The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #70754

Michele Ochsner, PhD, Occupational Training and Education Consortium, Labor Education Center, Rutgers University, 50 Labor Center Way, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1953, 732-932-3780, mochsner@rci.rutgers.edu

While environmental priorities have shifted to pollution prevention—i.e. eliminating or reducing use of the most toxic chemicals—few efforts have been made to ensure that industrial pollution prevention projects address the chemicals that are most hazardous to worker health and safety. When facilities fail to fully consider how chemical substitutes or process changes affect workers, changes made to improve the environment can actually increase worker risks.

Through an EPA Pollution Prevention Grant, the Rutgers Occupational Training and Education Consortium (OTEC) has developed a Pollution Prevention training program that seeks to advance both occupational and environmental health goals through plant-wide participation in pollution prevention.

By establishing joint labor/management pollution prevention committees, this project seeks to help facilities institutionalize methodologies to promote pollution prevention as a means of addressing both environmental goals and worker health and safety; and to ensure that pollution prevention projects that address environmental goals do not shift risks to workers.

This presentation will provide an overview of OTEC's partnership with one New Jersey facility and will present the results of the baseline evaluation and the initial training program. In addition, it will focus on some of the challenges of disseminating an "integrative" approach to the environment and worker health and safety.

Learning Objectives:

• 1) Recognize the importance of developing joint occupational and environmental hazard prevention programs that prevent risk shifting.
• 2) Identify tools that strengthen communications and joint labor/management processes dealing with environmental and occupational health and safety; developing opportunities for increased worker involvement.
• 3) Apply the concepts presented here to work with joint labor/management committees in developing customized training modules that ensure simultaneous consideration of both occupational and environmental risks.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Occupational Training and Education Consortium School of Management and Labor Relations Rutgers Universit
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.