University of Washington, Seattle
PA-12: Workplace Health and Safety

Many of the health and safety initiatives at the UW have direct employee input. Departmental safety teams, the Department of Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) and safety officers within the various UW facilities continuously seek out employee input and ideas for maintaining a safe and healthful workplace. A brief overview of the UW’s health and safety programs or initiatives with high employee participation includes the following: • The UW formal Health and Safety Committee program encourages employees to be elected to one of the ten (10) committees representing UW Departments, facilities and campuses, called “Organizational Health and Safety Committees.” Elected employees make up at least half of the membership of each committee and attend monthly meetings with appointed management representatives to discuss safety and health concerns, review accident reports, provide ideas for establishing safety initiatives, and to receive information about current safety and health inspections or activities, new safety policies and regulations, and status of on-going safety initiatives or issues which can be pertinent to the departments the members represent. For the 2014-2015 term, there are a total of 174 UW staff as members of the Organizational committees, with 119 elected members and 55 appointed representatives. • The University-Wide Health and Safety Committee consists of two representatives from each Organizational committee, union representatives (who may be from an Organizational committee), and representatives of other University organizations, such as the Faculty Senate. This committee also must have at least 50% of the members elected. The committee serves as a conduit for ideas and suggestions and health and safety information to flow up, down and across communication channels. • Many Departments, units or operations have Safety Teams, Safety Committees, and/or teams specific to a safety issue (such as patient lifting in the medical centers) consisting of management and employees representatives to work on specific safety and general safety concerns. • Labor Unions. Representatives of labor unions, SEIU, WFSE, WSNA, and UAW serve on many of the 11 committees comprising UW’s formal Health and Safety Committee program. These representatives provide information, concerns and ideas for improving the safety of their membership. • The UW maintains good relationships with regulatory agencies such as the State-Occupational Safety and Health Administration (administered by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, i.e. L&I), Department of Health (local and state), Department of Ecology (local and State), Department of Transportation, and others. On occasion, University of Washington operational staff have trained personnel from state departments as to work procedures and the safety measures available. Representatives from some of these agencies have also been actively involved in consulting on a number of safety and health concerns. UW employees are very much involved in providing information during these consultations. The most recent consultation was by L&I in 2014 on ergonomic issues for animal husbandry staff.

A single year rather than a three year average was chosen for the calculations due to there being some concern that not all needle stick incidents in the year 2012 were appropriately counted. Also, the method of calculating a three-year average is not described in the PA-12 directions – are rates calculated each year for three years and then averaged, or are basic numbers added and then the rate calculated from the totals – the method effects the results. The baseline year of 2005 was chosen since that was the first year that statistics were obtained using the present reporting method. Data are from OSHA Form 300A summaries provided to UW employees, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Washington State Department of Labor and Industries each year. 2014 is the most recent year for complete and quality-checked data.