Health & Safety

Slips, Trips, and Falls

(Parts of this article are excerpted from Facilities Management Safety News, April 2008, Volume 2 Issue 2.)

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents’ Policy (Administrative --Campus Health and Safety) states that …”The University is committed to providing a safe, secure, and healthy environment for its students, faculty, staff and visitors. …” The policy goes on to speak about …”mutual responsibilities for achieving excellence in campus health and safety.”

The lion’s share of injuries reported to workers’ compensation involve slips, trips or falls. A trip usually results in a person falling forward. A slip sends the person backward. A fall is a change of elevation.

Protect yourself and others with these simple steps:

• Keep your own work area clean and orderly. Watch for hazards, especially those blocking the route to an emergency exit, and remove them or ask a facilities person to remove them.
• Maintain dry walking surfaces. Promptly report any wet surfaces to the proper person.
• Wear proper footwear for your work area and job responsibilities.
• Pay attention and use caution when ascending or descending stairways or when working from an elevation. Use caution when walking on snow-filled or ice-covered walkways. Report buildups of sand and debris to building maintenance personnel.

If you become a victim to a slip, trip or fall, as soon as you are able, complete the “incident report” and the “first report of injury” forms. It is your supervisor’s responsibility to submit these forms but you can get the paperwork rolling. Go to this web address to print the incident report and the first report of injury forms: http://policy.umn.edu/groups/ppd/documents/policy/workers_comp.cfm#300.

As always, you should keep a copy of anything submitted whether by you or by your supervisor, so request copies.

Health and Safety at Work is Everyone’s Responsibility

Given the limited resources available at the University of Minnesota, your first step should be self-education. There are many good websites available including Minnesota OSHA (www.doli.state.mn.us/mnosha.html) and Federal OSHA.(www.osha.gov).

For employees who are at a desk most of the day, one important tool available to you is the University of Minnesota Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) department. EHS has developed a self-assessment which is helpful for people who work at their desks. The Workstation Self Assessment / Evaluation can be found at http://www.dehs.umn.edu/ergo_office_guide.htm. It only took me a few minutes to go through the screens (although I had been educated somewhat previously). I learned a couple adjustments to make which have been beneficial. I still have a couple questions that did not get addressed by the evaluation and will need to email them to try for answers.

If you find you need to schedule one of the guys to come out and complete an evaluation, be aware that it will take around four (4) weeks to get on their schedule. EHS has only two employees who perform the workstation evaluations and they are responsible for the entire University, including UMC, UMD, UMM, UMR and everywhere in between. Make any changes you can while you wait.

Do not assume your situation is unchangeable. Equipment can be purchased to prevent injuries in any setting. They can help you identify which piece of equipment will be most beneficial for your situation. Call EHS at 612-626-6002 or email them at with any questions you might have but be prepared for a delay in response. Be patient but keep checking back with them. It is your health and your safety that is at stake!

Dignity and Respect at Work

At the September 2008 AFSCME Council 5 Convention, I attended two workshops which both focused on Healthy and Safety at work. I will try to summarize the workshop on Healthy and Abuse Free Work Environments.

This workshop discussed issues related to dignity and respect at work. The negative side of this is workplace violence and stress. In a mild form, it can show itself as “Minnesota nice”. Does your department have a high employee turnover rate? Are you or your co-workers absent or tardy often? Is your departmental productivity down? Have you spoken to a steward or union representative about any of these issues?

We learned that the College of St Catherine, Region’s Hospital and Hennepin County Libraries have all begun to address harmful workplace behaviors. The leaders in this movement appear to be in medical programs (teaching while still students) and hospitals and specialty clinics (and all their corollary workers) but Hennepin County Libraries also recognizes the value of a healthy workplace. What they all say is that making policy to support cultural changes takes a long time but that they already see benefits.

The first step in addressing harmful workplace behaviors is setting up a task force with appropriate membership from across the University. Second step seems to be hiring a consultant to administer a survey to everyone (Administrators, Faculty, Civil Service Staff, P&A Staff, Union Staff and Students). The consultant then assists the task force in defining what behaviors make a workplace harmful (or healthy) and in deciding how to address changing those behaviors. There must be consequences for bad behaviors but our contract must never be violated by any steps agreed upon by the task force.

The panel presented information by way of active task force participants from Region’s Hospital and Hennepin County Libraries. Region’s Hospital had the most experience. AFSCME Local 722 opened their eyes one day and saw how poorly employees were treated by management and by each other. It wasn’t hard to see how toxic their environment was and how it was hurting employees and patients. At this time, Region’s Hospital was among “the worst places to work” and had a very high employee turnover rate. Union leadership stepped up and convinced management to work with them on a “Healthy Work Place Committee” (HWPC). After many long hours establishing the new ground rules, the program was implemented. Small successes build. All parties recognize that work must continue every day to retain and build the good work that has been done. In 2005, Region’s Hospital received an award for being a “Best Place to Work”.

As a result of the work of the HWPC, employees now can wear a badge on their lanyard that spells out RESPECT on one side and defines healthy and harmful behaviors on the other side. A comment like “your behavior is in the red” is now enough to get most employees to adjust their own attitude. The employees (from top down) report improvement in morale, in employee retention and in job satisfaction which reduced absences, tardiness and high turnover rates. The Employer is happy because the cost of constantly training new employees is lowered and their customers (patients) are ‘happier’.

Here is a sample of Region’s RESPECT Badge. On left side, the bottom half is the ‘red’ zone:

Hennepin County Libraries is newer to the process but reports similar successes. Most of the examples given were related to the medical field.

In the academic world, the College of St Catherine implemented the program in the Department of Nursing and the Department of Physical Therapy, Occupational Science/Occupational Therapy, Social Work, and Family and Nutritional Sciences; both departments are in the medical field. St Kate’s made it a part of the curriculum and plans to follow students for a number of years after they graduate to monitor how things are going.

Some other results of the task forces include a “dignity and respect” section in performance reviews, a stronger local union and a sense of trust between parties. Many of the groups already working this program include their vendors in the program.

My recommendation for the University of Minnesota community is to initiate a similar program which could result in a Memo of Understanding (MOU) which could then become a part of our contract(s). The process only works if everyone takes ownership of the process and of the results. Management must also be willing to invest in the program. The University is such a large place that we should pick a single department (the worst one? the not quite worst one?) and start there. I put this idea forward because we spend about one third of our life at work. Don’t we deserve dignity and respect here? “This is your life; get the best because you can’t get yesterday back” (M Diaz, President AFSCME Local 722).

Have you heard about the 5% Solution?

AFSCME Council 5 together with AFSCME International sponsored a Health Care Reform Conference February 22-23, 2008 in Bloomington, Minnesota. Most of this article comes from information they provided to attendees. Council 5 will be posting powerpoints/information from the conference on their website so everyone can benefit from the information. AFSCME Council 5 website is afscmemn.org. They said they would include a calculator so each of us can determine what percentage of our household income is going towards health care and now is a great time since we’re all preparing to file our income tax forms.

AFSCME International rolled out a new attempt to make our health care affordable. This change will not happen at the bargaining table. The more people talk about health care and affordability, the more likely we’ll find a real solution. The “5% Solution” is a philosophy; we need to define it. The government has determined that “affordability” in relation to housing is equal to 30% of a household’s income. Why are some of us paying close to 20% of our income just for our health care (premiums and out of pocket expenses)?

AFSCME’s greatest asset is its members. The health care industry’s greatest asset is all the money they collect from us. The health care industry undermines our fight for affordable health care with millions of dollars spent on ads depicting fearful mythical situations. Let’s start recognizing them for what they are.

Myth 1. “We will have no choice of doctor, health plan or clinic.”
Truth: We define the availability; most of us are already very limited in our choices.

Myth 2. “We will lower our quality of care.”
Truth: Are you happy with your level of care now? Statistics show that 45% of American patients do not receive the recommended care due to cost or limited insurance.

Myth 3. “Long waiting lines will result.”
Truth: Right now many of us forego health care entirely because we can’t afford it; what line is longer than that.

Myth 4. “It will promote unhealthy lifestyles.”
Truth: The reality is that doctors will have incentives to help us achieve our goals rather than punishing us for our “bad” behavior.

Myth 5. “Big Brother.”
Truth: At this beginning of the discussion, the government is envisioned only as a watchdog who has the power to force CEOs to do the right thing for their customers.

Myth 6. “Government is wasteful and creates red tape.”
Truth: We are all public employees at this University, do you see yourself as lazy and inefficient in your job? Compare administrative costs between Medicare, about 3%, and the For-profits at up to 26%. Count yourself lucky, in Minnesota, our For-profits are only wasting about 10-15%.

Myth 7. “Competition reduces costs.”
Truth: We are living/struggling in a competitive world. The only thing that is competitive is how low our wages can stay. Let’s redefine competition to include efficiency and positive outcomes rather than how much the CEO gains financially.

Myth 8. “Less research and innovation will happen.”
Truth: Working at a public research institute, we know that most of our money comes from the government. Private industries do not invest to the degree that the government does even though they have more money to spend and more of everything to gain. For-profits continue to invest in their CEOs rather than in research and development.

Myth 9. “Frivolous lawsuits will abound.”
Truth: Doctors will be given time to do their job correctly and therefore if they amputate the wrong body piece, they deserve a hefty lawsuit.

Myth 10. “Coverage will be wasted on illegal immigrants.”
Truth: We need to define who’s covered under this plan. We could make a separate fund to cover ‘visitors’ to the country/state. If we think of our society as compassionate and caring, we should NEVER deny ANYONE the medical care they need.

I hear some of these myths on the radio already, mostly aimed at senior citizens right now. We need to be talking about these myths and possible ways to counteract them now because just like in 1993, the For-profits will throw all their resources to creating fear. Anger is a better response, anger motivates you; fear demoralizes you and leaves you hopeless. Change is hard but most of us are one accident or illness away from bankruptcy due to our healthcare system.

Talk to everyone you know about the need to make health care affordable to all. We should be angry about the state of health care in Minnesota and in the United States. We can take control away from the For-profit corporations if we work together. This is a great issue to get angry about and to stay angry about.

Safety Survey

in an effort to monitor and improve our working conditions, I am asking for your help. Take a few minutes to examine your work space and yourself, thenfill out this safety survey (PDF).

We framed the questions broadly for two reasons:

1. If you think something is maybe a problem, it probably is; and

2.In order to keep it relevant to all work environments that we use.

A couple examples of safety issues: One safety issue that I know management is working on is building evacuations. Does your building have an evacuation plan in place? Do you know how you should respond to an alarm (weather, fire, other)? Do you practice the evacuation plan a couple times a year? In the unlikely event of a real fire or other situation, the plan, including all its details, needs to be in place before the event.

Another obvious safety issue that may be impacting you is construction or remodeling. Do you know what you are being exposed to during the renovation? Dust? Asbestos? Mold? Carpal tunnel syndrome and headaches are not the only safety issues we face. By gathering information from many sources we may find a trend that should be addressed by education or by problem solving.

Fill out this safety survey (PDF), then return the survey to me or hand it to a steward for delivery to me.

Mary Austin

612-626-9462 (TC campus)

Problems with RxAmerica?

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Here is the RxAmerica UofM formulary (July 2007) (47 page PDF file)
This is a list of medications currently pre-approved by the UofM RxAmerica plan. See page 2, "Preferred Drugs and Generic Plus Availability" for more information on this document.