Much has been made of green jobs, particularly their positive effect on the economy and the environment. Much less has been said about their effect on workers, and in particular worker safety. To address that knowledge gap, NIOSH launched the Going Green: Safe and Healthy Jobs initiative to make sure that green jobs are good for workers by integrating worker safety and health sustainability. In December 2009, NIOSH and other federal agencies hosted the Making Green Jobs Safe Workshop to gain input on occupational hazards and risks associated with green jobs and to determine how to emphasize that green jobs should be safe and healthy for workers. According to the summary report on the event, several themes were consistent throughout the discussions:- Make occupational safety and health a priority by leveraging the purchasing power that government and industry already have.
- Integrate occupational safety and health data collection and monitoring into codes and standards of practice that already have wide support, so that improved safety and health protections also become standard practice.
- Improve the data collection process to identify and understand safety and health risks and use those data to promote occupational safety and health investment more effectively.
- Create better methods and better standard references that can be used by occupational safety and health professionals to better protect workers.
- Invest more time and resources to train exposed populations and to increase awareness by those who may be unaware that they are being exposed to controllable risks.
- Fix broken regulations—those where there are gaps in safety and health coverage mandates.
- Conduct market research to create new motivators that will inspire owners, employers and workers to make occupational safety and health a priority that cannot be ignored.
What's been your experience with green jobs?