NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.
Laura Stock, University of California
MS. STOCK: I guess we're going to get started right on time, because we have a lot of speakers and we want to be sure to have enough time at the end for a discussion. My name is Laura Stock, and I'm the Associate Director of the Labor Occupational Health Program in Berkeley. We're part of the School of Public Health, University of California. And I've been involved in doing training on ergonomics for workers and joint labor management, committees and professionals and academic groups for the past 13 years or so. And also been involved in a lot of policy development work which people may or may not been following. It's been a lot of activity in California recently.
California just passed, I guess, the first ergonomics standard just about a month ago and was about to be implemented this month except just last week, the Office of Administrative Law in California returned it to the Standards Board, asking them to start over and do it again because of certain problems with that standard. And we're not going to cover those issues, now but I'd be happy to discuss anything people had questions about that at any time later.
While there's been a lot of controversy about ergonomics over the last couple of years, almost everybody has agreed that training is an important element of any comprehensive program. It's been the one area in which a lot of people have agreed. But to despite this almost universal acceptance of the importance of training, there is still a great variety in how people define that training and what goals and objectives that training is designed to meet. To some managers who believe that workers have a very limited role in addressing health and safety on the job, training is really meant to educate workers about company health and safety policies and to get workers to comply with existing safety rules.
In contrast, others like those who are going to be speaking to you today, recognize that workers have a very critical role to play in any comprehensive ergonomics program. And that workers are, in fact, the experts when it comes to identifying hazards and identifying solutions. They know that technical experts do not know the job from daily experience, and they cannot possibly anticipate the full range of problems and the full range of potential solutions.
Good training can unleash the wealth of knowledge held by workers and has as its goal to empower workers to be active participants in all elements of a comprehensive program. This kind of training not only involves setting action oriented objectives but also using participatory training methods that incorporate adult education principles. It draws on the expertise of learners and provides opportunities for participants to practice using information and skills that they're learning.
We're going to be able to hear how this kind of training has not only enhanced but made possible effective ergonomic programs. I would like to make one final comment which is that while training is necessary, we also know that training is not sufficient. There are unfortunately too many examples of companies for whom training is the only hazard control strategy. For example, there's the back injury prevention program that uses only training and safe lifting techniques as a strategy to control back injuries.
Clearly, training has to be part of a larger program that focuses on changing not just individual behavior but on hazardous working conditions. And again, we're fortunate to be able to hear from people today who are involved in that kind of training.
