Over the past 9 years, the Boston School Bus Drivers Union's Occupational Health Committee has worked jointly with a succession of bus management companies to assess the ergonomic hazards of school bus driving and to document the epidemic of health effects that afflict the drivers. With the assistance of the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH), this worker-led project has: (1) conducted three health surveys of 800 drivers in Boston and documented that over 70% of the drivers have worked in pain due to back injuries, sciatica, tendonitis and other work-related musculoskeletal disorders, (2) developed and delivered 2 hours of paid annual ergonomics training to all Boston drivers, and (3) produced "The School Bus Design Project," a report that identified 9 specific ergonomic design problems in school buses and proposed solutions. Several of the design solutions proposed by the Committee have been incorporated in specifications for purchase of new buses by the city of Boston and, as of September 2000, all full size and half buses in Boston have ergonomically adjustable drivers' seats and automatic doors. The former chairperson of the Occupational Health Committee will report on the Committee's work and discuss: (1) the difficulties and advantages of joint labor/management health campaigns, (2) the implications of the school bus drivers efforts for other workers in transportation, and (3) how the bus drivers were able to expand the ergonomists' traditional focus on repetitive work and upper extremity disorders to better understand the ergonomic problems of highly variable work.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the workshop, participants will be able to: 1. Identify ergonomic hazards in school bus driving 2. Discuss the complexities of joint labor/management health campaigns 3. Describe the challenges in analyzing the ergonomics of non-cyclical work involving whole body exertion
Keywords: Ergonomics, Union
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.