FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
IR # 96-23
Thursday, May 30, 1996
CONTACT:
Christine Baker
(415) 557-1304
Commission Funds California's Task Force
on Young Workers' Health and Safety
SAN FRANCISCO -- The California Commission on Health and Safety and
Workers' Compensation voted unanimously to fund a statewide task force charged
with coordinating strategies to protect young people from work related illness
and injury.
Every year 70 adolescents die from work injuries in the U.S. 63,000 are
injured severely enough to require treatment in hospital emergency rooms.
Most of these injuries are preventable. The Commission on Health and Safety
and Workers' Compensation will convene a Task Force to help address this
problem in California.
The task force will be composed of groups and individuals dealing with California
youth employment and education issues, as well as others who can play a
role in educating and protecting young workers. The group will meet quarterly
to accomplish the following tasks:
- Develop a resource list of task force members, listing all activities
related to educating and/or protecting young workers.
- Identify ways for agencies to work together to more effectively educate
and/or protect young workers
- Develop a prioritized list of new strategies for protecting young
workers, including identification of resources or agencies responsible for
carrying out these strategies.
Under the Commission's direction, the Labor Occupation Health Program of
UC Berkeley will organize and staff three to four task force meetings, collect
additional information requested by the Task Force, and prepare and distribute
the items listed above.
The Commission, created by the workers' compensation reform legislation
of 1993, is charged with overseeing the health and safety and workers' compensation
systems in California and recommending administrative or legislative modifications
to improve their operation. The Commission was established to conduct a
continuing examination of the workers' compensation system and of the state's
activities to prevent industrial injuries and occupational diseases and
to examine those programs in other states.
Further information about the Commission and its activities may be obtained
by writing to Christine Baker, Executive Officer, Commission on Health and
Safety and Workers' Compensation, 30 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 2122, San Francisco,
California 94102, by calling (415) 557-1304, or by faxing a request to (415)
557-1385. Information is also available through the Department of Industrial
Relations' Internet servers' Commission on Health and Safety and Workers'
Compensation home page. The address is www.dir.ca.gov.
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