Union role not seen in discipline

Where I.W.A. national president Dave Haggard left off in his open- ing speech to delegates at the SAFER conference on the theme of disci- pline for safety infractions, the union’s national safety director Tom Lowe picked up during his workshops.

Lowe hammered away at the theme that union members on joint health and safety committees, or in any capacity for that matter, should not be involved in disciplining their fellow workers for safety violations.

His workshop on “Achieving a Neutral Zone,” in other words when both management and the union can work on joint health and safety committee and take their manage- ment and union hats off, addressed the serious issue that some employ- ers are dragging the union into the sphere of disciplining their fellow workers.

Lowe posed the question as whether today it is “OK” to talk about safety and safety issues freely in front of the employer and fellow workers,

“I've been around the been around the bend a dozen times in the last 30 years and there aren’t many places where that co-exists and takes place,” he said.

He said achieving a “Neutral Zone” takes co-operation, commitment and the real sharing of responsibili- ties. It means mopresenting: all employees, regardless if they are

. management or not. He said union participation in

imposing discipline is outside of the zone,

Nowhere in occupational health and safety acts or in the scope or rules and regulations is the union

¢ National I.W.A. safety director Tom Lowe said that safety “goes underground” when workers see union repre- sentatives participating in disciplinary procedures.

expected to participate in a discipli- nary procedure.

Their role as committee members are primarily to identify problems, report on them to the joint commit- tee or co-workers and make recom- mendations to correct procedures.

“Where does discipline fit in?” queried Brother Lowe.

“Would you not agree that it is the union’s role to protect the worker from unfair discipline and unjust discipline?”

He said union people can’t fulfill their roles acting like management on joint OH&S committees.

“How can we think that we are fulfilling our role as a joint health

and safety committee members when we think in the back of our minds we’re a supervisor or we’re going to give an authoritative direc- tion?”

Lowe said real discipline, by the dictionary meaning, is to assist, guide, seek training for and encour- age self-involvement of workers. He said it is better to employ a correc- tive approach versus punishment.

He said workers depend on the union to assist, help and educate.

If-workers see the union doing ~

management roles in disciplining workers, Lowe said safety goes “anderground.”

“Then they (the workers) got no

one to talk to and no one to rely on,” he said. “There’s a loss of confidence in the committee’s ability to repre- sent all workers.”

e Workshop participants got a lot out of the proceedings.

™,

° During his opening remarks national first vice president Neil Menard, like others, was pleased by the large turnout for the SAFER conference in Victoria, B.C.

LUMBERWORKER/Aptil, 2001/13