Union Approach to Health and Safety: - United Steelworkers

Life Mapping
Life mapping allows workers and unions to identify the effects of work-related injuries,
illnesses and/or stress on their lives outside the workplace. Too often, job injuries,
illnesses and stress are thought of just in terms of what it means for workers’ abilities to
do their jobs. The fact is that when workers are stressed at work, this can have significant
impacts on many different aspects of their lives.
A “life map” also helps to show that workers are not alone in their suffering; that many of
their experiences are shared experiences rather than individual problems. And collective
problems have collective solutions. This understanding can help to build involvement in
action to get the hazards and the sources of stress on the job eliminated or reduced.
To create a life map, you will need the following materials:
Flip chart page on which you have drawn a small picture of a worker in the middle of
the page (this can be a stick figure!) – tape this to a wall where there is space around
the page,
Flip chart markers (enough for one marker per participant),
Colored 8 ½ x 11 paper, enough for one sheet per participant, and
Tape.
Distribute the following materials to each participant: a piece of colored 8 ½ x 11 paper
and a flip chart marker.
Ask participants to think about the injuries, illnesses and/or stresses they experience on
the job, and then think about the effects of these problems on their personal lives – their
lives outside of work. Ask each participant to draw a picture that represents one of the
ways that job stress, injuries and/or illnesses are affecting their life outside of work.
You can give several examples, such as:
If someone is too tired to walk the dog, she could draw a stick figure of herself and
the dog with a line through it;
If someone is having trouble sleeping, he could draw himself in bed with his eyes
wide open;
If someone is so stressed she is yelling a lot at family members, she can draw a mouth
yelling at stick-figure children.
If someone does not have time or energy for a love life, he can draw a heart with a
diagonal line through it.