DIY research - Hazards magazine

Hazards detective - interactive tool
Listen to your body talk - many workplace diseases and symptoms can be caused you work, from bright green urine to curling fingers and floppy ankles. The Hazards detective online guide helps you make the links the doctors and the safety officers miss. more

Worked over - interactive tool
Problems outside of work can arise from the problems inside work. From fatigue to depression, drug use to violence, the Hazards worked over online guide helps you examine the 24/7/365 hazards that can come with the job. more

Cancer map Hazards and the global union confederation ITUC produced a world first at-a-glance guide to work cancers and their causes in four languages; English, Spanish, French and Dutch.
• Cancer and their work causes
• Les cancers et leurs causes professionnelles
• Tipos de cáncer y causas relacionadas con el trabajo
• De kankers en hun beroepsgerelateerde oorzaken

Women's work?
Ever tried lifting an adult off the ground several times a day? Or lugging groceries around for eight hours solid? Or working the night shift then spending the day unpaid and caring for others? For many women that’s a normal working day. Hazards says the time to take seriously occupational risks faced by women workers is long overdue. Use the TUC gender checklist. more

Get mapping In a unionised workplace, one of the first things that you should consider is mapping. TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson says mapping can identify the workplace union’s strengths and weaknesses, and the hazards hurting your members, leaving you prepared to organise for safer, healthier work. more

Worked over
This Hazards World mapping factsheet focuses on the impact of the job on your whole life. Hazards 75, July-Sept 2001, centrepages (pdf)

Surveying the damage
guide to do-it-yourself workplace health and safety research - because unions offer the best chance of uncovering workplace ill-health and finding working solutions.
Hazards 71, July-September 2000, centrepages

Body of evidence
Body mapping can unearth the health hazards in your workplace.
Hazards 61 Jan-March 1998 , centrepages (pdf)

111 Mapping out work hazards
Risk maps let workers look at what they work with and any physical. chemical, biological or pyschosocial problems that might arise when doing the job.
Hazards 60, October-Dec 1997, centrepages (pdf)

Using maps to identify health and safety problems, Dorothy Wigmore, Labor Notes, Number 332, November 2006. more

Britain Telling where it hurts
Body mapping guide from UK shopworkers' union USDAW. Telling where it hurts

Epi info and Epi map software can be downloaded free from the US Centers for Disease Control more

Mapping training
EPMU, New Zealand's largest trade union, used Hazards resources to train union reps in DIY research techniques.
body mapping • risk mapping • more about EPMU

Barefoot researching
The manual Barefoot Research: A Worker's Manual for Organising On Work Security has been developed to help empower workers to increase their level of control over their own work situations, to protect their health and well being, and to improve their level of basic security.
click here for [quite large] pdf files
Now available free on CD
Risks 73, 28 September 2002

Participatory research
Workers' Health International Newsletter (WHIN) feature and reports on body mapping, from USA, Canada and Brazil
WHIN 53, January-June 1998, pages 16-18 (pdf)

Map out a safer job
The Observer report on the initiative introduced to the UK by Hazards magazine.
Observer, July 29, 2001

Body mapping works!
Members of UK union USDAW report their positive experiences: Body mapping provides route to safer workplace

Surveys

UCU inspections guides

• Introduction to workplace inspections
• Workplace inspections: a systematic approach
• Workplace inspection report form

Workload survey guide
A guide to onducting a survey of your membership to better understand the causes of workload problems from Canadian union CUPE. Overwork/workload report including workplace questionnaire [pdf]

Worker-centred research

Britain: Union rep designs drivers’ body map
Novel techniques to identify work-related health problems are putting union safety reps in the driving seat, says George Partridge, chair of the Northern TUC Health and Safety Forum. He is highlighting the case of a member of the forum has designed his own drivers’ body map.
Risks 220, 20 August 2005
Northern TUC body map [pdf]

Usdaw charts back pain at work
Shopwork union Usdaw has made its 'Charting back pain' guide available online. The guide highlights 'the use of a powerful tool called 'body mapping' which can be used to develop members' awareness of the health and safety concerns in their work situation and to identify practical solutions to any problems they face.' As well as details of back pain problems in shopworkers, the report includes a 'how-to' guide to body mapping at work.

Unions produce better health studies
Occupational health researchers say active union participation was key to the success of a study of skin problems in print workers.
The prevalence of occupational dermatitis in the UK printing industry, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 59, pages 487-492, 2002 [abstract]

Organising for safety

Organise!
So you know the job is dangerous. What now?
Hazards factsheet 74 (pdf)

Participation means unions
Hazards article issue 66 more

Union training

Courses, courses
Trade union safety rep training is going from strength to strength in the UK.
Hazards 75, July-Sept 2001 (pdf)

What makes a rep work?
Government backed research finds trade union safety rep training is so good it saves lives Hazards 75, July-Sept 2001 (pdf)

Case histories

UK Pilot study | Dave Smith’s guide to organising | No.14
Being a safety rep isn’t just about helping to prevent accidents, it’s also about trying to make a difference in relation to workers’ occupational health. Dave Smith explains how the pilots’ union BALPA used bodymapping to demonstrate what about the job was a real pain in the neck.
Hazards 147, July-September 2019

CANADA Millions in foundry asbestos disease payouts
Successful claims for former Holmes workers reached Canadian $11 million (£4.5 million). CAW worked with ex-workers, their families and top Canadian union health and safety campaigners Margie Keith and Jim Brophy to use body and risk mapping and old photos to reconstruct conditions at the long-closed foundry.
Background Document (word)

Casino workers health warning
Long hours and poor working conditions are threatening the health of casino workers, a GMB report says.
BBC News, 24 December, 2001

Casino worker driven research
A 2001 report in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine concluded that casino workers are the best people to spot work-related health problems and their solutions, adding that the study “demonstrates the effectiveness of a worker-driven, participatory consultation."
American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Volume 39, Issue 1, 2001. Pages: 42-51

Toxic hotspots
US-based Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition map environmental air and water pollution caused by the microelectronics industry./
SVTC Toxic hotspots pages

Hazards web editor: Jawad Qasrawi
Hazards editor: Rory O'Neill

To order Hazards resources click here

Thanks to Diane Factor, Margaret Keith, Jim Brophy, Dorothy Wigmore, Susan Moir, Linda Delp, Pete Kirby, Mike Merritt, Anthony Pizzino, Mick Holder, Owen Tudor, Eve Barker and The Russell Press for their assistance in the preparation of these resources.