Employer pulls ergonomic chairs out from under workers
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
This is a story about chairs. It’s also
about an employer policy that goes be-
yond ignorance or indifference into de-
liberate cruelty and contempt.
The employer is the Boston-head-
quartered nonprofit Fund for the Public
Interest — the fundraising wing of the
U.S. PIRG network and its spun-off
state environmental groups. Fund for
the Public Interest employs tens of
thousands of canvassers all over the
country who knock on doors or accost
pedestrians, signing up members for
state groups like CALPIRG and Envi-
ronment Colorado. Once people sign
up, they get calls asking them to renew
and make additional contributions. The
calls are made by “phone canvassers” at
three call centers run by the Fund.
In October 2011, phone canvassers
at the Fund’s Portland call center voted
to unionize with Communications
Workers of America (CWA) Local
7901. Eleven months later, the Fund re-
located its Portland call center to the
windowless basement of a 1928 office
building at 516 SE Morrison. The move
isolated the unionized telephone
fundraisers from their nonunion co-
workers in the Fund’s door-to-door and
street canvass operation, as well as from
OSPIRG and Environment Oregon pro-
MARCH 1, 2013
gram staff. The call center workers have
been in that basement ever since. Never
mind the cramped conditions, ancient
computers, the fold-up tables that serve
as desks, or the black- and coral-colored
mold that the union is investigating. It’s
the chairs that best encapsulate how the
Fund treats its workers.
When they arrived at the new loca-
tion, the phone canvassers learned that
the Fund had replaced most of their ad-
justable “ergonomic” chairs with stack-
able metal-frame conference chairs.
Managers announced a new policy:
Only workers who presented a doctor’s
note would be allowed to sit in er-
gonomic chairs, even if they wanted to
purchase and bring in their own. But
most of the Fund’s phone canvassers
don’t have access to a doctor, because
they don’t have health insurance: It
takes a year to get the Fund’s employer-
sponsored health coverage, and even
then, the employee share of the cost pre-
vents most from enrolling in it. So, a
handful of ergonomic chairs sit unused
off to the side of the office, while work-
ers sit from 12:50 to 9:20 p.m., up to six
days a week, on chairs that are entirely
inappropriate for a desk job. The call
center managers, meanwhile, sit in er-
gonomic chairs.
“My back is definitely hurting a lot,”
said Fund caller John Ingram, 30. “I
don’t know if it’s because of the chairs
or not, but when I sit in a regular chair it
feels much better.”
Michael Wood, administrator at Ore-
gon OSHA (Occupational Safety and
Health Administration), says he’s heard
of office employers who refuse to fork
over money for good chairs, but he’s
never heard of an employer who had
good chairs and then took them away.
“Switching people out of a ‘task
chair’ into a stackable chair increases
the risk that there will be a [workers’
compensation] claim or that there will
be a legitimate injurious condition over
time,” Wood told the Labor Press. “And
I would add, it’s a mistake to wait until
the injurious condition occurs before
you provide a chair that could mini-
mize it.”
The labor movement has cam-
paigned for two decades to get federal
OSHA to impose an enforceable er-
gonomic standard — a requirement that
employers take steps to prevent muscu-
loskeletal disorders like carpal tunnel
and tendinitis that result from repetitive
motion and uncomfortable postures in
poorly designed workspaces. OSHA
had that authority under the 1970 law
that created it, but Congress intervened
in 2001 and specifically barred OSHA
from issuing an ergonomic standard.
And yet, many employers have
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
After workers unionized at a call
center that raises funds for the PIRG
network, management got rid of
adjustable ergonomic chairs (right),
and and replaced them with metal-
frame stackable chairs (above).
made ergonomic improvements any-
way. Adjusting the workspace to the hu-
man being who works in it is the hall-
mark of a humane workplace. It also
improves productivity and morale, and
reduces workers’ compensation costs.
Though OSHA is barred from requiring
it, the agency does offer extensive free
information about ergonomics, includ-
ing recommendations about office work
stations. Office environments are much
safer than factories, warehouses, and
construction sites, but there’s still much
an office employer can do to prevent
workers from developing chronic back
pain and other conditions.
According to OSHA, a good chair is
one that supports the back, legs, but-
tocks, and arms, while reducing expo-
sure to awkward postures and contact
stress. At a minimum, it should have a
backrest that conforms to the natural
curvature of the spine and provides ad-
equate lumbar support. And it should
have a comfortable seat, positioned so
that the feet can rest flat on the floor or
footrest. Since people come in different
sizes, chairs should have seats and
backs that are adjustable.
The stackable chairs at Fund for the
Public Interest’s Portland call center are
none of those things. Workers protested
to management right away when the
new chairs were introduced, but were
told the chairs were fine. At a union
contract negotiation session, the union
bargaining team gave Fund call center
director Pat Wood a copy of the OSHA
pamphlet on ergonomics. But the Fund
refused to change its policy.
“They finally responded to us,” re-
calls CWA Local 7901 President Made-
lyn Elder. “[They said] ‘We think that
these chairs are perfectly adequate, and
we don’t understand what’s wrong with
them; there’s no law against them, so
we’re not going to change them.”
Call centers in general have devel-
oped a reputation as high-tech sweat-
shops — low-wage high-turnover
workplaces where every key stroke is
monitored, every bathroom break
timed, every call subject to manage-
ment surveillance. And yet, says Elder,
adjustable chairs are standard even in
the most abusive nonunion call centers.
The Labor Press visited the Fund
call center, took pictures, and asked
floor manager Kate Fielding (found sit-
ting in an ergonomic chair) to explain
the Fund’s chair policy. Fielding would-
n’t answer questions, but took down
contact information and promised to re-
lay it to someone who could. No one
ever called back. And the Fund’s desig-
nated spokesperson, Caitlyn Seeley,
once again failed to return a call from
the Labor Press.
Why does the Fund, a progressive,
“cause-oriented” employer, have such a
policy? Workers think it’s an effort to
grind down, demoralize, and wear out
the one workplace that had the nerve to
unionize.
“This is sadistic,” says former Fund
caller David Neel, who was fired in No-
vember. “It’s really just designed to
drive people out of the job.”
Since the union campaign began 16
months ago, the Fund has fired at least
nine pro-union workers, including all
six workers who volunteered on the
union bargaining team when contract
negotiations started. That’s in a work-
place with about 25 workers. And 15
months of monthly negotiation sessions
have produced no union contract thus
far: The Fund has insisted that the call
center remain an “at-will” workplace
and a “open shop” employer in which
union dues are optional.
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