Workstation Design. When the operator is seated at a VDT, the workstation design should satisfy certain physical dimensions. The following dimensions are best for most people (adjustments may be needed for shorter or taller operators):
Workstation Design. Less than 1 percent of the agreements with safety and health provisions address workstation design to prevent hazards. Some of these clauses call for the parties to recognize the importance of considering ergonomics in the workplace. Others require employer commitment to correct any adverse ergonomic conditions in the workplace or to take other actions to minimize their effects. Some of the provisions con- tain specific actions such as studying the effects of video dis- play terminals, providing training to employees who work a specified percentage of each workday or specified hours per day in an environment in which cumulative trauma hazards exist, and maintaining records of cumulative trauma disorders. ments have a provision requiring the identification of cumula- tive trauma, and six agreements contain clauses that require measures to correct such hazards. Joint labor-management ergonomic committees. Joint la- bor-management ergonomic committees are provided for in 5 percent of the agreements with safety and health provisions. This representation is in addition to union involvement on local labor-management safety and health committees, dis- cussed subsequently. Local labor-management safety and health committees. Ergo- nomic issues are prevalent in clauses addressing local safety and health committees. Two-hundred nineteen agreements, or 50 percent of all the health- and safety-related agreements, made provisions for such committees. One hundred, or 45 percent, of those agreements mandate committee involvement in the con- duct of ergonomic evaluations or studies. Among the tasks con- tained in one or more agreements that are assigned to such com- mittees in the area of ergonomic health are conducting studies of working conditions to prevent ergonomic health hazards, identi- fying work procedures or methods that cause unnecessary ex- posure to cumulative trauma types of illnesses, evaluating pro- cedures and practices currently in place in order to determine whether they are meeting their intended purpose of preventing ergonomic illnesses. Reviewing new technology and facilities to ensure that ergonomic concerns are addressed is cited in 8 per- cent of all the agreements and 15 percent of those agreements with safety and health committees. Union safety representation on ergonomic issues. Union safety representation in management initiatives to address er- gonomic issues appears in 2 percent of the agreements with Industry variations. Table 5 shows the f...
