Question: How should worker involvement be achieved for new and existing Alliances?

Answer:

Alliances are intended to provide a forum for employers and workers to work together to resolve workplace safety and health issues. To achieve this, Alliances with employers and employer groups (e.g., trade associations) must also include worker representatives to ensure that their activities sufficiently address the safety and health needs/issues faced by the target audience (in most cases, workers).

The directive states that worker involvement can be accomplished by:

• Having a union signatory whenever possible (e.g., from a union with a presence and/or experience in the industry); or
• Having worker involvement in the Alliance agreement's development and implementation, including project workgroups; or
• Having participation in the Alliance of community-based labor groups or similar organizations knowledgeable and involved in the issues addressed by the Alliance.

Other examples of worker involvement include:

• Inviting union representatives, or community- and faith-based labor groups, to implementation meetings.
• Requesting union, or community- and faith-based labor groups, review of products/topics in development.
• Surveying the target audience (e.g., students, workers, union representatives) to identify gaps in existing training or educational resources that could be addressed by the Alliance, and/or to ascertain the effectiveness of the Alliance’s products/activities (e.g., trainings, publications, outreach campaigns, etc.)
• Obtaining input and feedback from consulates (in cases where workers are predominantly from other countries).
• Including OSHA compliance assistance staff in implementation team meetings. This may include a representative from the OSHA National Office.