Union Approach to Health and Safety: - United Steelworkers

Ideas for Acting Like a Union:
Make sure that everyone from the union wears union insignia. Have people wear common
clothes - all one color or the same union t-shirts.
C) No Titles
People are also often told not to refer to each other by titles. The elimination of titles is the
same as the wearing of casual clothing. It is designed to give the appearance of equality and
commonality, but again it does not change the substance of power relations.
Ideas for Acting Like a Union:
Have union folks refer to each other as sister and brother. Refer to company people by their
titles.
D) Trust Building Exercises
At backwoods retreats, labor and management are sometimes asked to perform exercises
designed to build team spirit and trust. An example is when participants are asked to fall backwards off
a wall, to be caught by management and union working together. The image is pretty powerful and
clear: Learn to trust management and learn to seek safety through that trust. Understand that if labor
and management are busy fighting each other, you will fall and hurt yourself. These lessons, learned in
safe (and completely unreal) circumstances, carry a great deal of power when union members return to
the real world of the workplace.
Ideas for Acting Like a Union:
Remind managers of all the times they "dropped" union members in real life, and suggest that
they are not ready for this exercise.
E) Seating
Many consultants will work to have union people sit at meetings interspersed with
management. Sometimes you will walk into a meeting room and management has already taken seats
spread throughout the room. Other times there will be assigned seats with union people alternating
with management. This is, we are told, part of moving away from "adversarialism" and the "them and
us mentality". It is making a statement that we are all in it together and have the same concerns and