What does it take to get the government to adopt regulations for enforcing health and safety in the workplace? Just rent the video, “Norma Rae.” Watch those lung-choking textile fibers flying. Think about how many generations labored in textile mills and died of brown lung disease before the 1970s, when the federal government finally adopted a standard for exposure to cotton dust.

Labor’s pressure for a standard to protect against carpal tunnel syndrome and other career-threatening ergonomic diseases came to naught when the Bush administration wiped out all the progress made under President Bill Clinton.

Despite a 10-year union push, New York State has failed to adopt a standard — a set of regulations — to protect public employees from workplace violence. But DC 37 has vowed to make sure this standard does not fall victim to “business as usual.”

The solution is political. Union political pressure convinced the state Hazard Abatement Board to hold hearings on the need for the Labor Dept. to adopt the standard. After a crazed rival murdered Councilman James E. Davis in his own workplace, City Hall, union lobbying helped pass a City Council resolution urging the state to adopt the standard.

“We will be working hard to get the state to move on this request,” said DC 37 Political Action Director Wanda Williams. The successful efforts of the union’s Safety Dept. and the Political Action Dept. that went into winning the Hazard Board hearings and the City Council resolution will be redoubled on the state level.

“We will highlight the need for the standard,” said Ms. Williams. “We’ll lobby to ensure that the standard is created and that it has teeth.” DC 37 will work with state legislators and the Dept. of Labor, through the Hazard Abatement Board, she said. “And we’ll make sure our people participate in the next sequence of hearings, just as we did the last time.”

At this stage, support from the locals is critical. Seven local presidents testified in June, along with members of their unions. Clerical-Administrative Local 1549 President Eddie Rodriguez underscored the need: “Our members have been cursed at, threatened, hit and stabbed by clients. It is almost an everyday occurrence for social service workers.”

Board of Education Local 372 President Veronica Montgomery-Costa said the standard is long overdue. She asked: “How can it get better, when workplace violence is treated as an everyday occurrence, instead of an occupational hazard?”