Margaret Seminario, AFL-CIO, 555 New Jersey Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20001, 202-637-5366, poje@csb.gov

In the wake of the 1984 Bhopal catastrophe, labor, environmental and public health advocates prompted major legislative actions and regulatory actions–on the national and local level–to enhance the prevention of chemical releases. These included the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act of 1986, OSHA’s Process Safety Management Standard and EPA’s Risk Management Programs. The Clean Air Act of of 1990 also established the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.

Catastrophic events can provide the lever needed to make changes, but the activity that transforms the opportunity into action doesn’t happen by itself. This presentation will discuss how labor and public interest groups organize for improvement in public health protection, who are the players and the specific goals that they are struggling to achieve.

Labor, environmentalists, community and public health advocates are currently organizing for improvements in OSHA’s process safety standard and to preserve hard-fought right-to-know rights. After 9/11 new campaigns for inherently safer processes in chemical manufacturing and transportation and chemical plant security against terrorism have been spurred by policy proposals such as Senator Corzine’s chemical plant security bill. How will the current generation of activist organize to see that these improvements are made?

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the recent history of the movement for chemical plant safety.
• Identify the key political factors responsible for progress over the past 20 years.
• Discuss strategies for achieving progress on future enhancements of chemical plant safety.

Keywords: Organizational Change, Safety

Related Web page: www.aflcio.com

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
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.