"New Jersey's statewide blue-green alliance, the Work Environment Council, has accomplished perhaps more than any of the other partnerships between blues and greens." -- Professor Brian Mayer, in his book, Blue-Green Coalitions: Fighting for Safe Workplaces and Healthy Communities (2009)
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WEC@WORK
Nov/Dec 2011
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF UNITED ACTION
For 25 years, volunteers, supporters, and staff have made WEC the nation's longest standing state labor/environmental coalition dedicated to winning safe, secure jobs and a healthy, sustainable environment.
Working with our partners, WEC has:
* Won the strongest policies in the nation to ensure indoor air quality in our schools and public workplaces and for safety and security at facilities using highly hazardous chemicals.
* Trained thousands of workers and neighbors on their right to know about chemical dangers, getting an effective OSHA or PEOSH inspection, and preventing health care hazards and disastrous chemical plant explosions. We sponsored the nation's first joint labor-environmental workshops to address climate change and "green chemistry".
* Provided campaign and technical consulting assistance to hundreds of unions and community organizations facing serious workplace and environmental hazards.
* Through the media, alerted the public to critical safety and health concerns, such as asbestos dangers from an abandoned WR Grace plant, prompting dozens of articles in the Trenton Times. This fall, the Newark Star Ledger and Bergen Record featured four WEC opinion columns on why we must strengthen, not weaken, safeguards.
* Issued publications on workplace and environmental issues. WEC factsheets address an array of hazards and strategies from artificial turf to chemical exposures. Our newsletter, WEC@WORK, reaches 2,000+ labor and public interest leaders statewide. WEC authored columns in the NJ Education Association Reporter reach 200,000 teachers and school staff every month.
WEC Awards Reception a Success!
On November 18, WEC held our 10th Annual Awards Reception with nearly 200 people attending. We honored six wonderful recipients, and marked a quarter century of uniting labor unions and environmental and community organizations for safe, secure jobs and a healthy sustainable environment. At the event, WEC honored EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Congressman Frank Pallone, Bonnie Anderson a mesothelioma awareness advocate, Pete Guzzo of TTP Communications, Deborah Ehling of PEMSA-NJ, and Ed Rodgers, formerly of NJN News.
Special thanks to NJEA, SEIU 1199, Levy, Phillips & Konigsberg, LLP, USW District 4, LIUNA! Eastern Region, HPAE, AFT NJ, IBT 877, and Rutgers LEARN for sponsoring the event.
WEC's Annual Meeting Focuses on Schools
WEC members and supporters gathered at NJEA for our annual meeting to discuss a new step forward to create jobs and healthy learning environments for children in New Jersey's public schools.
COSH Conference
Over 200 representatives of unions, workers' centers, COSH groups, international unions, national advocacy organizations, public health professionals, and family members of victims gathered together for the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH) Worker Health and
Safety Training Conference and Summit, Oct 28-29, outside Baltimore.
OSHA Announces Chemical Sector NEP
On November 30, 2011, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a new National Emphasis Program (NEP) for chemical facilities covered by OSHA's process safety management (PSM) standard which protects workers from catastrophic releases of highly hazardous chemicals. The inspection process includes detailed questions designed to gather facts related to PSM requirements and verification that employers' written and implemented PSM programs are consistent. Inspections will take place at randomly selected facilities likely to be covered by the standard.
WEC can provide free training to help prepare you and your union for a PSM inspection. For more information contact Denise Patel at (609) 695-7100, ext. 305
Panel Finds Health Risk of PFOA
Workers at the DuPont Chambers Works facility in Salem County, represented by USW Local 4-943, with WEC and local community groups fought DuPont to eliminate the use of perfluorooctanoate acid (PFOA) after the chemical was found in drinking water sources near the NJ plant.
WEC in the News!
In the past few months, several New Jersey newspapers have featured editorials by WEC leaders to set the record straight on so-called "job-killing regulations", Wall Street's gambling with our economy, and how we can fix our crumbling schools. In case you missed them, here they are:
Gov. Chris Christie Halted Projects to Improve School Safety by Eileen Senn, WEC Industrial Hygienist Consultant
Why We are Better Off with Right-to-Know Laws by Rick Engler, WEC Director
Corporate Efforts to Remove Workplace Safeguards Threaten Health, Safety, Quality of Life by John Shinn, WEC Board of Directors
'Job Killing Regulations' Do Nothing of the Sort by John Pajak, WEC President
Please consider giving a special year-end donation to show your support for WEC. All contributions to WEC are tax-deductible in accordance with IRS rules.
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