On November 30th at a meeting with Bert Walsh and the other union presidents to discuss the Behavioral Based Safety (BBS) program by Behavioral Safety Technology Inc. (BST), our union was asked for our commitment to endorse the BSS model at Alcan.

Our Local's joint safety committee members had previous discussions about BBS and had participated in information and training session in early November directed by our international office from Pittsburgh on this type of safety program. The Steelworkers Union has a history and experience with locals union participation in BBS programs.

Our union the Steelworkers advised us that BBS safety can be a trap and that we should take a cautious approach. Our union was willing to work with the company and give it a good try if some basic assurances to our members were given in writing. The main issues we had were as follows:

· No discipline/no names would result from BBS and we did not want our members observation of other members to form a due diligence defence for the company if charged with an offence under the safety act.
· That proper people and resources be allocated so no steelworker jobs will be doubled up or crews run short by participation of our members.
· We would require shift leaders and all participants in BBS to have through training in hazard recognition in the work place.
· The BBS program will include a method to link “at risk behaviour” to hazards and such information be forwarded to the company and joint safety committee for resolution ASAP.
· Assurances that the program would be properly instituted and maintained as any move away from the base model would further prejudice our members
· The union joint safety committee members be able to attend any BBS meeting at their or the company's request.

There will be enormous amounts of paper generated by the BST process. Our union requires one written page of assurances for our members however without those assurances we cannot recommend participation. In fact we strongly recommend that we all choose not to participate if asked.

Our union believes safety is foremost and fundamental for our members. BBS is focused on worker behaviour as the root cause of almost all workplace accidents. That is that 80 to 100% of all accidents are caused by unsafe acts. These programs identify key unsafe behaviors that are believed to contribute to our accidents. They enlist observers, or unsafe act cops. They are designed to change worker behaviour from unsafe to safe.

Our union's experience is that when we investigate accidents we look for the root causes. We do not find that unsafe acts is a prevalent root cause of accidents. In many cases multiple unsafe conditions not multiple unsafe acts cause the accidents. Worker watching worker is a recipe for disaster without proper safeguards and assurances and we do not have all those safeguards verbally and none at all in writing .

Issued by United Steelworkers of America Local 343, December 4th, 2000