Provinces hire more safety inspectors in effort to decrease injuries, deaths
In 2004, 928 people died because of workplace injuries, an average of three deaths per day, according to the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada.
In the United States, with a working population nearly nine times that of Canada’s, there were only 5,703 fatal injuries in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. To be on par with Canada’s work-related deaths, that number should be more than 8,200.
“Safety is failing and it’s failing miserably,” said Rob Stewart, an occupational health and safety consultant with Calgary-based Pragmatic Solutions a firm that specializes in safety programs.
Governments across the country, as well as safety organizations, have taken several steps over the past year to bring this number down.
In an effort to reduce workplace injuries by 20 per cent by 2008, the Ontario government has pledged to hire 200 new health and safety inspectors, 131 of which have already been hired. Labour Minister Steve Peters said the additional inspectors, combined with an education and awareness campaign, have helped the province reduce lost-time injuries in 2004 and 2005 by a total of 14,649.
“We’re trying to build a culture of prevention within the province,” said Peters. The province will focus inspections on 6,000 high-risk firms, those with the highest injury rates, and will be giving another 5,000 workplaces a “last chance” to improve their safety records before they too are deemed high-risk.
“Education and awareness is the first part and enforcement will be the final step,” he said. Enforcement includes stop-work orders, safety compliance plans and fines of up to $500,000.
Alberta has also increased the ranks of its safety inspectors. The province invested an extra $2 million this year into Work Safe Alberta, a joint government and industry initiative focusing on workplace safety. The money was used to hire nine more staff to inspect workplaces and work with employers to implement a formal health and safety management system.
But there’s only so much change investigators can effect, said Stewart. Instead of hiring more investigators, governments should start prosecuting cases under Bill C-45, also known as the corporate killing law, he said. The threat of jail time is a better deterrent than a fine, especially for large companies with profits in the billions of dollars.
However, not a single company or individual has been prosecuted under C-45.
“The government has said ‘we’re going to do this’ and by not following through on it, nobody believes it,” said Stewart.
Occupational health and safety (OHS) management systems can provide organizations with a formal approach to improving workplace safety. The Canadian Standards Association (CSA), with the input of various stakeholders including the Ford Motor Company, Saskatchewan Labour, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Canadian Tire and the Industrial Accident Prevention Association, has developed a new OHS management standard.
“The standard is meant to improve an organization’s occupational health and safety and it’s meant to reduce or prevent injuries or illness or deaths,” said John Walter, the vice-president of standards development at CSA.
The standard describes the process of setting up an occupational health and safety management system from planning to implementation to continuous improvement, said Walter.
“It’s an umbrella approach,” he said. “It’s making sure that when you’ve gone through it, you’ve considered all of the laws but you don’t just stop there. It’s a total picture of how to improve the OHS.”
But standards in and of themselves don’t reduce workplace accidents, said Stewart.
“There are a number of different standards out there and they encompass the elements of a safety program, which is a necessary condition, but by themselves (are) not sufficient to do what we actually want to do, which is protect people from being injured or killed,” said Stewart.
In Alberta, about 30 per cent of the companies that have been successfully prosecuted for health and safety violations have had the Certificate of Recognition (COR), given to employers with OHS programs that meet standards set out by the Alberta government, said Stewart.
“These programs aren’t doing anything to protect the company from prosecution and even worse they’re not protecting our workers from serious injury or fatality,” he said. “That’s where we’ve failed as safety professionals. It becomes more important to get the standard than to protect the workers.”
The standards are a good place to start, said Stewart, but just having a written policy isn’t enough unless the company has truly analyzed the incident-causing hazards and has taken steps to remove them.
“What companies have to realize is that safety does pay,” said Stewart.
One way to help companies do so is to uncover the true cost of workplace injuries and accidents. These costs include all the WCB-related costs, such as lost productivity, as well as lost opportunities, plant shutdowns, investigations, fines and bad public relations.
Many companies have a hard time accepting the latter as a legitimate cost, said Stewart. However, extensive media coverage of a workplace death can create serious problems.
“Pretty soon, nobody wants to work for that company,” he said.
In Alberta, the labour crunch has had the biggest impact on making companies sit up and take notice of safety issues, said Stewart, especially the oil and gas companies, which can’t afford to lose workers to injuries or bad PR.
“They’re probably the safest companies right now,” he said “But they’re not prepared to sit on their laurels — they’re continually improving their safety programs.”
But unfortunately Alberta’s construction sector hasn’t been doing as well. Last year there were six deaths but as of Aug. 8 this year there had already been 10 deaths, according to Work Safe Alberta.
In the United States, with a working population nearly nine times that of Canada’s, there were only 5,703 fatal injuries in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. To be on par with Canada’s work-related deaths, that number should be more than 8,200.
“Safety is failing and it’s failing miserably,” said Rob Stewart, an occupational health and safety consultant with Calgary-based Pragmatic Solutions a firm that specializes in safety programs.
Governments across the country, as well as safety organizations, have taken several steps over the past year to bring this number down.
In an effort to reduce workplace injuries by 20 per cent by 2008, the Ontario government has pledged to hire 200 new health and safety inspectors, 131 of which have already been hired. Labour Minister Steve Peters said the additional inspectors, combined with an education and awareness campaign, have helped the province reduce lost-time injuries in 2004 and 2005 by a total of 14,649.
“We’re trying to build a culture of prevention within the province,” said Peters. The province will focus inspections on 6,000 high-risk firms, those with the highest injury rates, and will be giving another 5,000 workplaces a “last chance” to improve their safety records before they too are deemed high-risk.
“Education and awareness is the first part and enforcement will be the final step,” he said. Enforcement includes stop-work orders, safety compliance plans and fines of up to $500,000.
Alberta has also increased the ranks of its safety inspectors. The province invested an extra $2 million this year into Work Safe Alberta, a joint government and industry initiative focusing on workplace safety. The money was used to hire nine more staff to inspect workplaces and work with employers to implement a formal health and safety management system.
But there’s only so much change investigators can effect, said Stewart. Instead of hiring more investigators, governments should start prosecuting cases under Bill C-45, also known as the corporate killing law, he said. The threat of jail time is a better deterrent than a fine, especially for large companies with profits in the billions of dollars.
However, not a single company or individual has been prosecuted under C-45.
“The government has said ‘we’re going to do this’ and by not following through on it, nobody believes it,” said Stewart.
Occupational health and safety (OHS) management systems can provide organizations with a formal approach to improving workplace safety. The Canadian Standards Association (CSA), with the input of various stakeholders including the Ford Motor Company, Saskatchewan Labour, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Canadian Tire and the Industrial Accident Prevention Association, has developed a new OHS management standard.
“The standard is meant to improve an organization’s occupational health and safety and it’s meant to reduce or prevent injuries or illness or deaths,” said John Walter, the vice-president of standards development at CSA.
The standard describes the process of setting up an occupational health and safety management system from planning to implementation to continuous improvement, said Walter.
“It’s an umbrella approach,” he said. “It’s making sure that when you’ve gone through it, you’ve considered all of the laws but you don’t just stop there. It’s a total picture of how to improve the OHS.”
But standards in and of themselves don’t reduce workplace accidents, said Stewart.
“There are a number of different standards out there and they encompass the elements of a safety program, which is a necessary condition, but by themselves (are) not sufficient to do what we actually want to do, which is protect people from being injured or killed,” said Stewart.
In Alberta, about 30 per cent of the companies that have been successfully prosecuted for health and safety violations have had the Certificate of Recognition (COR), given to employers with OHS programs that meet standards set out by the Alberta government, said Stewart.
“These programs aren’t doing anything to protect the company from prosecution and even worse they’re not protecting our workers from serious injury or fatality,” he said. “That’s where we’ve failed as safety professionals. It becomes more important to get the standard than to protect the workers.”
The standards are a good place to start, said Stewart, but just having a written policy isn’t enough unless the company has truly analyzed the incident-causing hazards and has taken steps to remove them.
“What companies have to realize is that safety does pay,” said Stewart.
One way to help companies do so is to uncover the true cost of workplace injuries and accidents. These costs include all the WCB-related costs, such as lost productivity, as well as lost opportunities, plant shutdowns, investigations, fines and bad public relations.
Many companies have a hard time accepting the latter as a legitimate cost, said Stewart. However, extensive media coverage of a workplace death can create serious problems.
“Pretty soon, nobody wants to work for that company,” he said.
In Alberta, the labour crunch has had the biggest impact on making companies sit up and take notice of safety issues, said Stewart, especially the oil and gas companies, which can’t afford to lose workers to injuries or bad PR.
“They’re probably the safest companies right now,” he said “But they’re not prepared to sit on their laurels — they’re continually improving their safety programs.”
But unfortunately Alberta’s construction sector hasn’t been doing as well. Last year there were six deaths but as of Aug. 8 this year there had already been 10 deaths, according to Work Safe Alberta.
