 |
| IUOE is in the
second year of its five-year cooperative agreement to
conduct human factors assessments on OST-developed
technologies. Human factors assessments identify problems
workers have in using technologies and recommend
conditions under which operators can safely use
technologies. Don Carson explained, "We don't give
developers absolutes, but we give them a lot of variables
to maximize productivity--from the temperature outside
the work setting, to exactly where the machine should be
placed, to how the workers should interact with the
technology. When developing a JSA--a job safety
analysis--we specify the variables, conditions, and
standard operating procedures for using the technology.
The mining industry has used JSAs for years. We want to
have a JSA for every new technology that would guide how
a technology would be used and operated. And if the
technology's used this way, we can certify that the
worker will be safe and productive." IUOE's real-world perspective Carson emphasized the benefits of human factors assessments to developers and contractors. "We give these developers a little real world, because a lot of them haven't been out of the laboratory. They haven't been off the drawing board. Something can be designed as perfect as it can be, but until you get out and see the thing in action, you've got nothing. Our testing helps developers anticipate how their technologies will actually be used. That's why our program has been so good in the environmental worker training. We're very strong in the hands-on. You can sit students in the classroom and tell them, 'Put the suit on like this, the respirator on like this.' But until you put them in that scenario, actually dress them out and put them up on the heavy equipment, have them go through remediation exercises, they're not ready to go to work. If they aren't ready to be safe, they're not going to be productive. It takes too much on-the-job training. "If you have a dozer, a $3 million machine with robotics on it and that thing blows off a hydraulic hose at a site where unexploded ordinance resides, you have a big problem. You can't just send a mechanic out there and fix it. You may be down for two weeks. These are the kinds of things that we bring up to the developers that they really haven't thought about--real-world considerations. What's going to happen when that thing's on the job? The last thing you want is people getting hurt or exposed while they're at the workplace." Using protocols to test technologies Depending on the size and portability of a technology, IUOE may choose to test the equipment at its International Environmental Technology and Training Center in Beaver, West Virginia or send a team of technicians to the technology provider's facilities. Carson described a typical technology testing team as composed of an industrial hygienist, a safety professional, people competent in the construction trade, and people with credentials in the environmental arena. The team collects relevant data on technologies by testing them against IUOE-developed protocols. Test results are analyzed and portrayed in three distinct ways: a job safety analysis, a failure modes and effects analysis, and a technology safety data sheet. More bang for the buck The cooperative agreement between IUOE and FETC is a unique teaming of labor, government, and industry, which has the potential to benefit not only the participants, but taxpayers as well. Carson said, "We're on the cutting edge, the ground floor; we're sitting at the table with the developers of the technologies. The advantages that gives us and the developers are hard to measure but real. I think we're making history. In 50 years, I think we'll be able to look back and know something important happened here. "Budgets are getting tighter, the Department of Energy is under a lot of scrutiny, and there's a lot of disagreement on what a worker should be in the next century. So taxpayers need to know they're getting a bang for the buck. Workers that are trained to work safely and productively bring more to the contractor, because the contractor is going to be more productive." Moving ahead with IUOE Carson is proud of his union's accomplishments and its progressive outlook. "We're a highly skilled union in the construction trades, and we're highly pro-business. We believe in working with the contractors, not against them. We do our business in the board room, not on the picket lines. When we sit down with Mr. CEO of the Lockheed Martins, the Westinghouses, the Bechtels, the Foster Wheelers, and the Fluor Daniels, we have to show them we can help them make money. We'll give them a more skilled worker, the type of workers they want. When an operating engineer gets dispatched to a job, the contractor wants that worker. That's our goal."
Carson talked about the challenges of creating trained and ready workforces of the future. One issue he's especially excited about is streamlining the tracking of workers' certifications to promote the formation of specialized, portable work forces. "We're progressive, especially with DOE on some initiatives we taken, not just technology testing and worker training, but folding all this in together. For example, a lot of contractors working with DOE have jobs at more than one DOE site, and contractors also have work across different federal sites--DOE, DOD, EPA. Each agency has its own set of training requirements. But actually there's a lot of redundancy among them. The way it is now, it's a circus to try to keep track of workers' certifications. To work in an end reactor at Savannah River with mixed waste in it, the worker today needs a stack of certification cards. "We're working on the federal government, with a lot of resistance by the way, to package all this training into a streamlined, single set of requirements to meet all agencies' requirements." Carson described how electronic cards could be used to encode workers' skill levels and training, including training on new technologies. "We want to take all that redundancy out and put the data on something we're calling the health and safety gold card. Workers could take the cards with them no matter where they worked--to refineries, cleanup sites, or construction sites. And on that card, we could enter their data up to the point of medical records. This card would contribute to the portability of a specialized work force and would contribute to reducing costs for the government. This would help eliminate paperwork and help market these technologies." For more information on IUOE's National Hazmat Program, visit its homepage at http://www.iuoeiettc.org. To learn more about the union, visit http://www.iuoe.org/index.html. The following technologies were assessed in 1996 by the International Union of Operating Engineers' National Hazmat Program:
|
     |
Gold cards and portable workforces