• Record Keeping
• Workers' Compensation
• Worksite Security and Bioterrorism
• Safety Incentive and Injury Discipline Policies
• Work Organization and Its Impact on Safety and Health
• Hours of Work Issues/Mandatory Overtime
• Resources on the Smallpox Vaccine

Protecting the workplace safety of millions of America's workers includes a wide range of issues. From record keeping and work hour rules to preparing for bioterrorism, you can use this website to learn more about some of those issues.

Record Keeping
OSHA issued a revised rule to improve the system employers use to track and record workplace injuries and illnesses. The final rule became effective on Jan. 1, 2002. Here's what you need to know…

• New Record Keeping Rule fact sheet

Workers' Compensation
Workers' compensation provides income and medical benefits for most workers who are injured or become sick because of their jobs. Death benefits are provided to surviving spouses and dependent children of workers who are killed on the job. Learn More.

Worksite Security and Bioterrorism
The tragic events of Sept. 11 and the subsequent biological attack raised many issues of relevance to the occupational safety and health community. Cleanup of the World Trade Center and anthrax contamination in the United States Postal Service affect hundreds of thousands of workers. But other issues that affect most every workplace in the United States were also raised, including emergency planning, building evacuation, building and facility security, biological and chemical threats, decontamination and worker training.

Below are links that will help you find the answers to some of these issues.

• Resources on the smallpox vaccine
• Emergency Response Plans—Are You Prepared? An AFSCME guide to Emergency Planning in the Workplace;
• Anthrax—Centers for Disease Control;
• American Postal Workers Union; and
• United States Postal Service, security of the mail.

Safety Incentive and Injury Discipline Policies
Increasingly, many employers are moving to shift responsibility for job injuries to workers by focusing on worker behavior instead of hazardous conditions. Employers are doing this in a variety of ways, some of which may appear to benefit workers. But beware. See how these programs are undermining your safety and health.

• "Bargaining over Injury Discipline Policies";
• AFL-CIO fact sheet, "Safety Incentive and Injury Discipline Policies: The Bad, the Worse and the Downright Ugly";
• "AFL-CIO Safe Jobs in a Changing World" resolution (relevant pages 100-101);
• "The Steelworker Perspective on Behavioral Safety";
• "Blame the Worker: The Rise of Behavioral-Based Safety Programs";
• "Behavioral Safety Schemes: A Union Viewpoint";
• "Fixing the Workplace Not the Worker: A Worker's Guide to Accident Prevention";
• UFCW fact sheet, "The Hazards of Behavior-Based Safety Programs";
• AFGE fact sheet, "Incentive Programs"; and
• "It's the Hazards, Stupid."

Work Organization and Its Impact on Safety and Health
Work restructuring, changes in employment, competitive pressures, downsizing and restructuring all impact the way work gets done. As these changes take place on your job, don't forget to consider how these changes impact your safety and heath.

• NIOSH report, "The Changing Organization of Work and the Safety and Health of Working People";
• ILO report, "Workplace Stress: A Collective Bargaining Issue";
• Information from the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work on the "Changing World of Work";
• European Union's reports on work organization;
• The UK National Work-Stress Network;
• "Enough Overwork: Taking Action on Workload," Canadian Union of Public Employees health and safety guidelines; and
• European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, Forum Issue 5—The Changing World of Work.

Hours of Work Issues/Mandatory Overtime

• AFL-CIO Working Women's "Control Over Work Hours fact sheet";
• Work-Life Balance in Canadian Workplaces;
• The Job Stress Network www.workhealth.org;
• Bargaining language on restricting mandatory overtime; and
• At least six states have legislation that regulates the use of mandatory overtime among nurses:
  
  Maine
  Maryland
  Oregon