Shop floor safety initiatives: the example of atmospheric testing in telecommunications cable vaults

Strategies for occupational safety and health campaigns often overlook the possibilities afforded by initiatives centered in the workplace itself, as opposed to those focused, for example, at the bargaining table or in the legislature. Workers themselves sometimes may be more cognizant and informed of immediate health and safety issues than are their union representatives, and may formulate innovative or unorthodox approaches to hazard remediation. Such approaches may in fact succeed despite ineffectual contract language or weak regulatory protection. This article examines a successful struggle by a small group of telecommunications technicians to get the employer to revise its obsolete procedures for atmospheric testing of unventilated, underground cable vaults. It demonstrates that increased consideration should be given to shopfloor actions and creative use of the grievance procedure as useful tools in the struggle for occupational safety and health.