NEW JERSEY CWAers ORGANIZE FOR HEALTH & SAFETY

Of our approximately 50,000 CWA members in New Jersey, a huge portion provide essential public services, including healthcare and direct care services, as well as public facing services in Motor Vehicle Agencies, Unemployment Offices, and regulatory and inspection services.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many jobs that were previously not considered to be particularly dangerous have proved to carry serious risks to workers. As usual, we can't rely upon management to keep us safe - so CWAers in New Jersey, with the help of Micki Siegel de Hernandez, CWA's National Deputy Health & Safety Director, developed a new workplace Health & Safety Committee training program. The program, which got underway during the spring of 2020, focuses on keeping CWA members and families safe in an unsafe environment, while building CWA solidarity at the workplace.  

The program focuses on developing and educating rank-and-file worksite Health & Safety Committees, aiming to turn committee members into experts on safe environments. Issues include:

• The aerosol transmission of COVID-19 and the importance of adequate ventilation to everyone’s health

• The importance of proper mask-wearing, social distancing and barriers between work stations

• How to Conduct a thorough workplace hazard inspection

• Protocols for when a positive Covid-19 case occurs in the workplace

• How workplace H & S committees survey members, prioritize demands, gather information, prepare for labor-management meetings and mobilize members to build a more powerful CWA.

The CWA NJ Health & Safety Training Team, in coordination with Local leadership, have trained over 700 workplace union activists, stewards and H&S committee members including public and private sector childcare workers, state worker Locals 1032, 1033, 1037 and 1038; county social services locals; and local government locals.

The key to maintaining this statewide infrastructure is each Local selecting a H&S coordinator to participate in monthly meetings with the National H&S Training Team where they discuss successes and challenges of the past month and coordinate future work. Coordinators communicate with their Local’s workplace committee leaders and give support where needed.

Workplace Health & Safety Committee members in hundreds of work sites throughout New Jersey have been engaging and mobilizing thousands of their co-workers to build the power needed to pressure management to listen to our voices to maintain safe workplaces.