Engaging workers in the government regulatory arena: A collaborative model for worker health

Workers employed in non-union, low wage jobs confront a range of hazards with limited access to institutional mechanisms to assert their right to a safe workplace. Fear of employer and government reprisal underlie a reticence to report hazards. Worker centers have developed innovative campaigns to advocate for workers in a variety of industries. This paper highlights campaigns that have integrated enforcement of occupational health and safety standards in Southern California, distant from the center of government decision-making but home to vibrant worker and immigrants' rights activists. The appointment of new government agency leaders provided a political window of opportunity to address inequities.

We describe the evolution of a collaborative model to facilitate worker engagement in the regulatory enforcement arena; this model is grounded in experience with the OSHA complaint process in the car wash, hotel, warehouse and recycling industries. Key partners include a core COSH-university-labor collaborative with an extended network of activists from regional campaigns. The model adapts conceptual frameworks from the popular education, participatory action research and civic engagement arenas as applied through a collaborative approach to enhance government responsiveness to workers in non-union settings.

Successes include precedent-setting joint employer liability citations, the application of ergonomic and heat standards in new settings, and progress in accepting worker advocates as representatives of non-union workers in the regulatory process. We explore the challenges of sustaining worker engagement, of inadequate agency staffing and of worker retaliation in the context of immigration debates and fragmentation of state agency responsibilities.