Cheryl Black is a Senior Research Technologist at CanMET Energy, part of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) in the National Capital Region. She is a longtime Health and Safety activist with UCTE.
Cheryl works with nuclear waste! Of course she’s motivated to pay attention to health and safety.
She works near the Ottawa International Airport where researchers, chemists, engineers and technologists share a lab building with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The group researches and develops innovative techniques for characterizing, treating, and stabilizing solid/liquid radioactive waste.
Stepping Up as an Activist
During her first pregnancy she started to want more information about the risks of the materials she was handling. At the time that involved biosolids – that is, human waste. She was on a project to see whether biosolids could help reclaim land affected by mine tailings. Naturally she wondered about the possible effects of workplace exposures on her pregnancy.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to work with it. I just said I need more information,” Black recalls. She wasn’t satisfied with the answers she got. “From there I got really active. I got my certificate in health and safety so I could be more of an advocate, especially for people coming down the line who are pregnant. I called so many places looking for information on working with arsenic, working with biosolids during pregnancy, and there weren’t any resources back then.”
Incremental Improvement
She didn’t realize the scope of changes that she’d see and help drive in her career. What brought this home recently was a presentation at the PSAC National Health and Safety conference in the fall.
In her fieldwork days, Cheryl found that standard-issue Personal Protective Equipment did not fit well. Gloves that were already too big would get wet and fall off. A good seal in respirators and coveralls is critical, but everything was sized and cut for the average man’s body. “I really wonder,” she says, “how much dust I inhaled at the end of the day.”
In September, she found that very topic, the” Gender Gap in Personal Protective Equipment” addressed at the conference.
“I was really impressed that there are people looking at this now and saying, ‘We don’t just need them pink, we actually need them fitted properly for all body types.’ It’s so important, not just for women or other body types, but also, if you’re pregnant, for your babies as well.”
Black found it uplifting to be among so many like-minded people at the conference. Anything that makes us feel less feel alone in our efforts is very valuable.
Over the years Cheryl has handled mercury, uranium, and every kind of heavy metal. In her lab, public safety and our members’ health and safety are tightly connected. It’s activists like Cheryl who are making a difference in the workplaces where success means making us all safer.
You too can get involved – contact your local’s Health and Safety Committee or find out more at Health and Safety | PSAC.
