Peer Trainer Program creates a culture of safety and trust CSEA recently received two grants that will allow the union to continue and expand its Peer Trainer Program. The program trains CSEA members in safe workplace practices, particularly when hazardous situations arise on the job. These trained members then go on to train other members, and the cycle repeats itself. The program teaches safe procedures, but it relies as much on strong labor-management cooperation as it does funding and other resources. The goal is to get everybody in a workplace working together to build a culture of safety. Where the Peer Trainer Program is successful is where management is working with CSEA to improve safety, and has demonstrated a willingness to partner with CSEA and its peer trainers. These relationships are important, and they are built on trust. The first step in making the programs succeed is for the workers and employers to recognize that taking some simple steps together to build trusting relationships can have an exponential effect on improving the workplace, not just for occupational safety and health, but also for many other potential day-to-day labor-management conflicts. Unions exist because too many employers over the years exploited workers, treated them badly, cheated them out of wages and put them in dangerous situations with little protection. Programs like the Peer Trainer Program show how important it is that we have unions, and that when labor and management create a culture of worker safety and trust, it sets a model for the rest of the working world, unionized or not, to follow. — Lou Hmieleski October 2015 The Work Force 5
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