Submitted by Cynthia Betcher


Students and faculty visiting the International Chemical Workers Union Council in Cincinnati, OH

Overview and History of ICWUC by Thomas Gerding
Students from the ERC at UC went to the International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC) on the morning of Friday, 2/24/23. Of the students who went, there were four Industrial Hygiene students and a post-doc represented, along with Dr. Betcher, who leads the field experiences. While we were at the ICWUC in downtown Cincinnati, we learned about the various safety trainings offered by the organization and the funding sources that make this organization possible. Our tour was led by a large handful of employees at the center including a couple of administrative staff, Charles Holmes, the DOT/OSHA Coordinator, Justin and Joel, the two Field Training Coordinators, Keith, Director of Health and Safety, and Luis, one of the Instructors. 

Following the Bhopal disaster in the 1980’s, congress allocated $80 million for this organization to get started in the United States to prevent or mitigate events like this as they might arise. Today, the ICWUC receives approximately $2.5 million annually from the NIEHS as well as monies through other grant allocations to keep the organization running. For this reason, they are required to provide progress reports to the various funding bodies throughout the year regarding what they are training, how many people they are training, and other deliverables. The ICWUC provides both local safety trainings as well as “boots-on-the-ground” trainings immediately following various disasters so as to train the responders, such as following hurricane Katrina, hurricane Sandy, and 9/11. Besides natural disaster rapid response trainings, they carry out a lot of typical safety trainings as well, such as Hazwoper, OSHA 10-hour, OSHA 30-hour, and confined space training.

Although they focus predominantly on training unionized workers, as suggested by their namesake, they have also trained non-unionized workers at what sounded like lower rates than typical consultants as long as the employer pays the employees participating in trainings for those day(s). Some of the targeted training topics that sounded interesting to me were “mold clean-up and treatment” and “protecting yourself while helping others”. They are also looking for help in developing modules on topics such as monitoring and toxicology. Overall, this was a great learning experience where I could see a career opportunity that is out there for someone, like myself, who is passionate about providing quality safety trainings.

How the ICWUC Organizes the H&S Trainings and ‘Train the Trainers’ by Rachel Zeiler

On Friday, February 24th, students from UC ERC visited the International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC) Center for Worker Health and Safety in downtown, Cincinnati. The ICWUC Center is a training center that started in 1987 and has been funded through grants from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Department of Energy (DOE), and Department of Transportation (DOT). With the money from these grants, the ICWUC Center provides training to companies and workers. Trainings are primarily organized through unions, but the ICWUC Center also trains non-union workers. In addition to training workers, the ICWUC Center has a ‘Train the Trainer’ program as a part of the DOT grant. This course is used to help trainers understand basic adult education techniques, inform trainers of important information and learning modules used in current and future training courses, and help workers to bring what they learn in the training back to the workplace and create safer working conditions. These ‘Train the Trainer’ courses are offered for Department of Transportation (49 CFR), First Aid/CPR/AED, Disasters, and Chemical Emergency Response. The Disaster Train the Trainer program shows trainers how to present Disaster Awareness modules and includes demonstrations of donning and doffing personal protective equipment (PPE), clean-up techniques, decontamination, and how to use disaster-related tools, such as a moisture meter. This training program has been used for Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, Irma, and Maria. The First Aid/CPR/AED Train the Trainer program teaches participants how to teach others how to perform CPR, do basic first aid, and how to use an AED. The ‘Train the Trainer’ program has helped to develop qualified trainers across the United States.