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Best Practices Front Page |
NIEHS/OSHA Joint Grantee Workshop April 17-19, 2001 Page 30
Best Practices for Worker Training
Final Report May, 2001
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Involving workers/target audience is critical in the key steps of needs
assessment and easy to read materials and visuals.
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Trainers and participatory training methods must be culturally appropriate.
2. Outreach:
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The outreach strategy needs to be comprehensive including the media, letters,
trade associations, unions, and community organizations among others.
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Since the target population works primarily in unorganized industries it is
required that outreach efforts employ other then traditional approaches.
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Targeting employers and developing partnerships with them is a key element
in the success of the program.
3. Impacting the workplace:
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Spanish speaking worker trainers have effectively impacted the workplace.
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Development of linkages and partnerships with community-based
organizations serving Latinos, unions, and organizing campaigns is key.
Major lessons learned in the development of this unique, challenging, and effective
program are the need to continually evaluate and learn from the program as it develops
and to maintain a willingness to try many different approaches and strategies.
Employer Partnerships
Don Ellenberger (NIEHS/Training Manager, The Center to Protect Workers’ Rights)
Best practices:
Approaches to meeting employer training needs.
The Center to Protect Workers’ Rights, CPWR, is the research and development institute
of the Building and Construction Trades Department, the construction unions in the AFL-
CIO. CPWR works with 11 of the unions to provide safety and health training for
construction workers who are active at DOE and Superfund sites, as well as trainers, and
some managers and site technical staff. The primary financial support is provided by
NIEHS, which uses EPA and DOE funding. But key support also comes from employers
and century-old joint-apprenticeship training committees in the form of funding and in-
kind support, such as the use of training facilities. More than 400 hands-on courses are
taught yearly. The program faces obstacles unique to construction, such as the mobility of
the labor force and the cyclical nature of employment. It thus can be difficult to locate
potential trainees and the follow-up with them. Workers may be reluctant to take time for
training during boom times and may not have employer support for training at other
times. Nonetheless, close cooperation with the employers through the joint apprenticeship
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