Empowerment-based health and safety training: evidence of workplace change from four industrial sectors.

BACKGROUND: Empowerment-based health and safety training programs posit that training workers to take action on health and safety issues is key to improving work environments. This article assesses how two union-led, empowerment-based hazardous materials training programs impacted health and safety workplace conditions across four industrial sectors. METHODS: A cross-sectional telephone interview survey was conducted with 362 workers and managers, six to twelve months following training. RESULTS: Participants reported increased attempts and successes in advocating for workplace health and safety changes, as well as individual changes in awareness and work practices. The training also appeared to influence two organizational factors key to worker-initiated changes in the workplace: manager support and union involvement. CONCLUSIONS: Empowerment-based training approaches appear to be effective in fostering workers' ability to initiate change in the workplace. Future evaluations should further refine training evaluation measures of workplace change processes, and consider them in the unique contexts in which they operate.

Empowerment evaluation of worker safety and health education programs.

BACKGROUND: The need to expand the use of evaluation to learn how education programs contribute to workers' occupational safety and health is well documented. Similarly recognized is the need to expand workers' involvement as primary stakeholders in program evaluation. METHODS: Articles for this review were identified through computer database and manual searches related to: intervention research and evaluation; occupational safety, health training, and education; and worker participation and empowerment. RESULTS: After identifying empowerment as a multilevel and multidimensional concept, this review used a theoretical framework of evaluation to show how various participatory and empowering approaches can affect evaluation studies and their use. CONCLUSIONS: The field of occupational safety and health has a unique historical opportunity to further expand workers' involvement in their own education through the use of participatory and empowering approaches to evaluation. Use of these approaches has the potential to strengthen capacities for organizational learning and improve both program theory and practice.

Hazardous waste worker education. Long-term effects.

This study illustrates how a union education center successfully integrated adult empowerment education principles into the teaching methods and curriculum of a health and safety training program. The 12-month follow-up phone survey involved 481 local union respondents each representing a separate plant site and a group of 50 manager trainees. The evaluation shows that the training manual continued to be used by more than 70% of respondents, more than 70% taught coworkers, more than 50% of union trainees went on to train their managers, and more than 90% identified problems at work and sought and obtained changes in programs, training, or equipment. More than 20% reported that major spills had occurred following training. The majority stated that the handling of the spills improved. More than 80% stated that the training better prepared them for their health and safety duties. The managers' data substantially supported union members' reports.