Members of SEIU Local 721 who came out to testify at the Cal/OSHA Standards Board Meeting
By Richard Negri, Health and Safety Director, SEIU Local 121RN
We were in Sacramento on February 20 to speak to the Cal/OSHA Standards Board about our petition for a comprehensive workplace violence prevention standard for healthcare workers.
More than 16 nurses and healthcare workers from SEIU and UNAC/UHCP testified about their experiences with violence at work – a pandemic that affects everyone who works in the healthcare industry. We were also joined by Dorothy Wigmore, Occupational Health Specialist at Worksafe; Dr. Richard Pan, Assemblymember representing Sacramento, Elk Grove, Galt, and Lodi, and Chair of the Assembly Committee on Health; and Kimberly Rosenberger, SEIU California State Council.
Along with the petition itself, we provided the Standards Board with statistical data and scholarly research done about workplace violence in the healthcare industry, the results of the survey we’ve been conducting about workplace violence, signatories to our petition in support of a standard, workers’ stories about violence on the job, and letters of support from unions and organizations dedicated to workers’ rights and health and safety on the job, which include:
• Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
• SEIU California State Council
• Nurse Alliance of SEIU Healthcare
• Public Employees Federation of New York
• American Nurses Association\California
• United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals
• Worksafe
• UCLA Labor and Occupational Safety and Health Program
As we enter into the second phase of our campaign, we must continue to educate, mobilize, and organize ourselves around the issue of workplace violence, as we have done for over a year.
The petition is now referenced with the Cal/OSHA Standards Board as Petition No. 538 and will be sent to Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health for evaluation. A decision to either grant or deny our petition will be made by the Standards Board within six months.
As we move forward, we need to keep up the momentum for the campaign. The next meeting of the Standards Board is on Thursday, March 20, 2014, in Oakland, at 10:00 am. If you can attend and speak in support of the petition, please contact me. Between now and then, sign our petition, email the link to your co-workers, family, and friends, and share it on your Facebook page.
