Impressed with the number of GCIU members trained, the U.S. Department of Labor extended the Susan Harwood safety grant to the GCIU for another year.

That was the welcome news from the Health and Safety Committee at the GCIU convention. The committee was chaired by Toronto 100M Health and Safety Director Dan Huziak, with Philadelphia 16N Pres. Charles Carvin serving as secretary.

Thus far, the grant has helped train 48 instructors and 2,666 members in the United States for a total 10,664 hours. The committee also reported that some 1,124 members received 16,033 hours of health and safety training in Canada, which is not under the grant.

The committee report stressed the need to document chemical exposures and health and safety problems in shops to help establish compensation claims. Huziak said the GCIU has been successful in winning compensation claims when documentation is provided.

The committee report noted that the American National Standards Institute is pushing a modified lockout/tagout rule that has not yet been accepted by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The new standard has "the potential for critical injury or fatality" for workers, Huziak said.

Huziak reported that the Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario is doing an assessment for the GCIU of a 200-member shop where there are some 10 cases of cancer, which is far above the statistical norm.

Delegates approved a resolution offered by Seattle 767M Secy.-Treas. Steven Aldrich that urges locals to use International programs to train their members in health and safety and to identify and document health and safety problems in their shops. The resolution also urged the International to coordinate record keeping on these problems "so that patterns of injury, illness, and exposure that exist through time and across the Untied States and Canada can be better identified and tracked."

The committee urged locals to utilize the International's model health and safety contract language. To obtain the language, contact Contracts and Research Director Alan M. Tate at (202) 462-1400 or atate@gciu.org.

A video presentation underscored how worker political action led to Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act following an avoidable accident at Elliott Lake 30 years ago.

The committee noted two fatal accidents at Quebecor plants. Donald Wilkerson was killed in an avoidable accident on Dec. 20, 2002, in Clarksville, Tenn. Jairo Leobino was crushed to death in another avoidable accident on Aug. 1, 2003, at Quebecor's plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil.