Health and Safety Training to Include Disaster Response: Building Better Resiliency Through Union Leadership

Abstract

Eleven trade union leaders, many familiar with basic occupational safety and health, but many not significantly trained in the field, received two weeks of disaster response training.  In zoom interviews they told of how their unions responded to such disasters as 9-11, the Covid-19 pandemic, and Hurricanes Sandy, Maria, and Harvey.  Unions, as is their historical practice, helped individuals, workplaces, and communities with resilience, but all participants said there needed to be much better at pre-disaster planning, training, and hard work to be able to respond adequately to future events.