Our safety matters

Recently I learned from a local union president that one of our members had her thumb bitten off by a resident in her care at a state developmental center.

Roberta Lynch

That same resident had previously attacked three other staff members—two of whom required surgery to recover from the wounds inflicted.

Throughout this string of assaults, management refused to take any meaningful steps to protect the employees working on that unit—despite the best efforts of the local union.

At the state’s psychiatric correctional center, management ignored the local union’s objections to leaving one staff person alone on a unit, even after an employee working on that unit was so badly beaten that she required surgery and has not been able to return to work for months.

Just in the past month, inmates at two correctional centers started all-out brawls that included attacks on a number of staff.

And as the smuggling of drugs into state prisons steadily increases, the related dangers of employee exposure to hazardous substances and offender violence increase as well.

Week after week the reports come in—especially from state correctional facilities and developmental centers—of assaults on staff that result in serious injuries.

The common factor among them is all too often the utter lack of concern from management about the dangers that employees confront daily on the job. In too many instances, management flat-out refuses to heed the union’s recommendations to reduce the risk of serious harm.

The attitude coming from those at the top almost seems to be: ‘Well, you signed up for this job and you just have to put up with the dangers.’

But, of course, nobody actually signs up to be beaten up. And there can be little doubt that the current crisis in hiring in both IDHS and IDOC is directly related to the lack of a strong, affirmative employee safety program in those agencies. New employees come on board and quit in a matter of months, sometimes weeks, after they see how dangerous the work is—and how little is done to mitigate the risks of their jobs.

Tragedy can strike anywhere at any time.

DOC maintenance craftsman Chris James fell to his death after management assigned him a tree trimming task without providing proper safety equipment.

Employees in the state Department of Children and Family Services are painfully aware of the two caseworkers, Pamela Knight and Deidre Silas, who were murdered as they tried to rescue children at risk.

Police dispatchers are forced to work such intense schedules—doing such intense jobs—that they are often stressed to the limit. Nursing home workers can suffer serious back injuries because of a lack of appropriate lifting equipment. Employees in the Chicago Public Library have been threatened by political extremists and people suffering from mental illnesses.

Recently Evanston Public Works employees saw their job injury rate double as management tried to force them to do the same work in the same period of time with significantly fewer staff.

Safety should be the right of every employee every day of their working lives. Yes, accidents happen. We all know that. But it is the responsibility of employers to do everything possible to prevent accidents. And that’s not just a matter of hoping for the best. It’s a matter of analyzing the risks inherent in the work and then developing strategies to reduce them.

Over the years our union has made safety a priority in labor-management meetings and at the bargaining table—developing our own solutions and pressing for employers to adopt them. Most of our contracts include safety language that requires the employer to provide a safe workplace. And even where we don’t have contract language, OSHA laws place that responsibility on employers.

Employees at the Rockford Public Library just spent months in tough negotiations because their employer was refusing to address the safety concerns they raised. The union held firm and just ratified a new contract that establishes a joint labor-management health and safety committee that gives workers a critical voice in the creation and implementation of new health and safety policies.

And we’re not just fighting at the bargaining table. We’re taking safety concerns to the streets as well. Evanston Public Works employees held a vocal picket outside of a City Council meeting to emphasize their concerns about unsafe working conditions. And within a few weeks of their picket, steps were taken to address those concerns.

But here’s what troubles me: Why should we have to make safety a union bargaining proposal? Why should we have to take to the streets to create meaningful change? Why is it that management so rarely takes the initiative to address our safety concerns? Why is it that an employee losing their thumb does not elicit an immediate plan of action by management to prevent that kind of brutal assault from recurring?

Put more bluntly: Why don’t employers seem to care about the rights of employees not to be battered, beaten, scarred, disabled or killed at work?

I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know this: It can’t go on.

We’re determined to stand up together for our right to work in the safest possible conditions. We’re determined to press on every front for concrete changes to improve safety in our workplaces. We’re determined to insist that our lives matter.