Albuquerque's Environmental Story

Educating For a Sustainable Community

Environmental Topic: Occupational Health

by Nina Wallerstein

Background and Problems

• A pregnant woman who works as a photography teacher asks her obstetrician if she should change her job (or stop working) because of the chemicals to which she and her fetus are exposed.
• A middle-aged maintenance man visits his orthopedic surgeon and states that he has chronic back pain, which he attributes to lifting heavy objects for many years.
• A teacher goes to her principal with concerns about her stress level. Her classes are too large and her prep time has been consistently decreasing.
• Students are potentially exposed to lab and shop chemicals, dusts, poor ventilation, unsafe playgrounds, and growing violence in the schools.

The field of occupational health, or health and safety, encompasses the hazards of work, and the prevention of injuries and illnesses that may arise from working environments. How serious a health problem is work-related disease or injury? Though newspapers remind us frequently of mine explosions, falls from unsafe scaffolding, even lung cancers from uranium mining, few people realize the epidemic proportions of the problem. In the U.S., estimates range from 7,000 to 13,000 workers are killed each year on the job. One hundred thousand people annually lose their lives to occupational disease (twice the number of automobile accident deaths). There are close to 20 million injuries with another 390,000 people seriously ill each year from their work. Skin diseases are the most common, followed by repeated trauma disorders and lung diseases from toxins and dusts.

It is important for children, high school youth, working adults--including teachers and school staff members--to look critically at their work environments and evaluate the problems that may cause illness. The children in Albuquerque schools may grow up to work in New Mexico's high-hazard industries, which employ one-fourth of the state work force--construction, mining, transportation /public utilities, and manufacturing. The majority will work in small workshops where the hazards are less known, less controlled and therefore, potentially more serious.

These on-the-job hazards include unguarded machinery, ungrounded electrical currents, fires, physical agents such as excessive heat or cold, high noise levels, radiation, poor lighting, vibration; and toxic chemicals, dusts, and fumes. Moreover, hazards can go beyond direct physical or chemical agents and affect more than the individual worker. Increasingly ergonomics, the relationship of the person to their work environment, is becoming of more concern. Repetitive motion, including typing long hours on computers with the wrong chair, wrong height, or not enough breaks, can cause carpal tunnel syndrome or tendonitis. Stresses at work can cause ulcers, risk of heart disease, and mental distress. Children may develop illnesses from dusts brought home on the workers' clothes, or suffer emotionally and financially when a parent becomes sick from work.

With the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) in 1970, Congress adopted its first comprehensive federal program to protect the health and safety of the American public. In New Mexico, state government began to administer the federal law in 1976 through its own program, the Occupational Health and Safety Bureau (OHSB), within the Department of Health and Environment (505-827-4230). This state program must adopt regulations as strong as the federal ones and can provide stronger protection, if indicated, to all public and private employees. (Federal employees in New Mexico are still covered by federal OSHA.)

The state OHSB inspects hazardous workplaces when workers make health and safety complaints, which can be done anonymously. The state OHSB also provides consultation to employers, employees, physicians, and the public, upon request.

Under OHSB (OSHA), employers' responsibilities are as follows:

• to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards and comply with all OHSB standards
• to inform all employees about the OHSB
• to record all accidents and make that record available to employees and the OHSB
• to provide training and medical exams to employees when required by standards.

Under OHSB regulations, employees have the following rights:

• to make a complaint to the OHSB anonymously for an inspection of the workplace
• to be free from discrimination or dismissal for making a health and safety complaint,
• to know the results of any medical or air monitoring tests
• to be informed about the hazards they work with
• to refuse, in good faith, to perform imminently dangerous work.

Zia Elementary
photo by Barbara Trujillo

Though schools are not thought to be high-hazard industries, teachers, staff, and children still face a multitude of problems that can lead to occupational illness. These include hazards in specific classes, such as art, photography, wood shop, auto mechanics, biology, and chemistry; general building and grounds hazards, e.g., extreme heat or cold, poor ventilation, asbestos, unsafe playgrounds; and stresses from work. The teacher is under increasing pressure with larger class size, discipline problems, fear of physical assault, lack of preparation time, low pay, and simply being with children all day. Many of these stresses are reduced in schools with supportive programs, and good communication with administration. Stress-management programs, such as exercise and relaxation, can also help. Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) provides stress-management sessions through its Employee Assistance Center.

The best way to prevent occupational disease or injury is to develop a health and safety program. One method is a school committee composed of staff, administration, faculty, and students. The committee could survey the school regularly to identify the hazards, analyze the protective controls, and make recommendations for improvement and training. To identify hazards, the committee should look for strong odors, dust clouds, loud noises, spilled chemicals, and unlabeled chemicals. Students and faculty could be asked if they've had health complaints that require further investigation. The APS Risk Management Department is responsible on the district level for employee protection, workers' compensation, fire protection, and environmental pollutants control and disposal. Useful resources are the OHSB, a variety of clinics around town, including the University Employee Occupational Health Service, and the unions, especially the international office.

Options and Opinions

Discussion Questions

1. How safe is their school environment?
2. How could schools and work places be made safer?
3. Who has the responsibility for making schools and work places safer?
4. How can students make recommendations for change?
5. What role should government (federal, state, local) play in occupational safety?
6. Does government have a right to tell employers and employees what to do about safety?
7. How much regulation is helpful?
8. What has been the role of unions in creating a safe and healthy workplace? What should the role be?
9. What are the pros and cons of employee/employer health and safety committees?

Possible Solutions/Opinions

1. It's impossible to find a job that is free from health and safety hazards.
2. Most accidents happen at work because workers are careless vs. most accidents happen from working conditions, such as unsafe machinery; dusty, noisy or chemical environments; or pressures to work too fast.
3. People need jobs; therefore, they shouldn't complain about health and safety problems. They might get fired.
4. The best way to improve health and safety at work is to talk to coworkers, the union, the employer, or to call OSHA.

Activities

1. Hand out "Myths and Facts" (worksheet following ) to introduce students to magnitude of problem.
2. Have students discuss places their parents work. If students have visited the work site, ask them to list potential hazards on the board, and discuss possible health effects of each. If the students don't know, have them survey their parents using the chart to bring back to class. Use the following chart as a guide.

   HAZARDS
   Job Title/Place	Chemical	Physical	Safety	Social
   Auto Mechanic	carbon monoxide asbestos from brake drums	lifting tool vibration impact noise	electrical hazards unguarded machinery
   Nurse	infectious agents from patient illness chemicals	radiation lifting	accidents	shift work understaffing

3. Have students list places they have worked and discuss health problems (example below). Ask students if they or their friends have ever had an injury or illness (e.g., skin rash) from work. Use the same chart.

   HAZARDS
   Job Title/Place	Chemical	Physical	Safety	Social
   Fast Food Cook	cleaning agents pesticides	heat	fires burns	fast pace stress
   Retail Store Clerk/Helper	cleansers chrome cleaners	lifting	electrical accidents	boredom

4. After they have listed potential hazards, have students discuss health and safety measures they have taken or that were taken at their work. These may include personal protection such as gloves, dust masks, aprons, safety practices, or actual controls such as a ventilation system to remove fumes or dusts. Were they adequate? Whom can you call to find out?
5. Plan a survey of the school grounds and of school employees. Divide students into teams for the various tasks. These include diagraming potentially unsafe or problem areas; interviewing teachers, custodians, secretaries, the principal, and conducting research into the problems and effects. Classes with greater likelihood of hazards are the wood shop, auto shop, metal shop, art, photography, printing, chemistry, biology, and other sciences. Custodians will be particularly helpful for diagraming the building to determine such things as electrical safety or ventilation problems. After the survey, have students make suggestions for improving classroom and grounds for health and safety.
6. Have students discuss their ideal work environment. They may think of controls for hazards, interaction with fellow workers, work pace, working conditions, the role of unions, the right to know about the toxic chemicals they work with.
7. Discuss health problems that arise when people are unemployed. Suggest students interview family or people on the street about what they like and don't like about work, ask about health problems at people's work, problems of being out of work.

Worksheet

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH FACTS AND MYTHS*

Answer these questions by working together in small groups. Try and pick out which statements are facts and which are myths. Discuss your answers and any differences.

1. What proportion of workers are injured yearly in the U.S.?
a)1 in 10 b)1 in 20 c)1 in 100 d)1 in 200

2. Each year, the number of workers who die from occupational disease is
a)10,000 b)50,000 c)100,000 d)200,000

3. Most health professionals and doctors have been trained in job-related disease.
True False

4. Schools are a safe place to work for teachers and staff.
True False

5. Acute health effects are more serious than chronic health effects.
True False

6. In large enough doses, any chemical will cause cancer.
True False

7. Out of over 55,000 chemical substances with known toxic effects, how many are tested and regulated?
a)100 b)600 c)1000 d)5000

8. The main cause of job stress is ____________________________________________.

9. The best way to control for toxic exposures is
a)Respirators b)Ventilation

10. Most accidents happen because people are careless.
True False

11. All workers in the U.S. are covered by the OSHA Act of 1970.
True False

12. Under OSHA, both employees and employers are responsible for providing a safe and healthful work environment.
True False

13. Workers have the right to file a complaint with OSHA and remain anonymous.
True False

* Developed by Nina Wallerstein, Dr. P.H.

Answers: 1-a; 2-c; 3-False; 4-Opinion question; 5-Opinion question; 6-False; 7-c; 8-Opinion question; 9-b; 10-Opinion question; 11-False; 12-False; 13-True

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