Best Practices for Campus
Safety Committees Meetings
April 2013
Anita Mujumdar
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities
The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system is an Equal Opportunity employer and educator.
Agenda
 Campus Safety Committee requirements
 Statutory requirements
 Collective Bargaining Unit requirements
 Joint Health and Safety Committees (JHSC)
 Best Practices for meetings
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Mission Statement
Committee Composition
Meeting frequency
Agenda, employee involvement, etc.
 Workplace Safety Inspections
 Summary
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Campus Safety Committee:
Statutory Requirement
 All colleges and universities are required to have a
labor/management safety committee.
 MN State Statute 182.676 (a): Requires every public
or private employer of more than 25 employees shall
establish and administer a joint labor-management
safety committee.
 Safety Committee
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to perform workplace inspections,
review injury and illness records,
make advisory recommendations to management and
perform other functions.
Campus Safety Committee:
AFSCME Contract Requirement
 Specific requirements in AFSCME collective
bargaining agreement, Article 11, Section 2
 Campus must conduct at least quarterly meetings
 One representative from each bargaining unit
represented by a Union
 At a minimum two (2) representatives
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Campus Safety Committee:
AFSCME Contract Requirement
(cont’d)
• Safety committee member or local union officer can
participate in safety inspection conducted by safety
committee or EHS personnel
• Safety inspection to be conducted at least yearly
• Copy of meeting minutes to be send to System
Office
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Best Practices for Joint Health
and Safety Committees
• Mission or Statement of Purpose
 The role of JHSC has to be transparent and well defined
 Develop a clear, univocal commitment to employee health
and safety
 Inform all campus employees of JHSC’s mission by posting
on bulletin board or through email memo.
 Committee Composition
 Should be large enough to ensure fair representation of all
bargaining units and management but small enough to be
able to get things done
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Best Practices for Joint Health and
Safety Committees
• Committee composition
 Ensure adequate AFSCME and student representation and
alternates for each member
 For employees to be on the committee, the most important
criteria are interest and concern about workplace health
and safety
 Ensure the all campus employee are aware of the JHSC
meetings and members
 The committee members need to have adequate time and
support to work on committee functions
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 Important to include management members or have support
to implement committee recommendations
Best Practices for Meetings
• Plan on frequent meetings
 Schedule regular (monthly) safety meetings
 Schedule meeting at same time and day of month,
same room etc.
 Develop meeting schedule for the entire year and
inform JHSC and all campus employees
 Conduct scheduled meetings while strictly observing
start and stop time
 Encourage 100% member attendance (or their
substitutes)
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Best Practices: Agenda
 Agenda to be prepared and distributed well in
advance of each scheduled meeting
 Ensure that meetings take place in an atmosphere of
mutual respect and commitment to health and safety
 Follow a standard agenda for each meeting
 Conduct roll call in every meeting
 Approval of meeting minutes
 Assign responsibilities to members
 Member conducting meeting
 Member recording minutes
 Ensure meeting minutes are recorded effectively
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Best Practices: Agenda (Cont’d)
 Agenda
 Address the injuries, illness, incidents and near
misses in each meeting
 Employee injuries and student injuries addressed as
separate items
 A specific time period (10 or 15 minutes) be assigned
to each agenda item
 Meetings should not be used as a forum for airing
general complaints and grievances
 Suggested AFSCME agenda (Appendix A)
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Best Practices
 Meeting Minutes – follow a standard format
 Time and date of meeting, who attended
 Items discussed (reports, problems, education…)
 Specific recommendations and reasons for them
 Time and date of next meeting
 Management Support
 Ensure there is adequate management support for JHSC
activities
 Ensure that the committee recommendations are generally
implemented or management provides reasons for not
implementing them
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Best Practices
 Employee Involvement
 Use a hazard reporting procedure (Appendix I) to encourage
all campus employees for reporting hazards
 Encourage employees to communicate unresolved issues to
the JHSC
 Inform all campus employees of JHSC mission, work and
meetings
 Use bulletin boards, forums, emails or memos to post names
and contact information of committee members, minutes and
other important information
 Ensure the employees perceive JHSC as performing a useful
and active function
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Work Place Safety Inspections
 JHSC Committee
 Schedule and conduct annual workplace safety
inspections
 Designate sub-committee to conduct assigned
inspections according to campus configuration
(buildings, areas or programs)
 Report findings to the committee (Walkthrough
Inspection Worksheet – Appendix II)
 Ensure the recommendations are implemented
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Summary
• Effective JHSC interacts frequently with all campus
employees
• Safety is the responsibility of each and every
employee
• All MnSCU campuses have JHSCs
• Standardization for safety meetings and reporting
o Will help evaluate progress and
o Enable us to develop and provide targeted resources
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Questions
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