One of the core indicators of the level of psychological health and safety in an organization is the degree of freedom that workers have to share their concerns about various topics that affect their safety and their comfort level after doing so.

In this episode, Dr. I. David Daniels will speak with Jessica Martinez, the Co-Executive Director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. The mission of NCOSH is to “build the power of workers and their organizations to demand jobs that are safe, healthy, and free from exploitation and abuse.” NCOSH is a federation of 26 grassroots worker groups and the home of the worker’s health and safety movement in the U.S. National COSH is a broad community that includes members of unions and workers’ centers, health and safety professionals, academic specialists, and non-profit advocates. They specialize in peer learning, training, support for worker organizing, and advocacy campaigns.

NCOSH’s focus on safety is unique in that it is rooted in activism and the pursuit of justice for workers, especially workers from black, brown, indigenous, poor, and other marginalized communities that are over-represented in workplace injury and fatality statistics. This activism includes an annual effort to identify the worst employers in the country in terms of how they treat workers that they call the “dirty dozen.”