NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.
Presentation by Nance Ballman, Communication Workers of America
MR. LEGRANDE: I have the privilege -- and, indeed, I mean this -- of introducing the next two speakers in part because -- I shouldn't say in part, but completely because it represents for the Communication Workers of America and US West the real proof that industrial democracy, indeed, is the way to do it. That is from the union perspective, the unionized environment is the way to do it.
At CWA, in terms of brief background, US West is one of the many telecommunications companies we represent through the United States. We represent some 600,000 members in the US, and of that group more than 450,000 work for major telecommunications companies throughout the country. We began our VDT ergonomics effort, in particular VDT ergonomics efforts, in 1979. By 1981, we had already begun to work with elements of the soon to become US West, originally Pacific Northwest Bell, as early as 1981. Then later with Northwestern Bell in 1982 and 1983, and then more specific to the presentation today, with Mountain Bell in 1985.
Now, because we are in an industrial democracy within labor management structures that are represented through collective bargaining, there is a certain amount of give and take, with the understanding that there is a center point. Hopefully, the center point is actually not center but left of the center, from the union perspective, but often it is sometimes to the right of the center. So, indeed, the give and take process is one that can sometimes be somewhat tedious and laborious but one that is beneficial to all in the long run.
To represent our point specific to CWA and US West, this morning are Nance Ballman and Chris Plott. Nance is a member and executive officer (secretary) with Local 7201 in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has been in that position since 1989. In addition to that, she is a sales and service consultant with US West, and she has been in that position for 31 and a half years. At present, among other things in her job with US West, Nance is the District 7 representative, which is a geographic area which entails 14 states in the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest, on the Joint Mutual Occupational Safety and Health Committee. Nance deals in that regard almost specifically, not entirely, but almost specifically on ergonomics issues, and with that in mind, our next speaker, Nance Ballman.
MS. BALLMAN: Thank you, David. It is always nice to follow David because he actually takes up about two or three of my slides. So we will go through this pretty quickly. I do want to thank David LeGrande for inviting us to be here and also NIOSH, OSHA and the other sponsors of this program.
This is the overview of our presentation today, and I will cover the background on US West and CWA and our experiences in ergonomics. Then Chris will talk on medical management. Then he will talk on three specific work groups of US West. It is the Operator and Information Services, which is our long distance and information operator. He will talk on the Remittance Processing Services, which is our bill payment processing center and then the mass markets which is our business offices. Then he will speak on some of our observations and our conclusions.
I am going to start out with some of our background so that you understand our organizations and what we are about. David did give you my background as a union officer and also as an employee of US West. The background on Communications Workers of America International covers 50 states and Canada. We represent over 600,000 members that work in telephone industries such as US West, the other Bell companies and AT&T. We also represent members in newspaper, printing, TV communication, law enforcement, hospital workers and many other fields. CWA is broken down into eight different districts, and US West is in District 7 of CWA.
The US West background: US West is the regional local telephone company for 14 Midwest and Western states. We employ about 45,000 people. Twenty thousand of those work in occupational titles in office environments.
Our work in ergonomics at US West really started about 10 years ago. We were one of the first office environments in the United States to experience a significant rise in incidents of cumulative trauma disorders in 1986 in our Denver Operator Services office. Phoenix was also one of our hot spots, and at that time we got a lot of national press.
We have had joint labor management involvement in addressing ergonomics issues since 1988. In 1989 a regional joint safety committee was formed as a result of that year's labor contract. The committee elected to focus on ergonomics, and it actually evolved into a joint ergonomics committee. I really feel fortunate to have safety and ergonomics committee language in our contract because very few labor contracts do that.
In 1990, there was a joint request by CWA and US West to NIOSH to study the possible health concerns associated with our operators. This request resulted in the agreement by NIOSH to perform an evaluation at US West. During the timeframe of '90 to '92, the Joint Committee worked on identifying needs. We developed and implemented programs and procedures, and most important, the ergonomics training and education for our members and employees. We continue each year to jointly look at and revise our programs and training needs.
We have an ongoing process to evaluate our ergonomic seating, furniture and equipment. Our Joint Committee was instrumental in getting the company to provide funding for ergonomics upgrades to furniture and equipment across US West in 1992. In '95 we went to Salt Lake City, which is one of our mega centers and had a team of our employees actually participate with us in evaluating the office chairs that we could purchase. We have found that the more we work jointly and involve our members, the more successful our program is.
In 1993 and '94, the company went through an engineering process and created mega centers. We took advantage of the opening of those centers to invest in state-of-art ergonomics furniture and work stations for more than 7,000 of our employees. I was involved in the work station selection process, and once again, this was a very successful joint program.
Because we cover such a large geographic area -- we have 14 states, 45,000 employees and 69 CWA locals within District 7 -- implementing an ergonomics program can be very challenging. One of the things that we have done is to use our existing joint safety state safety committees, which we have in each one of our 14 states, and those are co-chaired by a CWA member and then also the state safety manager. We use that as our communication channel.
I really feel strongly that without our joint working relationship the coordination and communication to our locals and back to our International that our ergonomics program at US West would not be successful. Chris will now cover more information on our program. Thank you.
MR. LEGRANDE: Before letting Chris do that, we have our own little bureaucracy up here, but occasionally bureaucracy works, particularly when we make it work. As I said earlier, it is a real pleasure to introduce both Nance and now Chris.
