Steven Hecker

The “Goldilocks model” of overtime in construction: not too much, not too little, but just right ☆

PROBLEM Little research exists on the relationship between working overtime and possible adverse health and safety outcomes for construction workers. METHOD Five focus-group discussions were conducted with construction workers from around the United States. From the analyzed transcripts, a model of overtime was developed. RESULTS The model includes three dominant themes: (1) work organization issues [(a) definitions of overtime, (b) scheduling, and (c) economic conditions], (2) why workers choose to work overtime [(a) management expectations, (b) career, and (c) money], and (3) the effects of working overtime [(a) health and safety, including sleep deprivation, injury, fatigue, and stress, and (b) productivity]. DISCUSSION Health and safety is only one of the adverse outcomes related to working too much overtime. A list of worker-inspired recommendations for addressing overtime issues is provided. IMPACT ON THE INDUSTRY Both employers and workers need to better understand the potential adverse effects of working too much overtime.

Workplace Drug Testing as Social Control

In this article, the emergence of employee drug screening is examined in the context of the historical development of the principle and practice of workplace surveillance. The authors trace the evolution of disciplinary and control systems from the early Industrial Revolution through the Scientific Management movement and its recent offshoots. Industrial medicine and industrial psychology are presented as elements of the “scientification” of surveillance. Drug testing and other contemporary surveillance technologies are placed in this context, and their cultural, political–economic, and moral underpinnings are examined. The dilemma posed by the need to address the real problem of drug abuse in the context of a social control paradigm is explored.

Defining and Measuring Safety Climate: A Review of the Construction Industry Literature

Safety climate measurements can be used to proactively assess an organizations effectiveness in identifying and remediating work-related hazards, thereby reducing or preventing work-related ill health and injury. This review article focuses on construction-specific articles that developed and/or measured safety climate, assessed safety climates relationship with other safety and health performance indicators, and/or used safety climate measures to evaluate interventions targeting one or more indicators of safety climate. Fifty-six articles met our inclusion criteria, 80% of which were published after 2008. Our findings demonstrate that researchers commonly defined safety climate as perception based, but the object of those perceptions varies widely. Within the wide range of indicators used to measure safety climate, safety policies, procedures, and practices were the most common, followed by general management commitment to safety. The most frequently used indicators should and do reflect that the prevention of work-related ill health and injury depends on both organizational and employee actions. Safety climate scores were commonly compared between groups (e.g. management and workers, different trades), and often correlated with subjective measures of safety behavior rather than measures of ill health or objective safety and health outcomes. Despite the observed limitations of current research, safety climate has been promised as a useful feature of research and practice activities to prevent work-related ill health and injury. Safety climate survey data can reveal gaps between management and employee perceptions, or between espoused and enacted policies, and trigger communication and action to narrow those gaps. The validation of safety climate with safety and health performance data offers the potential for using safety climate measures as a leading indicator of performance. We discuss these findings in relation to the related concept of safety culture and offer suggestions for future research and practice including (i) deriving a common definition of safety climate, (ii) developing and testing construction-specific indicators of safety climate, and (iii) focusing on construction-specific issues such as the transient workforce, subcontracting, work organization, and induction/acculturation processes.

US Unions, Trade and International Solidarity: Emerging Issues and Tactics

This article examines the current international solidarity activities of US unions in the context of their campaign against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the decline of union strength. Unions have linked with environmental, consumer, agricultural and other groups in challenging the premises and predicted impacts of the NAFTA. A grass-roots trinational campaign has developed involving similar groups in Canada and Mexico. Obstacles to the success of these activities are discussed, as are crossborder collective bargaining efforts by US unions. The article assesses union goals in trade agreements and the potential for attaining these under a Clinton presidency.

Participatory Approach to Ergonomic Risk Reduction: Case Study of Body Harnesses for Concrete Work

This project used a participatory process to develop a system for carpenters and laborers to obtain body harness equipment satisfying both safety and ergonomic concerns. Focus groups with workers identified poorly fitting and inappropriate body harnesses as one contributor to discomfort and pain among concrete form workers. An ordering system and selection guide was developed and implemented working with suppliers, the safety department, field crews and foremen. The system was piloted on a large high-rise project. Follow-up interviews and written surveys were conducted with 27 carpenters. The findings showed increases in participation, training, and interaction with foremen and crews regarding body harness fit, options, and safety. The findings further demonstrated perceived improvements in selection, fit, and overall body harness satisfaction. Workers who were present at the beginning of the project experienced better selection and training than those who arrived after the initial ordering efforts. The ordering system was more efficient for this site in the initial set up phase of the project when obtaining equipment for the job is the norm. After construction efforts were underway, less effort was put into participation and ordering system maintenance.

NOVEL APPROACHES TO DEVELOPMENT, DELIVERY AND EVALUATION OF A PEER-LED OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY TRAINING FOR LATINO DAY LABORERS

Latino day laborers experience high rates of work-related injuries and are a hard-to-reach group for safety interventions. This study describes the creation and implementation of safety training based in empowerment theory and its evaluation to address three levels in empowerments hierarchy of change. Pictographic pre- and post-tests were used to assess knowledge level changes. Individual and large-group interviews were conducted to address attitudes and behavior-level changes. Results indicate that day laborers learn and apply lessons from this type of safety training. Findings also offer insight into challenges that day laborers encounter when trying to work safely as well as ideas for future training interventions.

Best Practices Sampling: A Participatory Approach to Improve Construction Safety Performance

Best Practices Sampling (BPS) is a participatory, crew-driven safety performance management system developed for the construction industry. Construction work crews develop their own list of critical best practices and measure their own performance through a daily sampling process. Through data summaries and feedback the information is used for real-time hazard identification and continuous safety improvement. The BPS process was piloted with five subcontractors on an industrial construction site. The pilot showed the potential for BPS to promote communication and heighten safety awareness and performance if thoroughly implemented, but revealed obstacles to successful implementation. The lessons learned from the pilot have been used to design a more formal intervention and evaluation that is currently underway. This project will evaluate implementation and outcomes, including communication, worker self-efficacy and voice, and safety problem resolution. The influence of contractor characteristics and practices on BPS and worker participation will also be investigated.

An Ergonomics Training Intervention with Construction Workers: Effects on Behavior and Perceptions

A two-hour ergonomics and body conditioning training module was presented to construction workers on a large building site as part of a program to prevent musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). Topics covered included spine physiology and common work-related MSDs, potential benefits of prework stretching and body conditioning, body mechanics, ergonomic risk factors in construction, modifications that could reduce ergonomic risk factors, and overcoming obstacles to implementing such changes. Participatory methods and video from the site was used in the training. As an adjunct to the training an ergonomist worked with foremen and crews on the site to identify specific ergonomic risks and develop control measures. Training effects were assessed using questionnaires administered immediately following training and at a subsequent point in the project, and observation of ergonomic modifications by an ergonomist… 407 construction workers completed the questionnaire immediately after training (82% response) and 183 (71%) completed a follow-up instrument five months after training commenced. Respondents reported high incidence of ergonomic risk factors (87%) and musculoskeletal symptoms (78%) related to work. Workers applied more of the stretching and lifting practices information than the ergonomic information, but almost two-thirds of the trained workers named specific ergonomic changes they had made. Several crew-initiated task interventions emerged following the training. The paper discusses implications for construction worker training and ergonomic changes at multiple levels of the construction industry.

Occupational health and safety policy in the European community: a case study of economic integration and social policy.

A CONFLUENCE OF FORCES IN THE LATE 1980s gave new impetus to health and safety policy making in the European Community (EC). The Single European Act of 1987 provided a streamlined legislative procedure for health and safety directives. The Social Charter, while considerably weaker than desired by the trade unions when finally adopted in 1989, nevertheless provided a renewed basis for social legislation, much of which had been stalled for years by divisions among labor, management, and the governments of certain Member States. The momentum towani completion of the 1992 Single Market, and the specific measures implemented towani that goal, while primarily economic in nature, contained implications for worker health and safety that had to be addressed.