them will make the right choice and become proud members of a union organization.
Even if they should choose not to organize into a trade union, we as union members will possess a clear conscience that we have ensured that these students/ trainees have received the proper training and protection that is their right. In accordance with our history and union heritage this and other battles like it are our legacy and whether these battles are those of blood spilled for workers rights or by legal maneuverings it is our obligation to enter the fray. For the rights, health and safety of the present or future workforce need to be protected.
Ralph Anderson
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Local 613