I recently traveled to Contra Costa County in California where an explosion ripped through the Tosco refinery represented by PACE's Local 8-5. The explosion seriously injured several workers and killed one. Last fall an explosion tore through the Shell Anacortes, Wash. coker unit, killing six, all of whom were members of PACE Local 8-591. Recently, an explosion of unknown origin killed two at the Copperhead chemical facility represented by PACE Local 2-719. These are just some of the recent events in the oil and chemical sector.

It is fair to ask: Why is this happening and what are we doing about it?

In the late 1980s a series of catastrophic events led the former OCAW to push for the creation and funding of the Chemical Accident Safety Board. It was our vision that this agency would undertake root cause analysis of accidents in the chemical process industry. We believed the information could be useful in educating our employers and members about the conditions and practices that lead to death on the job, and that we could prevent such tragedies.

The board was created, and we fought for two years to get funding. Now the Chemical Accident Safety Board is so overwhelmed with work due to the spate of accidents in the continuous process industry that it cannot investigate all the accidents in order to fulfill its mission.

As accidents mount, communities continue to ask the persistent question: "Can these facilities operate safely in our community?"

Tosco shut down voluntarily rather than confront an angry community determined to close the refinery. The company is using the shutdown to bludgeon workers into contract concessions on issues unrelated to safety. Prior to the February 23 explosion, company management decided to continue operating the unit without a shutdown, knowing that the system could not be drained due to plugged bleeder valves. One can only conclude that the same profit-making managerial decisions are at work in seeking to negotiate concessions.

We know there are other factors influencing these accidents. We understand corporate America's increased pressure from its top levels to escalate profit and shareholder return is fostering an atmosphere of risk- taking. We know that employers and sometimes, even workers, will seek a quick fix to health and safety issues when no such animal exists. We recognize that the increased use of contract workers who appear at our plants untrained and oftentimes incapable of being trained are placing our facilities at risk, particularly when they are asked to perform maintenance on operating units. We know the trend to reduce head count, attributable to profit pressure, is having a harmful effect on safety performance. And we cannot kid ourselves about the dangers of working in plants with high pressure and high temperature processes, corrosives, explosives, and toxics of every kind and description.

Our trade union response has to be grounded on trade union values. It is fundamental that we are in control of our own destiny when it comes to safety and health on the job. We should categorically reject the simplistic notion that is implicitly carried in behavior-based safety training. That simplistic notion is to blame the victim. This undermines the larger principle of a systems-based approach to safety that necessarily incorporates behavior as on aspect, but not the primary component.

We have to be prepared to challenge corporate decisions to cut costs that place workers in danger. We must fight decisions that make safety subject to the vagaries of supervisory decisions. We have to wrest control of safety from managers unwilling to concede that it is as much our business as theirs.

PACE must take the Triangle of Prevention (TOP) to local unions and safety and health committees and work to build a culture of safety in our plants. TOP is designed to examine all aspects of the safety culture in a facility. It gives special attention to the safety systems, engineering controls and training programs that link together for a comprehensive training program.

PACE must step up efforts to increase funding for the Chemical Accident Safety Board to ensure that independent analysis by competent investigators determines the root cause of fatal events in our plants.

PACE must be ready to hold employers to the highest standards in implementing safety and health programs, with the specific understanding that it is impermissible to adopt a blame-the-worker mentality.

As members of PACE, all of us should humbly acknowledge the truth of the old adage: "Mourn the dead ... fight like hell for the living." It is a basic truth that for those who have been killed and injured, we did not do enough...and for those alive, we must do better.

The PACESetter, vol.1 no.3, May 1999