The following article was featured in the Fall 2024 issue of USW@Work.
Union contracts can be a powerful tool in addressing mental health among members and their families, and USW bargaining committees must push for progress on that issue just as they would any other health care language.
That was the central message of a daylong educational program for rank-and-file USW leaders this summer at the union’s education center at Linden Hall in Pennsylvania.
Health and Safety
For Mayson Fulk of Local 2699-09 in London, Ontario, efforts to improve workers’ mental health are a natural part of the work that USW local leaders do on behalf of all of their members.
“We are a health and safety union,” Fulk said, “and that includes our mental health and safety.”
Aside from simply providing affordable and accessible mental health care, unions can fight for language on numerous topics that can address members’ mental health needs, including limiting excessive overtime, providing adequate vacation time and paid sick leave, and ensuring safer workplaces free from danger.
Dangers in the workplace, Fulk noted, can include both physical hazards and psychological hazards such as bullying and harassment. The threat of both can lead to mental health challenges, but bargaining for affordable health care coverage that takes mental health needs into account is the first step to addressing the issue, Fulk said.
“We can tell our members and our employees all we want that mental health matters, but if we aren’t bargaining for access to mental health care that our members can afford, it does no good,” said Fulk, who serves as unit chair as well as local president, co-chair of the District 6 Human Rights Committee, District 6 Trans Liaison and as a member of the international’s 2SLGBTQIA+ Advisory Committee.
Common Problem
During the Linden Hall program, which was packed with several dozen USW members from across North America, facilitator Waleed Sami, a professor of psychology at the City College of New York, asked participants to raise their hands if they had dealt with a mental health-related issue in their workplace. Every member’s hand went up.
“Many of the elements that contribute to better mental health are things that a union can improve,” said Sami, who wrote his 115-page doctoral dissertation on the relationship between union membership and mental health.
“Income inequality and poverty exert a profound health and mental health cost on the citizens of the United States,” Sami wrote. But the strong wages and benefits that union membership provides can help to combat those factors, not just for workers but entire communities.
Besides good pay, unions, in general, provide workers with increased job security, greater work-life balance, more opportunity for advancement, more flexible scheduling and safer environments than non-union workplaces. All of those factors can be improved through contract bargaining, Sami said.
Voice on the Job
In addition, unions provide workers with an avenue to address concerns about their working conditions in a way that non-union workers don’t have, which also can lead to improved mental health, said Tom Woodgate of Local 2-585 in Mount Pleasant, Mich.
“The contract gives our members a concrete way of managing their lives, working conditions, wages, benefits. Negotiating a contract can be stressful, but not having any contract is more stressful,” Woodgate said. “Having the union gives us the strength to stand up.”
In addition to providing a voice for workers, union contracts offer a degree of certainty about the future, Woodgate said, which gives workers feelings of comfort and safety.
“There are rules, and the mechanisms of the contract give people stability, and a clear process on how things work,” he said. “This gives people a sense of agency in their workplace, that even in small ways, or not-so-small ways, they can make informed decisions about their lives and livelihoods.”
Paid Time Off
Specific contract provisions also can contribute to the mental well-being of workers, said Sederick Wilson, vice president of Local 9558 at Howmet Aerospace in Hampton, Va.
One of those provisions is adequate bereavement leave so that workers have time to process their grief after the loss of a close loved one, Wilson said.
“You really don’t know the impact until you go through it,” he said.
Another helpful provision is paid family leave that allows workers flexibility when they are sick or caring for a sick or terminally ill family member.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought into stark relief the need for such policies across all workplaces. Still, union contracts are the best way to ensure those benefits, Woodgate said.
Employee Assistance
Providing workers who are dealing with post-traumatic stress, depression or substance abuse, or who are facing violent domestic situations or other threats, with the support, time off and flexibility they need to change their lives can be among the most important provisions in a union contract, Woodgate said.
Many USW locals bargain contract language for employee-assistance programs (EAPs) that offer benefits such as counseling, legal aid, education and training opportunities, child care, financial assistance, housing placement and other help to workers struggling with a host of issues that can negatively affect their mental health.
“These types of issues can require a lot of patience and guidance,” Wilson said.
In recent years, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has recognized issues of mental health and stress as workplace hazards and begun to provide resources and tools for workers and managers to address those problems. For more information, members can visit osha.gov.
Raising the Bar
The idea of addressing issues of domestic violence and other forms of abuse through the union’s collective bargaining process led to the creation of the recently updated “Action Guide for Raising the Bar on Women’s Health and Safety,” a handbook to give union leaders tools, including model contract language, to better address members’ needs through bargaining and union activism.
In addition to violence and abuse, the guide provides members with help in addressing other issues, including harassment, gender identity, ergonomics, work-life balance, restrooms and change rooms, uniforms, personal protective equipment, and reproductive health. Members can find the guide at: usw.to/raisingthebar.
“The job of any union is to recognize the needs of workers and their families and do everything we can to help them meet those needs,” International President David McCall said. “Ensuring the health, safety and security of workers and families is something we should be fighting for every day, in our workplaces and in our communities.”
Besides the benefits that their contract language or an EAP may offer, Sami said, unions provide workers with other, less tangible benefits that positively affect mental health, including feelings of friendship and community that may be less prevalent in non-union workplaces.
Sense of Belonging
Holding union-led events such as picnics, holiday parties, charity drives and other social gatherings, Sami said, can give members a feeling of purpose and a sense of belonging that they may not get elsewhere.
“Being a part of our union can give you something to get involved in, a chance to help others around you and in your community, a network of folks across North America that genuinely care about your well-being,” Fulk said.
All of those factors can contribute positively not only to workers’ mental health, but that of their families, Woodgate said.
“Just having a union,” he said, “gives you hope that things will improve.”