Clergy involvement in occupational safety and health

Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 20, No. 1, Spring 1981

Clergy Involvement in Occupational Safety and Health

Peter Finn

ABSTRACT. The toll exacted by occupational injuries and illnesses on employed people involves a degree of personal and family suffering of such magnitude that clergy can legitimately consider it a part of their pastoral responsibilities to address the problem. Several cogent reasons for clergy involvement in occupational safety and health are provided, along with approaches clergy can implement to help parishioners reduce their workplace risks. Resources for assistance in engaging in these activities are suggested.

The toll exacted by occupational injuries and illnesses on employed people in every part of the country represents a problem of such protean dimensions as to warrant the considered at tention of the churches. To be sure, many clergymen have been inundated with requests to become involved in a variety of currently "fashionable" issues, from alcohol abuse to teenage runaways, from genetic research to environmental pollution. However, the rationale for adding occupational safety and health to the concerns of the ministry is a compelling one.

The nature of the occupational safety and health problem

The number of safety and health hazards related to the workplace is aston- ishing. While there is an enormous disparity in the frequency and seriousness of these risks from occupation to occupation, the following data illustrate both the severity and the ubiquity of the problem:

�9 In 1976, nearly 50,000 workers were killed in job-related accidents, including 12,000 on-the-job deaths. Over 2.2 million work-related disabling injuries were reported. ~

�9 An estimated 25 million serious work-related injuries go uncounted each year. 2

�9 About half a million workers report developing an occupational disease each year2

Peter Finn, M.A., M.A.T., is Senior Research Analyst for Abt Associates Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts. This article represents an expansion of a paper that appeared originally in Currents in Theology and Mission, Fall 1979.

18 0022-4197/81/1300-0018500.95 �9 1981 Institutes of Religion and Health

Peter Finn 19

�9 One in every four American workers may be currently exposed on a full-or part-time basis to government-regulated hazardous substances. 4

�9 Time lost in 1975 due to work-related accidents amounted to 245 million person days, 5 equivalent to the shutdown of plants with a total of one million workers for one year.

As the above figures document, concern for occupational accidents and illnesses cannot be limited to the few blatant dangers, like black lung disease and asbestosis, which have received considerable attention in the press. Most jobs present potential safety or health hazards, whether it is the exposure of farmers to sunlight, e the inhalation of ozone from office copying machines by secretaries, 7 or the unending demands on psychoanalysts for magical cures. 8 While industrial workers and blue collar employees in manufacturing industries have a much higher incidence of occupational injuries and illnesses than do other employed people, white collar workers are by no means exempt from major j ob-related health risks. Actors, barbers, hairdressers, dentists, doctors, embalmers, office workers, and nurses, for example, are all exposed to proven toxic substances. 9 A variety of middle-class and industrial occupations alike entail a number of emotional costs in terms of daily tensions and frustrations that often contribute to the development of heart disease, peptic ulcers, arthritis, mental illness, and alcohol and drug abuse. 1~

Safety and health hazards on the job can also have serious consequences for nonworkers as well. The insulation worker who exposes his family to cancer by bringing home invisible and indestructible particles of asbestos, 1~ the school teacher who comes home too fatigued or upset from the stresses of continuous classroom performance to devote time to his children, and the construction worker who cannot support his family while he recuperates from a broken leg fractured by a falling crane are just three examples of occupational health problems whose adverse effects can extend to people who may not be currently working at all. The as yet unknown harmful effects of industrial chemicals on the fetuses of employed women who are pregnant may prove to be the most insidious of all job-related health hazards for the "nonworker.'12

The rationale for addressing occupational safety and health problems

Despite the obvious impact occupational injuries and illnesses can have directly or indirectly on everyone, workers and nonworkers alike, it might be contended that this is an area of education and public information best left up to employees, management, unions, and government to provide. In fact, however, there are several cogent reasons clergy need to become familiar with the problems their parishioners and communities have related to safety and health on the job and to take an active role in helping to resolve them.

There are important ethical issues involved in occupational safety and healtl~ Churches have an obligation to focus on the "whole" man, which includes his physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Howard E. Spragg, Executive Vice President of the United Church Board for Homeland Minis-

20 Journal of Religion and Health

tries of the United Church of Christ, has succinctly expressed this responsibility:

The Church is charged with a particular concern for ethical and moral problems of human beings within society and our relationship with God .... Indeed, "salvation," one of the decisive words of religious vocabulary, means "healthy" or "wholeness of the human being." Words like "love," "justice," "neighborliness" and "brotherhood" have a thousand proof texts in the Old and New Testaments. Therefore, concern for the health of individual workers and their families and communities generates a moral imperative to do something about this hidden plague [of occupational injuries and illnesses] which kills 100,000 annually in the U.S.A. A high standard of living which degenerates into a high level of indifference to human well-being corrupts all of society. ~ 8

The field of occupational safety and health is replete with moral quandaries for workers, employers, union officials, and government policy makers. Many of these dilemmas appear to represent classic cases of having to choose between "the lesser of two evils." Moreover, these choices may have serious repercussions not only for the decision-maker but also, as we have seen, for his or her entire family or for an entire work force.

Many employed persons who work in hazardous jobs are confronted on an almost daffy basis with a particularly important and troublesome ethical decision: whether to seek another job that may present fewer personal hazards--but may inconvenience their families because of its poorer working hours, lower salary, and inconvenient location--or whether to remain in their present high-risk occupation but retain their current income level and lifestyle for their spouses and children. While a solution to this dilemma might appear to be working with their employers to eliminate or reduce the safety and health hazards of the jobs, employed people must consider carefully the wisdom of complaining to management about unsafe or unhealthy working conditions when the results of such efforts may include being overlooked for promotion, being transferred to a less desirable position in the company, or even being fired. Another ethical issue that concerns some employed people is whether they

have a responsibility to inform their colleagues on the job about the hazards of their work and attempt to motivate them to take precautions to minimize these risks. Many workers, while aware of their moral obligation to help their coworkers, are reluctant to do so because they feel that encouraging their fellow employees to behave safely on the job involves "butting into" other people's lives, an approach they feel is improper as well as awkward.

Union officials, too, must make moral decisions with regard to the occupational safety and health of their members. To date, most unions have given short shrift to this problem, partly because their own members have urged them to focus on winning higher salaries, better fringe benefits, and more job security rather than safer work environments. 14 Should union officials simply follow the dictates of their constituencies and ignore safety and health issues--and help ensure their own reelection--or should they negotiate with management for improved safety and health conditions at the expense of their

P e ~ r F i n n 21

members' more vocal concerns for higher wages and job security--and chance being turned out of office? As a middle course, should union officials seek to educate their members to the importance of placing a high priority on job safety and health in contract negotiations? While these are obviously important political decisions for any union official, they are also moral issues.

Employers face crucial ethical choices in this area as well. Top level management is often faced with the unhappy prospect of installing additional engineering controls, increasing the number of safe work practices, and providing better medical treatment in order to protect their employees, but only at considerable expense to their profit margins and disappointment to their stockholders.

A moral dilemma that may confront lower level management officials, including company medical directors, safety directors, and industrial hygienists and nurses, is the conflict between their loyalty to a company that may feel it is doing all it reasonably can or needs to do to eliminate job hazards and their belief that the company could and should be doing still more to protect its employees. Such company officials may agonize over whether they should remain on the job so they can influence company policy to improve safety conditions or whether they should resign because their continued association with what they perceive to be an unethical company policy com- promises their personal integrity.

This same quandary also confronts some government officials who are responsible for establishing or executing policy with regard to worker safety and health. Several officials have resigned from government service in recent years because they decided that continued employment with their agency was immoral, based on what they perceived to be the government 's inaction, incompetence, or unethical behavior in failing to protect the work force adequately from job hazards. Other government officials have been fired because they criticized their agency's policies to higher officials, congressmen, or the press. In 1977, Dr. Norbert Page resigned as head of the National Cancer Insti tute 's {NCI) branch that tests suspected carcinogenic chemicals, an- nouncing he could no longer morally stay in the program because of a shortage of trained personnel and the lack of interest in chemical testing by top NCI officials. Dr. Umberto Saffiotti had already quit as asociate director of NCI's environmental cancer research program for similar reasons. Dr. Stanley Mazleski, a researcher with the National Inst i tute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), insisted that the chemical cadmium may cause cancer and denounced his agency's slow standard-setting pace to congressmen. Although his opinions were vindicated a year later, this did not prevent his being fired when his criticisms were leaked to the New York Times. ~5

Clearly, there are many extremely important moral issues involved in occupational safety and health, and their resolution may have serious--even life and death--ramifications for thousands, if not millions, of people. However, this is not to say that all or even most of the people who must address these problems perceive them in moral terms--if only because continued attention to such critical issues and our personal responsibility for resolving them can be


an existential burden heavier than most of us can bear. However, the most common reason these issues are not approached from an ethical perspective is that in our society money and power are generally valued more highly than helping our fellow man. The daffy need to earn our bread and feed our egos can discourage us from considering the moral choices we are making. It is unfortunate that the moral dilemmas involved in this field pit job safety and health against two such powerful countervailing considerations. But precisely because this is the case, there is an urgent need for the clergy to help workers, unions, employers, and government officials to perceive these conflicts in ethical, and not just economic and political terms.

Occupational safety and health hazards often affect the spiritual life of the worker and that of his family in a number of damaging ways. Mercury, carbon disulphide, and trichloroethylene found in some industrial settings can create extreme irritability and crying to the point of jeopardizing a person's relationship with all those around him. 16 Exposure to carbon disulphide has apparently been the cause of suicide among some workers." Unwanted but required overtime, pressure to be more productive, excessive responsibilities, repetitive tasks, job boredom, and depressing work environments can all pro- duce anxiety, anger, or depression among employed people. As one garment worker lamented, she is always "pushing, pushing, pushing all the time . . . . The biggest part of the women takes nerve pills. I 'm on them myself. You just get so nervous, pushing all day. ''~8 While many people are familiar with the effects of tension-filled jobs and boring and tedious assembly line work on employee morale, few know about the high suicide rate among women doctors and chemists, ~9 dentists, 2~ and police officers 21 or the excessive rates of alcoholism among waiters, longshoremen, transportation laborers, and painters. 22 Occupational health includes the stimuli, temptations, and opportunities a job exposes workers to that may create or exacerbate emotional problems in susceptible individuals.

Work problems can easily spill over into a worker's family life and prevent him from functioning properly at the end of the work day as a spouse, parent, or friend. If a worker is injured or ill, the effects on the family may include not only financial hardships but also emotional tensions. Incapacitation can engender frustration and bitterness for many victims when they can no longer support their families and, however inappropriately, come to feel helpless and ashamed--"less of a man," as one worker put it. These feelings can mar the harmony of an entire family. Stress can also build up at home when a worker cannot leave the house because of a disabling condition suffered on the job, and the husband, wife, and children have to spend too much of each day in con- stant contact with one another. 28

The National Council of the Churches of Christ has pointed out that "unemployment makes it impossible for its victims to make a purposeful, creative, socially responsible contribution through work, so essential to their dignity as human beings. Indeed, these persons, who are made in the image of GOd to be stewards over His creation, are thus thwarted from working toward ends clearly ordained for them by God. This is a profound injustice. ''24 If the

Peter Finn 23

churches are responsible for pointing out the injustice of unemployment, they are equally bound to address the spiritual impact that job-related injuries and illnesses have on millions of Americans every year.

Workers have difficulty initiating action themselves to protect their safety and health on the job. Many employed people feel impotent to reduce or eliminate even the known hazards associated with their work; and among those who feel they do have the capability, few have the initiative, information, or time to go about learning how to do so effectively. Sometimes the dangers of work are too alarming to allow much conscious or sustained recognition; so workers develop defenses to deny them {"the odds are against my getting hurt."} Furthermore, employed people, especially if they have family responsibilities, often feel they cannot afford to seek to improve job conditions in ways that may imperil their jobs or income. Yet another consideration that often discourages worker action is that many of the most serious occupational illnesses have a long period of preclinical development 25 which, combined with a common tendency to belittle and ignore symptoms that are neither severe nor incapacitating, 26 creates a special problem for employed people who have not been educated to avoid occupational safety and health risks and pay attention to early warning signals that may appear.

In view of this resignation, helplessnesss, and preoccupation with what are felt to be higher priorities, it should be the responsibility of the entire community, including the churches, to help inculcate att i tudes of concern and vigilance toward occupational safety and health among workers and management and assist both groups to undertake actions that will reduce workplace hazards.

Other sources of help are often unavailable or inadequate. Protecting workers from job-related safety and health risks should be the responsibility of the employer, the government, and the unions, as well as the worker himself, but for a number of complex reasons none of these groups can be completely relied upon for this purpose. This makes the clergy's role all the more significant.

Management cannot be expected to protect the worker fully because of the financial costs involved. Many companies do not obey all the laws governing safety at the workplace for precisely this reason. For example, more than 100,000 violations of government safety and health regulations were found in twenty~ne states and one territory during the first quarter of 1976 alone. 27 During August 1976 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA} inspected 5,246 establishments, which employ 1,450,272 workers, and found that 65 percent of the workplaces were not in compliance with federal standards; the Administration issued 2,353 serious citations and nearly $1.1 million in penalties. 28 In addition, some industries, concerned to protect trade secrets from their competitors, will not reveal to workers the generic names of the potentially hazardous substances used on the job.

Government, too, has proven to be an imperfect protector of workers' safety and health. Legal, political, financial, and constitutional constraints hamper the effectiveness of many government regulatory agencies. For example, the


National Inst i tute on Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH/HHS) itself has compiled the names of some 74,000 workers exposed to carcinogenic substances whom it cannot even take steps to notify of their exposure, s9 Court challenges have been successfully mounted in several states to prevent OSHA inspectors from entering a plant without a search warrant2 ~ Even with unre- stricted access, the likelihood in any given year of an OSHA inspection for most small businesses is still only one in 1,300. 31 Furthermore, it will take OSHA over 100 years based on its present rate to establish needed standards on existing harmful substances2 ~ In addition to financial and legal con- stralnts, government and management are hampered by lack of qualified staff. In 1972 there was an estimated shortage of 10,000 industrial hygienists, 10,000 occupational health nurses, 2,000 occupational health physicians, 5,000-10,000 safety personnel, and 8,000 occupational health scientists in the country. This situation has not changed today2 3

Finally, as we have already seen, most unions, on both the local and national levels, have ignored worker safety and health at the bargaining table and in their educational programs for members. However, even if all unions vig- orously sought to promote occupational safety and health, this would benefit only a minority of employed people since only twenty-five percent of the work force is unionized--a proportion that is constantly declining2 4 Given the inability or unwillingness of management, government, and

unions to provide adequately for worker safety and health, the role of the clergy in this endeavor becomes that much more important.

Many workers do not trust other sources of information. In part as ~ a response to the Vietnam War and Watergate and in part due to a growing cli- mate of anti-inteUectualism, 35 many employed people have come to mistrust what government, management, health educators, and union officials have to say about job safety and health. Other workers feel they have been delib- erately misled by government and business regarding the hazards of the workplace and will no longer heed safety advice from these sources even when the suggestions are reasonable and valid. I t was in light of this credibility problem that the National Academy of Sciences reported to OSHA that "although there are clearly a number of 'official' sources of information available to the worker, unofficial sources may be more influential in actually modifying a worker's decision and behavior with respect to the workplace."ae As a result, ministers, priests, and rabbis, as t rustworthy "unofficial" sources, are in a unique position to provide information regarding job safety and health that many employed people may act upon.

Clergy involvement in worker safety and health issues may foster intro- spection into the emotional pressures of their own profession. Pastoral work exposes many clergy to tensions and frustrations created by troubled parishioners seeking help and also to anxieties and spiritual uncertainties resulting from conflicts between conscience, the needs of their congregation, and church authority. These spiritual and emotional problems of clergymen have been exacerbated in recent years by the rise in women's liberation and gay liberation, increased tolerance of abortion, divorce, and premarital sex, and

Peter Finn 25

other profound social changes. To the extent that helping their parishioners cope with work-related injuries and illnesses motivates clergy to consider and gain insight into how their own occupation affects their personal state of mind, involvement in occupational safety and health may increase the ministry's ability to perform its clerical duties effectively.

What can the clergy do?

There are a variety of specific activities clergy can engage in to promote occupational safety and health with individual parishioners and in the community at large. The methods of involvement an individual clergyman chooses to undertake will depend on the types of jobs prevalent in the local community and represented among his congregation, his particular interpersonal skills, and his traditional mode of working with his parishioners and local community institutions. Several suggested activities follow.

Clergy can provide workers, union officials, and company executives with information about work risks, how these dangers can be reduced, and what each actor's ethical responsibilities are for reducing job-related injuries and illnesses. This approach is most feasible in communities dominated by a few major industries in which the work force is exposed to well-recognized safety and health hazards. Random examples of such regions include the following: �9 Communities around Pit tsburgh and elsewhere in the country where thousands of steelworkers are employed. For example, 22,000 coke oven workers are exposed to higher than normal risks of lung, kidney, and digestive cancer, s7 and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has recently pro- mulgated a health standard regulating such work. 8s �9 Rural communities where the risks of accidents with farm machinery, care- less use of pesticides, and prolonged exposure to sunlight make farming the third most dangerous occupation in the nation, sg �9 Communities in the South that have cotton, flax, and hemp producing plants where the incidence of byssinosis, a crippling lung disorder, affects an estimated twenty to thirty percent of the workers. 4~ �9 Hartford, Omaha, Boston, and other insurance centers where clerical workers are exposed to boredom, ozone from office copying machines, and back strain from poorly designed chairs and other office equipment. 4~ �9 Tacoma and other towns with copper smelter factories in which employees and residents alike are exposed to arsenic poisoning and a resulting high rate of lung cancer. ~2 �9 Coal mining communities whose workers labor at the most dangerous occupation in the country. 48 �9 Communities in which asbestos is produced or used in manufacturing pro- cesses, such as Manville, New Jersey, and Asbestos, Quebec, where the incidence of asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the chest and lung lining, is extremely high."

There are two ways clergy can help inform workers, unions, and management officials in these and other similar communities about work hazards and


encourage them to take action to eliminate or reduce them: 1) clergy can secure occupational safety and health literature from various sources {see the appendix to this paper), which they can then disseminate, and 2) clergy can themselves learn about the dangers of local occupations and discuss the risks with exposed workers and responsible officials in management and government.

Clergy have excellent opportunities to distribute literature to workers and company and union officials by attaching pamphlets and flyers to Sunday bulletins, enclosing them in mail solicitations for contributions, placing them conspicuously in church lobbies and offices, and handing them to parishioners and other members of the community during the normal course of their pastoral duties.

The topic of occupational safety and health can be broached verbally--with or without accompanying literature--in a number of tactful ways. One effective approach is to ask questions, rather than immediately offer information, and to indicate some knowledge about and especially concern for the employed person's or company or union official's problem and a desire to learn more. A conversation could begin with any of the following "openers":

"I received some literature in the marl about vinyl chloride and cancer among rubber workers. Are you interested in having it? What has your company been doing about the risks of working with vinyl chloride?"

"I understand the new Coke Oven Emissions Standard requires Bessemer Steel to give free medical examinations every year. How is tha t working out? What kinds of tests are being given?"

"Did you hear how Robert Brown broke his leg falling off a scaffold? I understand that with some simple work precautions he could have pre- vented the fall."

"What is your union's position about bringing up health and safety issues with management at contract time?"

As these initial forays into worker safety and health suggest, even when clergy do not themselves have much information about the specific job hazards a given employee is exposed to, they may be able to stimulate increased concern among employed people for safety and health and motivate them to seek additional information on their own regarding their work risks.

Clergy can devo te a sermon or p a r t o f a sermon to occupat ional sa fe ty and health. Topics a sermon might address can include: concepts like "real love," brotherhood, and wholeness of the human being; the responsibility of employed people to their families to maintain good health; and obligations on the part of employers to balance worker self-help with company-initiated protective measures.

Peter Finn 27

Such sermons could use examples of occupational safety and health hazards present in local industries to add immediacy and concreteness to the message: Two biblical texts might offer a telling start ing point for the sermon:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? 1 Corinthians 7.'19

For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful. Wonderful are thy works!

Psalms 138:13-14

Clergy can run or be host to seminars or workshops on job safety and health for workers exposed to known work hazards--and for their spouses, too. Meetings can also be conducted for other employed people to raise their general awareness and concern for occupational safety and health issues in the community. Employers and other concerned groups and individuals can at tend these sessions.

Clergy can conduct such educational endeavors alone or in conjunctionwith a local health clinic, union, or business. Assistance for these programs might also come from local industrial hygienists, physicians, and officials in local OSHA and NIOSH offices. An ideal way to arrange such a seminar would be for the local ministerial association to work as a unit in developing an inter- denominational education program, since the workers at risk and the employers involved are likely to belong to different congregations in the community.

Workshops held in "neutral" settings like church basements may have a far greater potential for influencing workers than those presented on company premises. As Sheldon Samuels, education director for the AFL-CIO, has remarked, "Programs ought to be run in church basements, not in plants . . . . the worker feels freer to inquire on his own ground. ''~5

Clergy can get in touch with their local public health center or clinic and discuss problems of occupational safety and health with the director and other staff, distribute literature, and suggest that the center provide occupational safety and health information to their patients who are known to work in hazardous jobs and to their spouses. Clergy can recommend that the clinic order some of the many readily available documents on job safety and health and have them prominently displayed in waiting rooms and, where appropriate, passed out routinely during office visits.

Clergy can also ask to be placed on the agenda of local medical society meetings to urge doctors in the local community to become familiar with the types of jobs their patients have and the safety and health risks their work entails. Armed with this information, physicians can be alert for early signs of occupational diseases among their patients, have appropriate medical tests per- formed for purposes of early detection, and urge their patients to take preventive measures to reduce their chances of developing job-related illnesses.


Approaches clergy can use for promoting job safety and health among workers

Obviously, some ways of helping employed people to become familiar with their job risks and become motivated to reduce them are more effective than others, just as some techniques of pastoral counseling for marital, drinking, or spiritual problems are more productive than others. Moreover, different approaches are more effective than others with different people--or with the same person at different times. As Joseph Fletcher, Emeritus Professor of Theology and Ethics, Episcopal Theological Seminary, has commented, " I t is not enough to know or decide what is right. We need to want what is right, too. And that takes us out of ethics into motivation. ' "s

There are three key counseling approaches that are most likely to stimulate employed people to pay careful attention to their job safety and health: 1) focusing on affective issues, 2) stressing the effects of job-related accidents and diseases on other family members besides the employed person, and 3) promoting peer education among workers.

Focus on affective issues. To be fully effective in developing safe work behaviors, clergy must address the emotional components of people's atti- tudes toward safety and health. Information giving, where possible, should deal with the many nonrational and irrational reasons people fail to take precautions to avoid work-related accidents and diseases. These affective obstacles to encouraging people to protect their safety and health are hardly unique to the workplace. Campaigns to promote safety belt use, 4~ chest x-rays for tuberculosis, 4s cigarette smoking reduction, 4' breast self-examination, s~ and not driving after excessive drinking, 51 to cite just a few well publicized examples, have amply illustrated the pervasive reluctance many people have to taking even elementary and life-saving steps to avoid injury and illness.

Among the affective issues in occupational safety and health that employed people at risk need to be encouraged to recognize and explore are the following:

�9 Unwillingness or inability to face a reality that is just too dreadful to con- template, such as death, disability, disfigurement, or loss of income. Taking safety and health precautions can be an admission that work is dangerous--not a pleasant thought to be regularly reminded of. �9 The "it-won't-happen-to-me" form of denial, which enables people to feel that, while what they are doing may be dangerous, they won't have an accident or become ill because statistically the odds are so small, because they think they are "more careful" than the people who experience accidents and diseases, or because they have some other rationalization for believing they are "an exception to the rule." �9 Peer pressure, which makes people feel the risk of an injury or disease is worth taking because being ridiculed by coworkers or friends is a more unpleasant prospect. �9 Laziness or habit, which prevents people from overcoming inertia and making a small extra effort to avoid a safety or health hazard.

Peter Finn 29

�9 Inability to tolerate minor frustrations, a form of immaturity that prevents people from doing mildly complicated tasks or tolerating minor delays in order to realize a significant safety or health benefit. �9 Fatalism, or the feeling that "nothing I can do will affect what happens to me." �9 Hostility to authority, which impels some people to ignore any suggestions or instructions from persons in positions of influence. �9 Sex-role insecurity, which discourages some "macho" men from taking precautions that they feel are "sissy" and inhibits some women from taking measures that they feel convey a lack of femininity.

Stress the effects job-related injuries and illnesses have on other family members. In discussing occupational safety and health issues with employed people, clergy need to keep in mind that one effective way to motivate them to do something about their workplace risks may be to stress the harm to their families that accidents and diseases can cause. Some employed people who are not particularly worried about their own health and safety are very concerned when their family's well-being is at stake. We have already noted how a worker's impaired health and a variety of stressful working conditions can have a tremendous impact on the emotional and spiritual health of other family members, how some workers bring home toxic substances from work, which expose spouses and children to serious illnesses, and how fetuses may be subject to a variety of health hazards arising from the exposure of pregnan t women to harmful materials on the job. Clergy can encourage workers who may be exposed to these conditions to investigate carefully whether their job may present health hazards to their spouses, children, or unborn offspring and consider taking appropriate precautions or even changing jobs if there is suffi- cient cause for concern.

Not only may it be more effective with some employed people to emphasize the effects of their work on their families rather than on themselves; it can also be more productive to focus on the potential disabilities workers can develop from exposure to occupational accidents and diseases rather than on their risk of death. Some people are much more alarmed by the prospect of being per- manently unable to engage in normal physical activity than they are by the fear of dying-- " seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come."

Promote peer education. For several reasons, occupational safety and health education by anyone will be most effective if it motivates employed people to tell one another about their job risks. First, as was pointed out earlier, many workers have little confidence in the job safety and health advice given to them by management, government, and health professionals. They do, however, t rust their colleagues to "tell it like it is," know whereof they speak, and not urge them to modify their behavior because of vested or hidden interests. Second, it will not be possible for clergy--or anyone else, except for school teachersS2--personally to provide every employed worker at risk with job-related safety and health information. A "snowballing" method of


education is therefore essential by which those relatively few workers who are reached by the clergy and other concerned individuals pass on what they have learned to their coworkers.

Third, peer education is important because people are receptive to learning about injury and illness prevention at different times in their lives. Often people are simply not "ready" to assimilate and use proffered help when management or government agencies approach them with information or advice about their safety and health. However, employed people who take on responsibility for peer education can be available at precisely those "teachable moments" when a coworker is most receptive to safety and health messages. 5s Finally, by "swapping stories" about illnesses and symptoms they are currently experiencing or have had in the past, the workers in a given company may be able to detect a pattern of aliments and thereby identify a potential occupational illness whose source at the workplace might remain unsuspected if they reported their symptoms independently to their various family

physic ians2 4 Given these significant advantages to peer education, clergy need to help

motivate employed people to consider it their responsibility to act as informal safety and health educators for their colleagues on the job. Clergy can also promote occupational safety and health by encouraging spouses, other relatives, and close friends to urge one another to take preventive measures to reduce their risk of a work-related injury or illness. Husbands and wives, for example, are sometimes capable of stimulating each other to pay more attention to their health than they might otherwise do, both for their own sake and in light of their family responsibilities2 5

Information on occupational safety and health

There are a number of ways in which clergy can secure accurate and nontechnical information regarding job safety and health in general and about specific hazards and industries in particular. Several of these sources are provided in an appendix to this paper, while others have been cited in the references. I t may be useful, however, to note here the six major categories of action that employed people can take, management can initiate, or government can require which will help reduce workplace accidents and diseases so that clergy who probe further into this field have an overview of the preventive measures available. These steps are listed in general order of effectiveness, with the most effective ones listed first.

1. Replacing dangerous substances and equipment with harmless ones--for example, using fiberglass instead of asbestos and providing secretaries with well-designed chairs. J

2. Installing engineering controls to prevent or limit worker exposure to harmful substances--such as providing adequate ventilation systems and enclosing dangerous equipment and subtances in sealed containers.

Peter Finn 31

3. Following safe work practices--for example, taking frequent work breaks from jobs that create stress and vacuuming instead of blowing out brake drums filled with asbestos.

4. Using protective equipment and clothing, such as respirators, gloves, and ear muffs.

5. Following needed hygienic practices, such as showering after work, washing up before eating, and leaving work clothing at the job site.

6. Taking medical tests, including regular medical checkups, but also less routine tests that are helpful in detecting dangerous job-related illnesses early, such as sputum cytology for lung cancer, lung function tests for em- physema and pneumoconiosis, and urinary cytology for kidney cancer. Of course, not all of these precautions are appropriate in every industry, but

a surprisingly large number of them applies to almost every hazardous job situation. What is important is that clergy who plan to involve themselves in community work related to occupational safety and health be aware that there are usually numerous alternatives available to workers, management, government, and unions for correcting workplace risks and that where one solution seems infeasible, others may be possible. The staggering and complex problem of job-related accidents and diseases can be solved if all parties involved in the problem become part of the solution. As one of the few "outsiders" in a position to take constructive action to help motivate these parties to reduce workplace accidents and injuries, the clergy have a clear-cut obligation to add occupational safety and health to their list of pastoral responsibilities to their congregations and communities.

Resources for further information

Books

Work Is Dangerous to Your Health. By Jeanne Stellman, Ph.D., and Susan Daum, M.D. New York, Vintage Books, 1973. $1.95. Paperbound. An easy-to-read account of health hazards in the workplace and what workers can do about them. Bitter Wages. By Joseph A. Page and Mary-Win O'Brien. New York, Grossrnan, 1973. $2.50. Paperbound. Ralph Nader's Study Group Report on disease and injury on the job. Discusses nature of job safety and health problems and provides analysis into the political issues they have spawned. Crisis in the Workplace: Occupational Disease and Injury. By Nicholas A. Ashford. Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1976. $11.50. Clothbound. Comprehensive report to the Ford Foun- dation which describes nature of job safety and health problems in America and the legal, social, and political issues surrounding efforts to solve them. The Cancer Connection and What We Can Do About It. By Larry Agran. Boston, Houghton Mif- flin, 1977. $8.95. Clothbound. Description of how most cancer is caused by man-made environmental conditions, including workplace conditions. Provides case histories of afflicted people. Working for Your Life: A Woman's Guide to Job Health Hazards. By Andrea Hrico and Melanie Brunt. Labor Occupational Health Program and Public Citizen's Health Research Group, Berkeley, California, 1976. $5.00. Paperbound. Description of how jobs can affect the health of women workers, hazards on jobs where large numbers of women work, and ways to recognize hazards and make changes at the workplace. Work in America: Report of a Special Task Force to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1973. $3.95. Paperbound. Discussion of the


nature of work in America, problems of American workers, and solutions to these problems. One chapter is devoted to occupational safety and health problems, but many other parts of the book relate to this field as well. How to Use OSHA. By Urban Planning Aid. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1975. $.75. Paper- bound. Discussion of how employed people can reduce their workplace hazards by taking advan- tage of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's mandate to protect them. Muscle and Blood. By Rachel Scott. New York, Dutton, 1974. $8.95. Clothbound. Journalistic account, replete with worker interviews, of the hazards and disasters in different blue collar industries.

Government Literature

OSHA pamphlets available from the nearest regional OSHA office. Single copies free. All about OSHA (OSHA pamphlet #2056) A Safe and Healthful Workplace (#2263) Occupational Safety and Health Administration: The Shift to Common Sense Priorities (no number} Workers' Rights under OSHA {~2253) OSHA Publications and Training Materials (//2019} Clergy can be placed on the mailing list of the National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health {NIOSH) to receive its reports free by writing to NIOSH, Office of Public Information, P.O. Building, Room 536, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202. Also available is NIOSH Publications, a free and periodically updated pamphlet (NIOSH No. 77-207}.

Periodicals and newsletters

Job Safety and Health. Monthly magazine put out by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. $13.60 a year. Write to Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. IUD Spotlight on Health and Safety. Bi-monthiy newsletter put out by the AFL-CIO~ Free. Write to AFL-CIO Industrial Union Department, 815 16th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006. Lifelines. Monthly newsletter of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union. $2.00 a year. Write to OCAW, 1636 Champa Street, Denver, Colorado 80202. Occupational Health and Safety Newsletter. Bi-monthly newsletter of the United Auto Workers. $3.00 a year. Write to UAW Social Security Department, 8000 East Jefferson Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 48214. Health/Pac Bulletim Monthly periodical put out by the Health Policy Advisory Center and frequently featuring articles on occupational safety and health. $10.00 a year. Write to Health/PAC, 17 Murray Street, New York, New York 10007.

Local human resources

Clergy can also gain information from local occupational safety and health groups and projects {listed in Job Health and Safety Materials, Occupational Health and Safety Project, Urban Planning Aid, 639 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139); medical directors, industrial hygienists, and safety and training directors in local industries; union safety committeemen and -women and representative employed people; and officials and researchers in regional and local branch offices of OSHA and NIOSH. Finally, clergy can learn a great deal about occupational safety and health problems in local industries by visiting plants and offices, observing employed people at their jobs, talking with them and their supervisors, and, if possible, spending some time engaged in volunteer work to experience first-hand the risks of a number of occupations.

R e f e r e n c e s

Accident Facts, 1976. National Safety Council, Chicago, 1976, p. 25. Gordon, J.B.; Akman, A.; and Brooks, M.L., Industrial Safety Statistics: A Re-examination. A Critical Report Prepared for the (U.S.) Department of Labor. New York, Praeger, 1971, pp. i0, 155.

Peter Finn 33

3. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Environmental Health Problems. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1970. In Stellman, J.M., and Daum, S.M., Work Is Dangerous to Your Health. New York, Vintage, 1973, p. 3.

4. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, The Right to Know: Practical Problems and Policy Issues Arising from Exposures to Hazardous Chemical and Physical Agents in the Workplace. Washington, D.C., Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, July 1977, p. 3.

5. Accident Facts, 1976, op. cir., p. 24. 6. Stellman and Daum, Work Is Dangerous to Your Health, op. cir., p. 138. 7. International Labor Organization, Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety. New

York, McGraw-Hill, 1972, Vol. II, pp. 988-989. "Secretary Fired for Speaking Out." Survival Kig 1977, 3, 6.

8. Wheels, A., "The Vocational Hazards of Psychoanalysis." In Wheels, A., The Quest for Identity. New York, Norton, 1958, pp. 228-229.

9. Stellman and Daum, Work Is Dangerous to Your Health, op. cir., pp. 368-419. 10. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Work in America. Cambridge, Mass., MIT

Press, 1973. 11. Lieben, J., and Pistawka, H., "Mesothelioma and Asbestos Exposure," Arch.

Environmental Health, 1967, 14, 559-563. 12. Corbett, T.H., "Cancer, Miscarriages and Birth Defects Associated with Operating Room

Exposure." In Bingham, E., ed., Proceedings of a Conference on Women and the Workplace. Washington, D.C., Society for Occupational and Environmental Health, 1977, pp. 94-99; Edmonds, L., "Birth Defects and Vinyl Chloride." loc. cir., pp. 114-119; Fabia, J., and Thuy, T.D., "Occupation of Father at Time of Birth of Children Dying of Malignant Diseases," British Preventive Social Medicine, 1974, 28, 98-100.

13. Spragg, H.E., "Our Moral Imperative," Current Social Issues, 1975, 12, 23. 14. Ashford, N.A., Crisis in the Workplace: Occupational Disease and Injury. Cambridge,

Mass., MIT Press, 1976, pp. 434, 442; Berman, D.M., "Why Work Kills: A Brief History of Occupational Safety and Health in the United States," Int Health Services, 1977, 7, 63-87; Bingham, Proceedings of a Conference on Women and the Workplace, op. cir., p. 159; Page, J.A., and O'Brien, M., Bitter Wages. New York, Grossman, 1973, pp. 116-129; Scott, R., Muscle and Blood. New York, Dutton, 1974, pp. 129, 290.

15. Dudar, H., "The Price of Blowing the Whistle," The New York Times Magazine, October 30, 1977, 41, 45, 46, 48-50, 52, 54.

16. Mancuso, T.F., Help for the Working Wounded. Washington, D.C., International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, 1976, pp. 75-76; Scott, Muscle and Blood, op. cir., pp. 99-102.

17 . . . . and Loche, B.Z., "Carbon Disulfide as a Cause of Suicide: Epidemiological Study of Rayon Viscose Workers," J. Occupational Medicine, 1972, 14, 595-606.

18. Ansley, F., and Bell, B., "Diagnosis: Work-related Disease," Science for the People, 1975, 7, 21.

19. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Work in America, op. cia, p. 86. 20. Ashford, Crisis in the Workplace, op. cir., p. 51. 21. Niederhoffer, A., Behind the Shielc~" The Police in Urban Society. Garden City, New York,

Anchor, 1967, p. 101; Richard, W.C., and Fell, R.D., "Health Factors in Police Job Stress." In Kroes, W.H., and Hurrell, J.J., eds., Job Stress and the Police Officer: Identifying Stress Reduction Techniques. Washington, D.C., Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1975, p. 80.

22. de Lint, J., and Schmidt, W., "The Epidemiology of Alcoholism." In Israel, Y., and Mardones, J., eds., The Biological Basis of Alcoholism. New York, John Wiley, 1971, p. 433; Hitz, D., "Drunken Sailors and Others: Drinking Problems in Specific Occupations," Quarterly J. Studies on Alcohol, 1973, 34, 496-505.

23. Lasson, K., The Workers: Portraits of Nine American Jobholders. New York, Bantam, 1972, pp. 31, 157; LeMasters, E.E., Blue Collar Aristocrats: Life-styles in a Working Class Tavern. Madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 1975, p. 26; Scott, Muscle and Blood, op. cir., pp. 96-97, 156-7.

24. National Council of the Churches of Christ, "Jobs--Not Promises," UAW Washington Bepor~ 1977, 17, 4.

25. Cole, P., and Goldman, M.B., "Occupation." In Fraumeni, J.F., ed., Persons at High Risk of Cancer: An Approach to Cancer Etiology and Control. New York, Academic Press, 1975, p. 169.


26. Suchman, E.A., "Stages of Illness and Medical Care." In Jaco, E.G., ed., Patients, Physicians and Illness. New York, The Free Press, 1972, 2nd ed. p. 160.

27. "38,492 Workplace Inspections Made by States During First Quarter 1976," Occupational Safety and Health Reporter, 1976, 6, 592.

28. "5,246 Workplaces Inspected in August: 35 Percent Are Found to Be in Compliance," Occupational Safety and Health Reporter, 1977, 7, 556.

29. "Javits Calls for Investigation of NIOSH Role in Information to Workers," Occupational Safety and Health Reporter, 1977, 6, 1501-2.

30. "Highest Court of State [Kentucky] Bars Warrantless Inspection of Business," Occupational Safety and Health Reporter, 1977, 7, 55.

31. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, The Shift To Common Sense Priorities. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1977, unpaginated.

32. General Accounting Office, Delays in Setting Workplace Standards for Cancer-Causing and Other Dangerous Substances. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1977, pp. 26, 32.

33. Allen, R.W.; Ells, M.D.; and Hart, A.W., IndustrialHygiene. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, 1976, p. 3.

34. U.S. Workers and Their Jobs: The Changing Picture. Washington, D.C., Department of Labor, 1976, unpaginated.

35. Lyons, R., The New York Times, June 12, 1977; Broudy, H.S., "The Fiduciary Basis of Education: A Crisis in Credibility," Phi Delta Kappan, October 1977, 87-90, 111.

36. National Research Council, Informing Workers and Employers about Occupational Cancer. Springfield, Virginia, National Technical Information Service, June 1977, p. 21.

37. Redmond, C.K.; Ciocco, A.; Lloyd, J.W.; and Rush, H.W., "Long-term Mortality Study of Steelworkers," J. Occupational Medicine, 1972, 14, 621-629.

38. Federal Register, Washington, D.C., October 22, 1976. 39. Page and O'Brien, Bitter Wages, op. cir., p. 209; Department of Health, Education, and

Welfare, Pesticide Residue Hazards to Farm Workers. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1976.

40. Harris, T.R.; Merchant, J.A.; Kilburn, K.H.; and Hamilton, J.D., "Byssinosis and Respiratory Diseases of Cotton Mill Workers," J. OccupationalMedicine, 1972, 14, 199-206.

41. Hrico, A., and Blunt, M., Working for Your Life: A Woman's Guide to Job Health Hazards. Berkeley, California, Labor Occupational Health Program/Public Citizen's Health Research Group, 1976, pp. D4-D8.

42. Karatsune, M.; Tokudome, S.; and Shirakusa, T., "Occupational Lung Cancer among Copper Smelters," International J. Cancer, 1974, 13, 552-558.

43. Accident Facts, 1976, op.cit., p. 35. 44. Selikoff, I.J., "Lung Cancer and Mesothelioma during Prospective Surveillance of 1249

Asbestos Insulation Workers, 1963-1974." In Saffiotti, U., and Wagoner, J.K., eds., Occupational Carcinogenesis. New York, New York Academy of Sciences, 1976, pp. 448-456.

45. National Research Council, Public Information in the Prevention of Occupational Cancer. Proceedings of a Symposium. Springfield, Virginia, National Technical Information Service, 1977, p. 167.

46 . . . . Public Information in the Prevention of Occupational Cancer. Springfield, Virginia, National Technical Information Service, 1978, p. 56.

47. Roberteon, L.S.; Kelly, A.B.; O'Neill, B.; Wixom, C.W.; Eisworth, R.S.; and Haddon, W., "A Controlled Study of the Effect of Television Messages on Safety Belt Use," Am. J. Public Health, 1974, 64, 1071-1080.

48. Hockbaum, G.M., Public Participation in Medical Screening Programs. Washington, D.C., Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1957.

49. O'Keefe, M.T., "Sometime Allies: The Mass Media and Drug Abuse Education." In Goodstadt, M., ed., Research on Methods and Programs of Drug Education. Toronto, Addiction Research Foundation, 1974, pp. 27-52.

50. '75 Cancer Facts and Figures. New York, American Cancer Society, 1974, p. 16. 51. Zylman, R., "DWI Enforcement Programs: Why Are They Not More Effective?" Accident

Analysis and Prevention, 1975, 7, 179-190. 52. Finn, P., "Occupational Safety and Health Education in the Public Schools: Rationale,

Goals, and Implementation," Preventive Medicine, 1978, 7, 245-259. 53. Finn, P., "InStitutionalizing Peer Education in the Health Education Classroom," J. School

Health, 1981, 51, in press. 54. Mancuso, Help for the Working Wounded, op. cia, pp. 46-47. 55. Allen, W., "What Women Should Know about Cancer--in Men," The Woman, 1976, 11,

38-45; "Hypertension Compliance," Medical World News, 1977, 18, 20-44.

Clergy involvement in occupational safety and health

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