OHS Canada March 2014 by Annex Business Media

C A N A D A’ S O C C U PAT I O N A L H E A LT H & S A F E T Y M A G A Z I N E MAR C H 2014

C A N A D A

Upping the Ante Mining the cost of safety in Ontario’s mines

EXPLOSIVE OUTCOMES

Weighing the perils of transporting dangerous goods

POWER PLAY

Managing workforce bullies through policy

A DAY FOR WOMEN Protecting the health of female workers

ACCESS FOR ALL Inclusive workspaces for employees with disabilities

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C A N A D A’ S O C C U PAT I O N A L H E A LT H & S A F E T Y M A G A Z I N E

FEATURES

TR AN S P ORTATION OF D AN GER OUS GOOD S 26

CC A A NNA AD DA A

Off the Rails

M A RC H 2014 Vo l u m e 3 0, Nu m b er 2

The rail disaster in Lac-Mégantic and recent derailments have prompted calls to beef up safety programs and operating procedures of railways carrying dangerous cargo. BY JEFF COTTRILL

P EN ALTIES 32

Raising the Stakes

Penalizing companies for workplace safety violations is meant to serve as a deterrent, but do sky-high fines help improve worker safety? BY JUSTIN SAUNDERS

WOR KP LAC E HAR AS S M EN T

When the Boss is the Bully

Employers in British Columbia are making efforts to keep workplace relations in check now that the province has introduced new regulations on workplace bullying. BY STEFAN DUBOWSKI

DEPARTMENTS 44

S AF ETY GEAR

Flushed Away

For workers whose eyes have been contaminated by harmful substances, access to eyewash stations and emergency showers is critical in preventing further harm. BY JEFF COTTRILL

ER GON OM IC S

Inclusive Design

New rules in the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act mean that employers will need to ensure that the workplace is accessible to employees with disabilities.

BY CARMELLE WOLFSON

S P EC IAL R EP ORT 5 0

Getting a Foothold

IN THIS ISSUE ED IT O R IA L

L ET T ER S

PA N O R A MA

On Thin Ice

O H&S U P D AT E

Changes to foreign worker rules; no charges laid in British Columbia blast; Alberta plant evacuates workers; Saskatchewan man fined for trenching violations; Ontario introduces training standard; and more.

While women have made some gains towards equality in the workplace, the gender gap continues to have repercussions on occupational safety for female workers. BY JEAN LIAN

AC C ID EN T P R EV EN TION

Feeling the Vibes

Workers operating electric hand tools and certain vehicles should take precautions as they could be at risk of negative health effects associated with occupational vibration. TIM E OUT

Fashionably late; getting juiced; space suit-up; knocked out; un-Happy Meal; e-madness; snow fight; and more.

D IS PAT C HES

PA RT N ER S IN PRE V E NT I O N 2 0 1 4 P R O D U C T S HO W CAS E A D IN D EX

54 60 61

Caffeine jolts memory; security guard safety at risk; sex work laws in flux; and more.

A genuine leader is not a searcher of consensus but a molder of consensus.

– DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

www.ohscanada.com

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COVER ILLUSTRATION:

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A D I NDE

EDITORIAL

C A N A D A’ S O C C U PAT I O N A L H E A LT H & S A F E T Y M A G A Z I N E

On Thin Ice I

t seems that unusually warm weather in recent years has spoiled us. According to recent data released by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last year was the warmest recorded year on earth. What’s more, nine out of 10 of the highest global annual temperatures occurred in the 2000s. As Canadians, we have a reputation of being able to withstand the coldest weather in the world, but this year we were ill-prepared to take on the frigid Polar Vortex air that swept over Eastern Canada. And if Wiarton Willie’s Groundhog Day prediction of six more weeks of winter is correct, the cold weather may not be through with us yet. The chilly blast of arctic air posed considerable challenges for utility crews, snow removal companies, postal workers, and outdoor and transportation workers. In Western Canada, extreme cold has also slowed production. When the thermometer went south of -15 Celsius in Lethbridge, Alberta last month, many construction workers walked off the job, reports Global News. However, it was not just the risk of frostbite and hypothermia from subzero temperatures that workers had to contend with this winter. In Ontario, hundreds of thousands of households were without power throughout Christmas and New Year’s. For linespeople and utility workers, this meant working overtime through the holidays to repair downed power lines and restore electricity. In some municipalities, the ice buildup led to a shortage of road salt for the rest of the winter. In Newfoundland, one utility worker was injured while repairing power lines after a bitterly cold snap in January resulted in rolling blackouts. The quick and drastic drop in temperature that resulted in flash freezing as well as the combination of cold, wind and ice throughout Eastern Canada led to dangerous work conditions. At airports in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, unsafe conditions forced ground stops throughout January. While the decision was unpopular with fliers whose travel plans were altered, for airport workers who could not safely move aircraft and equipment on the runways, it literally saved lives. Operating under similar conditions that month, a co-pilot died when his plane crashed at Aspen/Pitkin County Airport in Colorado. Other planes slid off the taxiways at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and in Saskatoon where the airport had to close the runway and delay flights. For postal workers, this has been an especially slippery year. Mail carriers have suffered broken legs, sprained wrists, concussions and blown-out shoulders, reports the Calgary Herald. The Calgary local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers says one in 10 workers delivering mail this winter were off work due to injury. Some may return to work shortly, while others may never fully recover. When winter weather gets severe, it affects all workers with slippery surfaces, reduced visibility and potholes on streets and highways. Bad road conditions mean employees may not be able to commute to work. After a snow storm in February dumped 15 to 30 centimetres of snow over Eastern Canada, vehicle collisions led officials in Ontario to issue a safety advisory for drivers to slow down on highways. As Rick Mercer put it in a recent rant on the Rick Mercer Report, Canadians living in cities have seasonal amnesia. When cold weather inevitably rolls around, we forget what it means to live here in the winter. However, this amnesia should not cause us to forget safety precautions for working in chilly climates. Employers and workers must consider the measures that need to be taken to stay warm and the necessary protections against weather-related hazards such as snow and ice. Carmelle Wolfson Acting Editor

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C A N A D A

Vol. 30, No. 2 MARCH 2014

EDITOR JEAN LIAN jlian@ohscanada.com MANAGING EDITOR JASON CONTANT jcontant@ohscanada.com CARMELLE WOLFSON ASSISTANT EDITOR cwolfson@ohscanada.com EDITORIAL ASSISTANT JEFF COTTRILL jcottrill@ohscanada.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR WILLIAM M. GLENN Hazardous substances ART DIRECTOR PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER MARKETING SPECIALIST CIRCULATION MANAGER ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER PUBLISHER PRESIDENT, BUSINESS INFORMATION GROUP

ANNE MIRON PHYLLIS WRIGHT GARY WHITE DIMITRY EPELBAUM BARBARA ADELT badelt@bizinfogroup.ca SHEILA HEMSLEY shemsley@ohscanada.com PETER BOXER pboxer@ohscanada.com BRUCE CREIGHTON

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

DAVID IRETON, Safety Professional, Brampton, Ont. AL JOHNSON, Vice President, Prevention Services WorksafeBC, Richmond, B.C. JANE LEMKE, Program Manager, OHN Certification Program, Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ont.

DON MITCHELL, Safety Consultant, Mississauga, Ont. MICHELE PARENT, National Manager, Risk Management and Health and Wellness,

Standard Life, Montreal, Que. TERRY RYAN, Workers’ Compensation and Safety Consultant, TRC Group Inc., Mississauga, Ont. DON SAYERS, Principal Consultant, Don Sayers & Associates, Hanwell, N.B. DAVID SHANE, National Director, Health and Safety, Canada Post Corporation, Ottawa, Ont. HENRY SKJERVEN, President, The Skjerven Cattle Company Ltd., Wynyard, Sask. PETER STRAHLENDORF, Assistant Professor, School of Environmental Health, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto, Ont. JONATHAN TYSON, Association of Canadian Ergonomists/Association canadienne d’ergonomie, North Bay, Ont.

OHS CANADA is the magazine for people who make decisions about health and safety in the workplace. It is designed to keep workers, managers and safety professionals informed on oh&s issues, up to date on new developments and in touch with current thinking in the oh&s community. WEBSITE: http://www.ohscanada.com INFORMATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS contained in this publication have been compiled from sources believed to be reliable and to be representative of the best current opinion on the subject. No warranty, guarantee nor representation is made by Business Information Group as to the absolute correctness or sufficiency of any representation contained in this publication. OHS CANADA is published eight times per year by BIG Magazines LP, a division of Glacier BIG Holdings Ltd., a leading Canadian information company with interests in daily and community newspapers and business-to-business information services. The yearly issues include: January/February, March, April/May, June, July/ August, September, October/November, and December. Application to mail at Periodicals Postage Rates is pending at Niagara Falls, N.Y. 14304. U.S. Postmaster, Office of Publication, send address corrections to: OHS Canada, 2424 Niagara Falls Blvd., Niagara Falls, NY 14304-0357. ADDRESS: OHS CANADA MAGAZINE, 80 Valleybrook Drive, Toronto, ON M3B 2S9. TELEPHONE: Customer Service: 1-866-543-7888; Editorial: 416-510-6893; Sales: 416-510-5102; Fax: 416-510-5171. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Canada: $110.50/year; USA: $132.50/year; foreign: $137.50. (Prices include postage and shipping; applicable taxes are extra.) SINGLE COPIES: Canada: $6.00; USA: $8.00; foreign $10.00 Bulk subscription rates available on request. Indexed by Canadian Business Periodicals Inc. ISSN 0827-4576 OHS Canada (Print) • ISSN 1923-4279 OHS Canada (Online) Printed in Canada. All rights reserved. From time to time, we make our subscription list available to select companies and organizations whose product or service may interest you. If you do not wish your contact information to be made available, please contact us via one of the following methods: Customer Service: (Tel) 416-510-5189; (Fax) 416-510-5167; (E-mail) asingh@bizinfogroup.ca; (Mail) Privacy Officer, Business Information Group, 80 Valleybrook Drive, Toronto, ON M3B 2S9 Canada. The contents of this magazine are protected by copyright and may be used for your personal, non-commercial purposes only. All other rights are reserved, and commercial use is prohibited. To make use of any of this material, you must first obtain the permission of the owner of the copyright. For further information, please contact the editor. “We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canadian Periodical Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities.”

POSTAL INFORMATION: Publications mail agreement no. 40069240. Postmaster, please forward forms 29B and 67B to Business Information Group. 80 Valleybrook Drive, Toronto, ON M3B 2S9 Canada. Date of issue: MARCH 2014

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LETTERS

Recent issues of ohs canada and our website, www.ohscanada.com, have provided readers with plenty to chew on. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING The B.C. Civil Liberties Association says the transit authority in Kamloops, British Columbia is obliged to investigate how installing video cameras on the city’s buses will improve passenger safety. (the canadian press, January 19, 2014) Cameras will not only protect passengers and drivers, but provide evidence if a crime is committed. But the B.C. Civil Liberties Association seems to be more concerned with protecting criminals. If you have nothing to hide or do not intend to cause trouble, then you should have nothing to fear. Place a sign on each door stating that video cameras are on board and recording and could be used in court if a criminal offence happens. If nothing happens, then the video will probably just get re-recorded, but at worst, [the transit authority could] set up a timeframe to erase or reuse [it]. Whitey55

DANGEROUS GOODS Canada’s transport minister issued a new directive to the rail industry regarding the transportation of dangerous goods last November. (Canadian Occupational Health and Safety News (cohsn), December 2, 2013) For the timing and desire for “immediate action”, this path is not unreasonable. Any bigger changes do demand time to actually implement. For example, for rail-car changes or replacements, look [at] at least 24 months. The appreciation and communication of what is acceptable risk is difficult. Even if the frequency of derailments is cut in half, neither the transporters nor the manufacturers can guarantee another event won’t happen. 6

MARCH 2014

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Just as in Alberta, we (as the public) believe it is okay to have three fatalities every two days on our roads. There are lots of reasons for all of these [accidents]. Our target remains zero, but appreciation of the impact and acceptability is difficult. David Weizenbach

Our government (all three tiers) is slow and passive in almost everything. We talk, talk and talk; action will come after things happen and only when they cannot cover it. Provincial government is my employer, and their attitude is ‘to comply with the law, but just do the minimum’. Sometimes, they bend the laws a bit. David C

ANTI-STRIKE BILL The union representing Alberta’s public sector workers has denounced legislation that would impose wage freezes and strict penalties on strikes by provincial government workers. (cohsn, December 9, 2013) Going on strike when the safety of others is jeopardized should not be allowed. This bill was warranted and just. Franky 5

TASER SAFETY In the December 2013 issue of ohs canada, the article “Stunning Divide” explores the issue of police officers carrying conducted energy weapons, which have come under the spotlight for causing numerous deaths. Thank you very much for this article. The United Nations asked several months ago for police to stop carrying Tasers as sidearms, except in extreme situations for specialty officers only! Glad to see Ottawa delaying on handing out more of them. Police must NOT

continue tasering one another during ‘training’ of any kind! An American police officer suffered a broken leg bone during a ‘Taser training’ about a year ago, and he is suing his precinct — rightly so. The gun style of the Taser is interfering with officers’ confidence in the sidearms that they used before for emergencies. They are drawing guns and firing guns much faster than before. They will need firearms retraining after Tasers are collected. Leanne Flynn

FRACKING MORATORIUM In the January/February 2014 issue of ohs canada, a news update reports that Canada’s largest private-sector union Unifor has raised health and safety concerns over hydraulic fracturing. I am very much in favour of the moratorium. It is wise to step back and take a full view of the whole fracking process. My gut feeling is that, were we not to really give this question our full regard, we may well do irreparable damage to our environment. Our continued, thriving planet is a success story, which creates a win for everyone, and I think Canada may well be one of the progressive countries that can take the challenge to evolve in a very enlightened direction. Our history is written by every moment we stay awake to forming new ideas and making choices that build an exciting, innovative future. There is a flood of new ideas and inventions that are just waiting to replace this antiquated industry, and so fast that we will wonder what took us so long to free ourselves from it. Felicia Mareels Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Would you like to share a comment? Send an email to jlian@ohscanada.com. Letters may be edited for style, grammar and length.

ohs canada

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A TOUGH HAND TO BEAT. WORKRITE.COM | 855-855-2785

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panorama $1 million The maximum sum that nuclear operators will soon be liable for in the event of civilian damages. The federal government introduced legislation that raised the liability from the current $75 million on January 30, conforming to an international nuclear accord on supplementary compensation.

1 2

Source: Ontario Ministry of Labour

1. Safety Tickets: As of January 1, workers and employers who contravene ticketable provisions of oh&s legislation in Alberta can be issued tickets by safety officers. The on-the-spot penalty, which is similar to a traffic ticket, will be given out following an infraction of the law, with fines ranging from $100 to $500 that can be paid at an Alberta courthouse. Source: Alberta Human Services

Healthy Pay: Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has announced plans to raise the minimum wage for workers to $11 an hour in June, an increase of 75 cents an hour. If the legislation is passed, it would be the first minimum wage increase in four years. Health Providers Against Poverty contend that a minimum wage of $14 is Source: The Toronto Star needed to improve the failing health of the province’s low-wage earners.

3. Safe

Play: WorkSafeNB has launched a provincial video contest called “It’s Your Job – Play it Safe!” The contest, which runs January 29 until April 1, challenges high school students in New Brunswick to develop a creative video that illustrates the importance of working safely on the job. The contest offers cash prizes of up to $1,000 for Source: WorkSafeNB students and $1,000 for their high schools.

4. Hear,

Hear: The Workers Compensation Board of Prince Edward Island has revised its hearing loss policy, imposing a five-year limitation for filing work-related hearing loss claims. This means that an audiogram must be performed within five years from the last occupational exposure to excessive noise in order to be considered for a Source: Workers Compensation Board of P.E.I. workers’ compensation claim. The changes will take effect on June 1.

Pat on the Back: Mike Barron, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information, has been named the latest signatory to the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Committee’s (WHSCC) CEO Safety Charter. Barron is the 57th business leader to be added to the charter, which supports the continuous improvement of healthy and safe workplaces throughout the province. 5.

Source: WHSCC

$100,000 Fine meted out to English Prestige Builders Ltd. in Brampton, Ontario for failing to ensure the health and safety of workers. The fine stems from an incident in October of 2011, in which one worker died and another was injured when a concrete wall collapsed. Source: Canadian Occupational Health and Safety News

$26,692

The amount that an autobody repairman defrauded from the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board. The former claimant pleaded guilty to returning to work while still receiving income replacement. Source: WorkSafeBC

360°

NO GLOVE, NO LOVE A significant fine against a kink site in San Francisco has ignited debate over mandatory condom-use on California porn sets. The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Cybernet Entertainment, parent company of Kink.com, more than $78,000 for health and safety violations in January. The largest part of the fine targeted Cybernet’s policy of giving performers discretion on whether to use condoms. Cybernet founder Peter Acworth claims that the fines are excessive and politically motivated and says the company will appeal the decision. Source: The Associated Press

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16,000

The number of times the National Standard of Canada on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace was downloaded last year. Source: CNW Newswire

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OH&S UPDATE

NEW FOREIGN WORKER RULES FEDERAL — The federal government

has made amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR) that impose stricter conditions on Canadian employers who use the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). It was the second time in 2013 that the government had initiated reforms regarding temporary foreign workers. “These changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program demonstrate the government of Canada’s ongoing commitment to protect vulnerable foreign workers from the risk of abuse and exploitation,” says Eric Morrissette, a spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). The new changes, which went into effect on December 31, 2013, grant authority to ESDC to conduct inspections

of employers of foreign workers to make sure that they are complying with IRPR conditions. Such inspections may include onsite visits without warrants and consensual interviews with employees. “Inspections can now be conducted from the first day of employment of the temporary foreign worker,” Morrissette explains, “rather than relying on an employer to request a new LMO [Labour Market Opinion] before the federal government can verify the employer’s compliance with the conditions of a previous LMO.” An LMO, which evaluates the effect that a temporary foreign worker may have on Canada’s labour market, is issued by ESDC to every company that applies for the TFWP. The department now reserves the right to suspend or revoke LMOs and reject LMO applications. The amendments also require employers to retain all documents related to compliance with IRPR

for six years, starting from the first day of a foreign worker’s employment. Employers must make reasonable efforts to hire or train Canadian citizens or permanent residents and keep their workplaces free of abuse. Additionally, as a strike against physical and sexual exploitation, ESDC cannot provide LMOs to escort services, striptease venues or erotic massage parlours. The amendments have resulted from an ongoing government review of the TFWP. Minister of Employment and Social Development Jason Kenney and Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Diane Finley announced a first wave of changes on April 29. Among these changes, employers are now required to pay foreign workers at the prevailing wage and to have solid plans to transition to a Canadian workforce over time. The amendments also increased work permit fees.

COMMISSION TO EXAMINE MENTAL HEALTH STANDARD FEDERAL — A year after launching the world’s first nation-

al standard on mental health in the workplace, the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) says it plans to examine the standard’s effectiveness through a three-year research project. The MHCC will track the progress of 25 Canadian employers as they adopt Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace — Prevention, promotion, and guidance to staged implementation, a 75-page standard developed by a committee with members of the commission, CSA Group and the latter’s Quebec counterpart, Bureau de normalisation du Québec (BNQ). The voluntary standard serves as a guideline for companies to create psychologically safe and healthy work environments. “We’ve got a world-first, groundbreaking standard,” says Bob Main, director of health and safety with CSA Group. “No one’s ever done a standard on psychological health and safety in the workplace before, and it’ll be important to see how it works, what works well, what works less well.” Main says the process began when the MHCC invited CSA Group and BNQ to a workshop regarding workplace mental health several years ago. A committee of experts was then assembled by CSA Group and BNQ to come to a consensus about the content of the new standard. According to Sapna Mahajan, the MHCC’s director of promotion and prevention, this case study project is expected to provide concrete data and information to show that the standard is a sound investment. “The standard’s really a guide,” Mahajan says. “It’s a set of tools, not rules, to

MARCH 2014

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help organizations put policies, processes and structures in place.” She adds that the standard is meant to serve not just employees who suffer from mental health issues, but also those whose colleagues’ issues affect their own productivity. Among the standard’s key topics are: understanding the diverse needs of an employee base; maintaining confidentiality; establishing policies and processes; identifying psychological health and safety hazards; and providing education and awareness. Since its publication on January 16, 2013, more than 16,000 people have downloaded the standard, whereas typical CSA Group standards receive only 100 to 200 downloads a year, Mahajan reports. The MHCC initiated the case study by putting out a call to organizations across Canada to participate. More than 50 companies have replied. Main says the committee will come together in another couple of years to review it and consider changes and improvements that might be needed. Other than hours lost from absenteeism, Mahajan says another way that mental health issues can affect workplaces is presenteeism — when a person is physically present in the office, but is not performing the required work duties properly because of physical illness, personal problems or mental health issues. “Psychological health is a big issue for the workplace,” Main adds. “A large amount of absenteeism from the workplace is the result of psychological health issues, depression being one of them.” — By Jeff Cottrill

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UNIONS PREPARE TO CHALLENGE BILL C-4 FEDERAL — Federal public sector unions have joined forces to

challenge Bill C-4, which includes more than 50 amendments to the Canada Labour Code, including those related to occupational health and safety. The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada and the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, among others, have agreed to pool their resources before the next round of collective bargaining with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat in 2014, PSAC said in a statement. In addition to preparing a legal challenge, the unions plan to defend collective agreements, inform federal workers and the public “of the extreme and radical nature of these changes” and vigorously defend workplace health and safety in federal workplaces, the statement adds. The omnibus bill, which received royal assent on December 12, 2013, changes the definition of “danger” as it relates to the right to refuse unsafe work, revises the work refusal process and transfers oh&s officers’ rights and responsibilities to the federal labour minister or a delegate.

ARMY TO HIRE MENTAL HEALTH STAFF FEDERAL — In the wake of the recent suicide crisis among the

Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), the Department of National Defence (DND) has announced plans to hire mental-health professionals — fulfilling a need that the military has had for more than a decade. The Canadian Forces Health Services (CFHS) confirms that 54 applicants are in the final interview process to fill 447 positions. This plan includes measures such as the hiring of psychiatrists, psychologists, mental-health nurses, social workers, addictions counsellors and case managers, as well as enhancing existing support programs. The announcement came after a series of soldier suicides rocked the Canadian military in recent months. News reports indicate that there were as many as 10 suicides in December and January alone. Despite the DND’s claim that it is moving ahead on the issue, some remain skeptical. Vancouver Liberal MP Joyce Murray wonders why the government has taken so long. “They’ve been saying that for ages,” Murray says, referring to the DND’s longstanding promise to hire mental-health personnel. “There has been a goal of a certain number of health professionals that was set back in the days of the Liberal government and funding for that, and that level of hiring was never completed.” Murray adds that the military’s previous attempts to hire mental-health staff were blocked by the department. “There has been a deliberate frustration of filling those positions, due to budget cuts and a hiring freeze,” she explains. “The bureaucratic process forced a written application for every hire, even though the positions had been identified as needed, and even though the commitment was made to fill them and the funding was there. They still had to have a written request to a deputyminister committee, which either turned down the request because of a hiring freeze, or by the time the whole process was completed, the candidate was no longer available.” But according to the CFHS, the DND has simply had trouble

finding the right people. “Mental-health professionals are typically in short supply in Canada,” a CFHS source says. “It can be difficult to attract qualified and experienced candidates into the public service.” Murray also charges that the government has a dismissive attitude towards soldiers who need help, pinpointing Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s suggestion that troops with problems should simply speak up and proactively use the resources available. “That was a callous and uncompassionate response from this country’s leader,” Murray says. “The resources are not available in all cases.”

LABOUR CALLS FOR FRAUD PROBE VANCOUVER — The B.C. Federation of Labour (BCFL) is calling on the RCMP to launch an investigation into Tim Hortons following allegations of theft and fraud against a number of its temporary foreign workers. According to claims by the workers, their boss at a Tim Hortons location in Fernie, British Columbia demanded cash payments for overtime wages they received and workers were asked to make payments to cover the employer’s cost for the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Jim Sinclair, president of BCFL, said in a statement that the allegations went well beyond infractions covered by the provincial Employment Standards Act and, if true, likely constituted serious criminal offences. “None of us are looking for a

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NO CHARGES IN SAWMILL BLAST VANCOUVER — Crown prosecutors in British Columbia have announced that no criminal or regulatory charges will be laid against Babine Forest Products after a deadly explosion and fire destroyed the company’s sawmill two years ago. The Ministry of Justice’s Criminal Justice Branch (CJB) said in a statement on January 10 that there was no substantial likelihood of conviction for regulatory offences. “Crown counsel has concluded that the manner in which WorkSafeBC conducted parts of its inspection/investigation would likely render significant evidence that it gathered inadmissible in court,” the CJB said in the statement, adding that Babine would likely succeed in its due diligence defence. “The preponderance of the evidence is that dust conditions in the mill were relatively good, but imperfect, at the time of the incident,” the statement noted. “Babine would likely be able to establish that it did not foresee and could not reasonably have foreseen that sawdust could cause a catastrophic explosion of the nature that occurred. ”There is also evidence that the company implemented a series of dust mitigation measures, including exhaust fans and infrared scanning for hot spots. The incident occurred when a fire and explosion destroyed the sawmill in Burns Lake on January 20, 2012,

killing two workers and injuring 20 others. The fire ignited in the basement of the mill and set fire to airborne sawdust, creating a fireball that spread through the mill. The CJB noted in its investigation that WorkSafeBC’s examination of the fire site and related inquiries had all been conducted as a safety compliance inspection rather than as an investigation into possible criminal or regulatory enforcement. WorkSafeBC officers did not obtain a search warrant authorizing search and seizure at the Babine site, and when officers interviewed the company’s president, they did not inform him of his charter rights. Jeff Dolan, director of investigations for WorkSafeBC, says its investigators are still considering next steps, including the possibility of recommending an administrative penalty against Babine. Dolan adds that WorkSafeBC’s investigation, which concluded in November of 2012, was one of the largest scene investigations in its history, consisting of a 13-week investigation, 14,000 photographs, more than 700 exhibits and interviews with 100 mill workers and managers. Provincial NDP WorkSafeBC critic Harry Bains says the government “failed to properly coordinate a critical investigation into a tragic event that caused death and injury.” — By Jason Contant

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cup of coffee or a donut at the expense of exploiting workers,” Sinclair says.

MUTUAL AID STRENGTHENED CALGARY — The Canadian Energy Pipe-

line Association (CEPA) has launched a Mutual Emergency Assistance Agreement (MEAA) for its member companies, aimed at strengthening the existing emergency response process. President and chief executive officer of the CEPA Brenda Kenny says the agreement would formalize an existing practice whereby member companies share resources during an emergency. “It will allow employees to get the job done by removing legal barriers that can sometimes cause delay,” she explains. The agreement, which came into effect on January 1, means that during an emergency situation, member companies can call upon each other to share additional human resources, specialized response advice, equipment and tools that can increase their existing emergency response capabilities. “This industry

agreement will help facilitate an even quicker response to protecting people, the environment and property, if necessary,” the CEPA said in a statement. Under the agreement, the company that is requesting the assistance would have the primary responsibility of planning and directing the overall emergency response, with secondary responsibility on the assisting company. In addition, member companies have agreed to compensate the assisting company for all reasonable expenses, including travel, lodging, meals, wages, salaries and maintenance. The agreement will be used for major incidents, unless specific expertise is required. “This MEAA is the full-meal deal,” said Ziad Saad, vice-president of safety and sustainability with CEPA.

RELEASE PROMPTS EVACUATION CALGARY — Twelve workers have been safely evacuated from a water treatment plant following a large carbon dioxide (CO2) release at a plant.

At about 11:45 a.m. on January 8, firefighters from the Calgary Fire Department (CFD) responded to the City of Calgary’s Bearspaw water treatment plant, where they were told that the workers had been safely evacuated from the plant, the CFD said in a statement. An investigation found that the CO2 used to extinguish fires had accidentally been released during routine maintenance on the plant’s fire suppression system. The building was ventilated using power fans until CO2 levels had dropped to a safe level and the maintenance crew was allowed to re-enter the plant.

VIOLATIONS SPUR PENALTY WEYBURN — A man in Weyburn, Saskatchewan has been fined more than $5,000 for trenching violations. Nick Tuchscherer was slapped with a $5,380 fine last December after pleading guilty to two occupational health and safety charges, the Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety in Regina said in a statement on January 15.

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ALBERTA BATTLES FLU PROBLEM EDMONTON — As Alberta fights against a surge in influenza

cases this winter, the provincial government is urging the public to get the vaccination for the flu, particularly to combat the H1N1 strain. Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne issued a press statement on January 3, asking everyone who had not received a flu shot to get one as soon as possible. “Getting immunized protects you, your friends, family, co-workers and everyone you come into contact with. That includes vulnerable Albertans for whom the flu can mean serious illness or even death,” Horne said. He added that influenza had led to clogged emergency rooms, limited access to hospital beds and a strain on other healthcare resources. On the same day as Horne’s announcement, the United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) issued a response, agreeing that increased immunization was positive, but cautioning that it was only one part of the solution. “Influenza immunization is only a shot in the arm for infection control,” UNA president Heather Smith said in the statement. “We also need to be diligent about the other aspects of influenza control.” The UNA added that routine hand hygiene, personal protective equipment, isolation rules, sufficient medical staffing and adequate capacity in the hospital system to deal with

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the increase in patients were also essential to fight the flu. “If we have patients in hallways and crowded three or four to a room because of lack of capacity and staff, infections are more likely to spread,” Smith said, adding that it was unwise to press employees who were ill to return to work too quickly, even in the event of staffing shortages. “Obviously, going to work when you have the flu is going to spread the flu.” As of January 1, there were 965 lab-confirmed cases of influenza in Alberta, 251 hospitalizations and five deaths, including one from H1N1, Horne said. He added that only 21 per cent of Albertans had received the flu shot — including 49 per cent of the province’s healthcare workers. “While these numbers are similar to those from last year, it is concerning that we are seeing younger working age adults being hospitalized,” Horne said. David Climenhaga, a UNA communications officer and journalist, is skeptical about the numbers cited by Horne. “I’d like to know the percentage of registered nurses,” he says, charging that it is likely higher than 49 per cent. “I’d say it’s probably well in excess of 80 per cent, and so this organization, which does encourage its members to get the shot, is doing its part.” — By Jeff Cottrill

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Tuchscherer pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that a worker in a trench more than 1.2 metres deep was protected from cave-ins or sliding material and was fined $3,500 with a $1,400 surcharge. He also pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that only trained workers were permitted to operate powered mobile equipment and was fined $400 with an $80 surcharge. The conviction relates to an incident on October 17, 2011, when a safety officer observed a backhoe operator digging a trench that was not protected against cave-ins. The trench measured more than two metres deep and the walls were not cut back at a 45-degree angle.

ty officer observed the infractions at a building worksite.

CHANGES TO EMPLOYMENT ACT REGINA — The government of Saskatchewan has introduced amendments to the Saskatchewan Employment Act to include essential services. The key changes to the legislation,

introduced on December 4, 2013, include: requiring an essential services agreement to be negotiated at an impasse in collective agreement bargaining; expanding the definition of “public employer” to include all employers that provide an essential public service; enabling disputes on the content of an employer’s essential services notice to be heard by an arbitrator or arbitration board; enabling a union to challenge

TAXI ROBBER ARRESTED SASKATOON — A 27-year-old man from Saskatoon has been arrested in connection with a string of recent armed taxicab robberies. The man, who has not been identified by the Saskatoon Police Service (SPS), was brought into custody following an investigation, a statement from the police service said on January 8. He has been charged with six counts of armed robbery and one count of attempted armed robbery. The robberies in question occurred between November 5, 2013 and January 4 of this year. The suspect called a taxi and then produced a knife and stole cash from the driver. None of the drivers were injured.

ROOFING COMPANY FINED SASKATOON — Ridge Riders Roofing Ltd. of Saskatoon was fined $1,880 on December 13, 2013 after pleading guilty to two occupational health and safety charges. The company pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that workers used a fall protection system when they could fall three metres or more and was fined $600 with a $240 surcharge. Ridge Riders Roofing also pleaded guilty to failing to provide and/or require workers to use appropriate protective headwear as required by law and failing to ensure that all work was sufficiently and competently supervised. It received a $600 fine with a $240 charge for the former charge and $150 with a $50 surcharge for the latter. The charges relate to an inspection on July 15, 2011, during which a safe-

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programs. “There’s a strong correlation between animal handling — how to do it properly — and safety of employees.” Beaudin adds that accidents on hog farms are often related to stressed-out pigs. “If you move animals properly, they’re more calm, and also you benefit from a safer work environment.” The video series received funding and HOG SAFETY VIDEO RELEASED support from the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, Alberta Pork, the WINNIPEG — The Manitoba Pork Council (MPC) has taken measures to improve Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, safety training in the hog-processing in- Ontario Pork and the Fédération des produstry with a new six-chapter video se- ducteurs de porcs du Québec. MPC hopes that the video series, ries, Smart Pig Handling, a guide to lowstress techniques for handling live pigs which was released in October, becomes the standard training video on all for new farm workers. The series provides tools for handling farms across the country. The organizahogs in a way that minimizes stress for tion has uploaded the first two chapters both workers and animals. This is expect- — Basic Pig Behaviour and Principles of ed to reduce workplace injuries, prevent Pig Handling — on its YouTube channel. Beaudin says the videos would be in-transit losses and improve the quality of the meat, as it makes work easier for useful on any type of farm in Canada, regardless of its setup. “A lot of farms farm employees. “Farmers are always looking for bet- are configured differently with pen sizes ter ways to improve how they treat their and so on, but a lot of the conflicts are NL-Ad:Layout 1 06/02/2014 8:47 AM Page 1 pigs,” says Miles Beaudin, MPC’s man- the same,” he adds. The MPC is also providing a 20-page ager of quality assurance and labour all aspects of the employer’s essential services notice; and providing a process to resolve a collective bargaining agreement in which the level of essential services required results in an ineffective strike or lockout.

booklet, Pigs in Transit: Handling and Transportation Guide, instructing producers on how to prepare pigs for transport, care for them during the trips and maintain proper truck conditions.

NEW STANDARD INTRODUCED TORONTO — The province of Ontario

is implementing a new voluntary workplace training standard to help prevent falls and improve the safety of employees working at heights. The Working at Heights Training Program Standard, announced on December 19, 2013, applies to workplaces in the construction sector and construction activity in workplaces covered by Ontario Regulation 213/91. It is expected to become mandatory by the summer and will later be expanded to all sectors through a phased approach. Training programs designed to meet the standard will improve knowledge about fall hazards and safety practices, including topics such as: proper inspection of equipment for damage;

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procedures for setting up, relocating or removing protective equipment, such as guardrails; demonstrations and handson training on fall arrest equipment; and information about workplace protection and workers’ rights. The standard comprises two modules: the Working at Heights Basic Theory Module and the Working at Heights Practical Equipment Module. The first module contains foundational knowledge for workers, and the second contains applied knowledge and handson demonstration of personal protective equipment. Other highlights of the standard include: • Delivery requirements; • Timing — duration of the training for both modules; • A list of required equipment to be used during the second module; • Evaluation methods of learners; and • A three-year validity date after successful completion of the training. Jonathan Rose, director of communications for Ontario Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi, says the government, through the Chief Prevention Officer, has worked hard with all of its safety partners to implement the panel’s recommendations. “The content for the standard was recommended and developed by a crossindustry development group composed of labour and employer representatives and other safety partners,” Rose adds.

suffocated. He succumbed to his injuries in hospital.

TSB REPORT INCONCLUSIVE RENFREW — There are no definitive an-

swers as to what caused a fatal air accident that occurred in Renfrew, Ontario in 2012, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said in an investigation

report issued on January 10. The privately-owned aircraft left the Carp Airport on October 8, 2012, on a flight to Goderich, Ontario, but the pilot altered the destination to Wiarton, Ontario shortly after takeoff. Air traffic control cleared the aircraft to climb to 26,000 feet above sea level, but while continuing the climb, the aircraft entered a right-hand turn, which quickly developed into a spiral dive. It then struck the

EMPLOYER FOUND GUILTY SCHOMBERG — A company that purchases and collects wood shavings from mills has been fined $115,000. After a trial last December, Reliable Wood Shavings in Bradford, Ontario was found guilty of failing to ensure as an employer that the loading of a truck from a silo was conducted in a safe manner. The fine stems from the death of a worker in 2009. The worker was employed as a blower truck operator whose task was to load wood shavings into the box of the truck for resale. On July 14, 2009, the employee was sent to a woodworking mill in Schomberg to collect wood shavings from a silo. The silo held nearly 74 cubic yards of wood shavings and the operator was to back the truck underneath the silo where the shavings had been stored. While attempting to dislodge material, the worker fell into the box of the truck, became engulfed by wood shavings and www.ohscanada.com

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ground and was destroyed. “It was not possible to conclude with any certainty why the aircraft entered the rapid descending turn,” the statement said. “The investigation concluded that the pilot lost control of the aircraft for undetermined reasons.” The TSB identified as a possible factor an increased risk of incapacitation due to hypoxia, a condition in which the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply. This can happen following depressurization when aircraft operate more than 13,000 feet above sea level without an available oxygen supply.

HOSPITAL PATIENT ASSAULTS NURSES SAINT JOHN — The New Brunswick Nurses Union (NBNU) is

calling for action against continued violence against workers in the healthcare sector, following an incident at the Saint John Regional Hospital. On January 13, a patient assaulted several employees of the facility during an altercation in the hospital’s neurointensive care unit. Three registered nurses required treatment in the emergency room following the attack. The incident triggered a public response from the NBNU, which had already confronted Horizon Health — the organization that runs the hospital — about violence and security issues in the past. “It has been a bit of an ongoing issue at the Saint John Regional Hospital in particular,” says NBNU president Marilyn Quinn. “We’ve had concerns around their protocols

and policies in terms of their response teams, the education for people on it, the debriefings, all sorts of things.” Quinn stresses that violence against nurses is a problem that has been underreported and has not been taken seriously. More than 30 per cent of registered nurses in New Brunswick have suffered physical abuse at work, and nearly 42 per cent have undergone emotional abuse, Statistics Canada reports. “What we’re trying to alert nurses to is that this behaviour is unacceptable. And employers have an onus to provide a safe environment, not just for the patients we care for, but also for the staff that looks after them,” says Quinn, adding that the blame for incidents should not be placed on nurses. “This isn’t caused because somebody didn’t talk to somebody nicely.” A source with Horizon says it is planning a post-analysis to review the hospital’s security procedures and processes. Quinn adds that she plans to meet with the senior executive of Horizon to inquire about the incident. The NBNU wants to know whether the hospital was following proper safety policies, why police were not called, whether the injured nurses had the opportunity to press charges and if the patient had been screened properly for potential risk. At present, New Brunswick and Quebec are the only provinces that do not have any specific legislation relating to workplace violence.

FIRM CHARGED FOR WORKER FATALITY CAPE FREELS — Ocean Choice International Inc. has been charged with workplace safety violations in relation to the death of a worker in February of 2012. Service NL announced the charges on January 24 in relation to the incident, which had occurred aboard the fishing vessel Katsheshuk II while en route to Bay Roberts. A worker was killed while exiting a shrimp holding tank on the factory deck of the vessel after inspecting the tank. The company has been charged with eight violations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and Regulations — violations that relate generally to its failure to provide a safe workplace and to provide training and supervision. The company has also been charged with failing to ensure that powered equipment had controls positioned to prevent inadvertent activation and to ensure machinery was locked out prior to maintenance being conducted, among others.

MANAGER LATEST SIGNATORY TO CHARTER ST. JOHN’S — Glen Skinner, the general manager of Pipers Department Stores, has been inducted into the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission of (WHSCC) Newfoundland and Labrador’s CEO Safety Charter. The charter’s mandate is to support the continuous improvement of health and safety in workplaces throughout the province. “Pipers has a safety-conscious team of employees who have initiated proactive and creative ways to promote health and safety within their workplaces,” WHSCC chair Ralph Tucker said in a statement. “Business leaders throughout Newfoundland and Labrador are well-positioned to be ambassadors for healthier and safer workplaces.” Skinner is the 56th business leader since 2007 to become a signatory to the charter.

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NOVA SCOTIA TO CHANGE SAFETY-PENALTY SYSTEM HALIFAX — The government of Nova Scotia has announced

pending amendments to the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, with the goal of making the administrativepenalty system fairer. The changes, introduced last December by Nova Scotia’s Minister of Labour and Advanced Education Kelly Regan, will take effect in 2014. Among the changes: the money collected from fines for safety offences will now go straight into a fund that supports workplace safety initiatives; the Labour Board of Nova Scotia will hear all appeal cases, including compliance orders and administrative penalties; and new regulations involving serious infractions, repeat offenders and safety education in the workplace will be in place. There are also plans to hire more safety inspectors, improve the documenting and following-up of compliance orders and ensure that officers inspect high-risk workplaces. “Nova Scotians said loud and clear they want specific changes to the administrative-penalty system, to target serious infractions and repeat offenders and to make the system more consistent and fair,” says Christine Penney, senior executive director of safety with the province’s Department of Labour and Advanced Education. “We listened and we’re making these changes.” Penney adds that the public is especially concerned with how penalties are appealed and how funds from infraction fines are being spent. She calls the bill “a first step in rolling out the new administrative-penalty system. Regulations in [2014] will focus on the most serious infractions, repeat offenders and workplace safety education.” According to information from the provincial government,

its intention is to direct money from fines into the OHS Public Education Trust Fund. Money from fines previously went into general government revenue, with no guarantee that it would support safety initiatives. In the province’s current system, the labour board hears all appeals for administrative penalties, but the executive director for occupational health and safety reviews appeals for safety compliance orders and sends them to the labour board only if deemed necessary. Sending all appeals straight to the labour board is expected to make the process simpler and lead to consistent decisions. Stewart Franck, executive director of the Fisheries Safety Association of Nova Scotia, feels that the changes are a definite improvement, but argues that more needs to be done regarding the province’s fishery industry. “The system that was in place there [for] a few years really tied the hands of the inspectors and practically removed their ability to have some consultation with the workplace parties to improve things,” Franck says. “Wherever there was an order that was written, it often — not always, but often — resulted in an administrative penalty.” Franck adds that the previous approach did not always result in justified penalties. “I think we need to educate our officers, especially in workplaces that aren’t necessarily familiar,” Franck says, referring to the fishery sector. The changes result from a review of the administrativepenalty system that the government launched in February of 2013, following numerous complaints from employers that fines were being issued inconsistently. — By Jeff Cottrill

Pipers, which has 163 employees, operates five department stores across Newfoundland in St. John’s, Mount Pearl and Conception Bay South.

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ST. JOHN’S — A statutory review com-

mittee for the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission of Newfoundland and Labrador has concluded its examination of the provincial workers’ compensation system. The committee submitted its report to government in January, Minister of Service NL Dan Crummell said in a press statement. He added that they would review its contents shortly. During the consultation process, opportunities for public and stakeholder participation were made available through 15 consultations in 13 communities. The consultations were guided by various themes, including: maximum compensable assessable earnings, financial sustainability, labour market re-

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DISPATCHES

Research shows caffeine may improve memory By Carmelle Wolfson

hether typing away at a computer or lifting heavy loads at a warehouse, for many Canadians, starting the morning with a hot cup of coffee or tea is a ritual essential to the work routine. According to the United States Food and Drug Administration, 90 per cent of people worldwide consume caffeine, a drug wellknown for its energy-enhancing qualities. While the caffeine in coffee and tea gets us going in the wee hours, many may not realize that it also has the ability to enhance our recollection of certain information. Research coming out of Johns Hopkins University, recently published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, has found that caffeine can enhance memories up to 24 hours after it has been consumed. “We report for the first time a specific effect of caffeine on reducing forgetting over 24 hours,” says Michael Yassa, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University and a senior author of the paper. “We’ve always known that caffeine has cognitive-enhancing effects, but its particular effects on strengthening memories and making them resistant to forgetting has never been examined in detail in humans,” explains Yassa. In the double-blind trial, participants who did not regularly consume caffeine received either a placebo or a 200-milligram caffeine tablet — roughly the same amount found in one strong cup of coffee or two small cups — five minutes after studying a series of images. The following day, both groups were tested on their ability to recognize images from the previous day’s session. More members of the caffeine group were able to correctly identify new images that closely resembled the previous day’s sampling as “similar” to those images, versus incorrectly attributing them as the same. Researchers say the brain’s ability to distinguish between two similar but not identical items suggests a deeper level of memory retention. “If we used a standard recognition memory task without these tricky similar items, we would have found no effect of caffeine,” Yassa says. “However, using these items requires the brain to make a more difficult discrimination — what we call pattern separation, which seems to be

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the process that is enhanced by caffeine in our case.” Until the release of this study, caffeine’s effects on longterm memory had not been examined in detail. Of the few studies done, evidence suggested that caffeine had little or no effect on long-term memory retention. The Johns Hopkins research differs from prior studies related to caffeine’s effect on memory retention in that the tablets were given to participants after — not prior to — viewing the images. “Almost all prior studies administered caffeine before the study session, so if there is an enhancement, it’s not clear if it’s due to caffeine’s effects on attention, vigilance, focus or other factors,” Yassa says. “By administering caffeine after the experiment, we rule out all of these effects and make sure that if there is an enhancement, it’s due to memory and nothing else.” He adds that the next step is to figure out the brain mechanisms underlying this enhancement. “We can use brain-imaging techniques to address these questions. We also know that caffeine is associated with healthy longevity and may have some protective effects from cognitive decline like Alzheimer’s disease,” Yassa notes. Carmelle Wolfson is assistant editor of

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Older firefighters adapt better to heat stress: study By Jason Contant

lder firefighters may show signs of long-term heat adaptation due to repeated occupational heat stress exposure, suggests a recent study. The study, published in the December issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, found that older firefighters may be able to tolerate more challenging or arduous work environments before they feel affected by the heat, compared to non-heat-exposed workers who would need to stop work prematurely. “We found that the firefighters experienced reduced subjective feelings of thermal and cardiovascular strain during exercise compared to the non-firefighters, potentially indicative of greater heat resilience in firefighters due to the nature of their occupation,” study author Glen Kenny a professor at

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the School of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa said in a January 8 press release from the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) in Falls Church, Virginia. The researchers examined a group of older, physically active non-firefighters and firefighters from the Ottawa Fire Services — with an average of about 24 years of service and average age of 51 years old — during intermittent exercise in two heat stress conditions to investigate the potential thermal, cardiovascular and hydration effects of repeated occupational heat stress. While the researchers found no differences in the level of thermal and cardiovascular strain between older heat-exposed firefighters and non-heat-exposed older workers, the non-exposed workers felt more heat stressed relative to the older firefighters and felt that the work performed was physically more challenging. “If you have older workers who work in the heat, they are in a better position to handle working in the heat as compared to their non-heat-exposed counterparts,” Kenny said. “If they can better handle the heat stress, they can better perform challenging tasks without putting themselves at greater [risk of injury] caused by impairments in mental function, alertness, concentration, motor dexterity and coordination.” In particular, the study noted that the firefighters reported reduced perpetual strain during exercise in two heat stress conditions. “Given that heat acclimation reduces perceived exertion, and in particular when protective clothing is worn where the discomfort of wet skin increases, it appears that the repeated exposures of the firefighters in the current study to occupational heat stress, while wearing their full protective firefighting gear, provided some adaptive benefits,” the study concluded. Prior to this study, physiological strain had been examined in young and middle-aged firefighters during live firefighting and simulated drills, but the responses of older and more experienced firefighters had not been investigated. “Our discovery is especially important given recent findings that aging can decrease an individual’s ability to dissipate heat and therefore work in hot environments,” Kenny said. Jason Contant is managing editor of

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Survey examines effects of domestic violence at work By Jeff Cottrill

he Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) is collaborating with the University of Western Ontario’s Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children (CREVAWC) to examine the effects of domestic violence on Canadian workers and workplaces.

Inspired by a similar project previously undertaken by the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse at the University of New South Wales, the anonymous nationwide online survey, Domestic Violence in the Canadian Workplace, is open to all workers more than 15 years old in Canada, regardless of whether they have experienced or witnessed domestic violence in their lives. “We know that it has quite a profound effect,” Barb MacQuarrie, the CREVAWC’s community director, says about how domestic violence affects work, based on past research. “We have a whole range of impacts. We have impacts on the victim, we have impacts on the co-workers and we have impacts on the whole work environment. If you want to break them down into big categories, you have safety concerns and you have productivity concerns.” In addition to the standard questions about age range, gender and ethnicity, the survey asks whether respondents have experienced domestic violence from a romantic partner; have experienced domestic violence in the workplace through abusive e-mails or phone calls or stalking; or have recognized warning signs that a co-worker may be experiencing domestic violence. It also inquires as to whether the respondent has seen certain warning signs that a co-worker may have been a perpetrator. “There’s an impasse of not just having a victim in the workplace, but also having an offender in the workplace,” MacQuarrie adds. She cites a recent study out of the United States, which indicates that about 80 per cent of offenders contact their partners or ex-partners while at work. “So they’re using workers’ resources to abuse, whether it’s time, communication networks or company vehicles. We have workplace resources going towards this activity of harassing and intimidating partners,” she contends. According to CLC executive vice-president Barbara Byers, the Australian survey has led to changes in that country’s work legislation, including special paid leave for people with medical, legal, psychological or family difficulties connected to domestic violence. “What comes out of our survey is going to really help direct our work,” Byers says, citing changes to collective bargaining and legislative reforms that would protect non-unionized workers. “We’re not looking just to changes in unionized workplaces; we want to be sure every worker has protections when they’re dealing with domestic violence.” The survey, which became active on December 3, garnered about 850 responses before its official launch two days later. “We want to get a full response from as many workers as possible, in as many workplaces as possible,” Byers says. The Canadian survey — the first of its kind in the country — will be open until June 6, after which the CREVAWC will tabulate the results and, in partnership with the CLC, use them to lobby for legislative changes. www.ohscanada.com

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MacQuarrie notes that Ontario and Manitoba are the only provinces with legislation that makes employers responsible for protecting and supporting employees who are victims. “We need that legislation across the board, and the legislation we do have needs to be strengthened as well.” Jeff Cottrill is editorial assistant of

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Alberta introduces compassionate care leave By Jason Contant

lberta workers are now eligible to take up to eight weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave from work to care for a gravely ill family member. Part 2, Division 7.2 of the Employment Standards Code, which took effect February 1, sets out the rules for compassionate care leave. It allows workers to care for a family member with a serious medical condition who is at significant risk of death. Although the leave is unpaid, six weeks of Employment Insurance benefits are available to some employees, said a statement from the Alberta Ministry of Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour. Background information from the ministry says that in order to qualify, employees must have worked at least 52 weeks for their employer and provide their employer with a certificate signed by the attending physician regarding the grave condition of the family member and his or her need for care. The employee can be either fulltime or part-time and the leave may be split into two sections, although a leave must be at least one week long. If the worker has taken compassionate care leave within the 26-week window established by the physician’s medical certificate and the family member does not die, but is still gravely ill and requires the care or support of the employee, the worker may take another compassionate care leave within the next 26-week window, the background information said. “No one’s job should be in jeopardy when they take time off work to care for a loved one,” Minister of Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour Thomas Lukaszuk said in a statement. “Compassionate care leave supports families when they’re at their most vulnerable.” The definition of a “family member” includes: spouses, common-law partners or adult interdependent partners; children or step-children; parents or step-parents; fatheror mother-in-laws; grandparents or step-grandparents; and

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uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces. Provisions for leave were brought about by the passage of Bill 203: Employment Standards (Compassionate Care Leave) Amendment Act, 2012, introduced two years ago and passed in May of last year. Matt Jeneroux, the MLA for EdmontonSouth West who brought forward the bill, says he is pleased that compassionate care leave is now available for Albertans. “This type of leave legislation really makes sense,” Jeneroux says, adding that there was unanimous support for the bill throughout all its stages. “It was humbling.” Bonnie Ross, day program manager at Pilgrims Hospice Society in Edmonton, adds that the bill is “important because it encompasses the philosophy of hospice.”

Link between unemployment and death, study suggests By Jeff Cottrill

ecent research from the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) in Toronto suggests a link between unemployment and mortality. Specifically, the study found that people who lose their jobs are more likely to die of certain causes within the succeeding decade. Mortality following unemployment in Canada, 1991-2001 — published in the May issue of BMC Public Health and summarized in the Fall 2013 issue of the IWH’s quarterly newsletter, At Work — was based on data involving a sample of 1.6 million Canadian adults observed over a period of 11 years. The sample consisted of people who were between the ages of 30 and 69 in 1991 — a year of notably high unemployment in Canada — and who had worked for at least one week that year. Nearly seven per cent of the sample, or about 111,000 people, were unemployed at the time that year’s long-form census was conducted. “Consistent with results reported from other long-duration cohort studies, unemployed men and women in this cohort had an elevated risk of mortality for accidents and violence, as well as for chronic diseases,” the study says. “The persistence of elevated mortality risks over two consecutive multi-year periods suggests that exposure to unemployment in 1991 may have marked persons at risk of cumulative socioeconomic hardship.” The institute’s research team, led by IWH president Dr. Cameron Mustard, examined the death records of sample members who had passed away between June 4, 1991 and December 31, 2001, while contrasting the mortality rates between the subjects who had been employed in 1991 and those who had not.

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Results showed that the unemployed subjects had higher mortality rates than the employed ones, even when divided into categories by cause of death. The outcome was especially true for alcohol-related disease, from which the unemployed subjects were twice as likely to have died as the employed subjects were. The study measured similar statistics for respiratory diseases, which accounted for a 40 per cent higher mortality rate with unemployed men and 60 per cent higher for unemployed women, and circulatory diseases, which accounted for 20 and 40 per cent higher mortality rates for unemployed men and women respectively. Malignant neoplasms, accidents, violence and other causes of death were also measured. The study also examines the sample in terms of age ranges, specifically 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. “The study’s third hypothesis, that there would be no difference by age in the relative risk of mortality among the unemployed, was clearly rejected,” the study concludes.

Ontario launches blitz of construction projects By Jason Contant

ntario has launched a province-wide safety blitz of construction projects at commercial and industrial facilities to ensure that protections are in place to keep workers safe. Throughout January, Ministry of Labour (MOL) inspectors examined a range of workplaces undergoing major renovations, repairs or additions. The MOL said in a statement that inspectors were ensuring that workers were protected from airborne substances, hazardous materials and extreme noise levels. “Workers can be exposed to construction hazards created by high noise levels, construction traffic and dangerous substances such as asbestos, lead and silica,” George Gritziotis, the province’s chief prevention officer, said in the statement. “We’re working to improve the health and safety of workers in Ontario.” Other hazards include: slips, trips or falls due to debris or uneven walking surfaces; excavated materials or other objects falling on workers; mishandled or poorly-placed materials; hazardous atmospheres, such as those containing noxious gases or a lack of oxygen; electrical-cord hazards; toxic, irritating, flammable and explosive gases; incidents involving vehicles and other mobile equipment; blocked access and egress routes; or unsafe use

of propane heaters. A backgrounder from the labour ministry notes that inspectors would focus on the following areas during the blitz: • Noise exposure: Ensuring that constructors and employers are taking appropriate precautions to maintain noise within permissible levels; • Airborne substance exposure: Checking that construction workers and employers are taking precautions to protect workers from exposure to airborne substances created by activities such as cutting, grinding and polishing materials; • Hazardous materials/designated substances: Checking that the Regulations for the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System are being followed when controlled products are used; • Storage and movement of equipment and material: Checking that workers and employers are protecting other workers when equipment and materials are stored and moved; • Personal protective equipment (PPE): Checking on the availability of PPE and that workers have been trained on its use and limitations; and • Administrative issues: Ensuring that emergency contingency plans are in place and that those plans have been communicated to workers. In particular, the backgrounder says, inspectors would target workplaces where major construction projects were taking place and those not previously visited by the MOL, where complaints had been received, where there was a history of non-compliance, and those that had submitted a Notice of Project to the ministry.

Supreme Court strikes down sex work laws By Carmelle Wolfson

overnment officials and sex workers are formulating their responses to a landmark Supreme Court decision that has found three legal provisions surrounding sex work in Canada’s Criminal Code to be unconstitutional. The judgment, made on December 20, gives legislators a year to decide whether to decriminalize prostitution or draft new laws that would not infringe on sex workers’ rights as protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The ruling in the case of Attorney General of Canada versus sex workers Terri Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott strikes down three laws in the Criminal Code of Canada, which were found to violate the right to security of the person. These provisions prohibit keeping or being found in a bawdy house (section 210), living on the avails of prostitution (section 212(1)(j)) and communicating in public for the purpose of prostitution (section 213(1)(c)). Jen La Fauci Gordon, co-chair of the Bad Date Coalition in Toronto says laws criminalizing prostitution put www.ohscanada.com

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sex workers in danger. “I saw too many people who didn’t get to make it to see this day, and a lot of it has to do with the laws,” she says, referring to sex workers who have been murdered. “Obviously, there’s always going to be risks when you’re dealing with other people. But at least we know that we have the law behind us now,” La Fauci Gordon says. “That’s a huge weight off when just going to work means that you can get killed. It’s a ridiculous price to pay just to pay your rent.” Doing away with current legislation would allow sex workers to work in the safety of their homes or other controlled environments as well as hire drivers, receptionists and people to screen clients, say sex workers. The biggest safety issue for sex workers, is section 213(1)(c) of the Criminal Code, says La Fauci Gordon, which forbids communicating in public for the purpose of sex work. She adds that striking down this provision allows street workers more time to suss out potential clients for their own protection. The laws will continue to be in effect for another year. Minister of Justice Peter MacKay says the government is considering how to address the matter. “We are reviewing the decision and are exploring all possible options to ensure the criminal law continues to address the significant harms that flow from prostitution to communities, those engaged in prostitution, and vulnerable persons. We are committed to the safety of all Canadians and the well-being of our communities,” MacKay said in a statement. He added that other provisions remain in place to protect those engaged in prostitution and to address the negative effects the trade has on communities. In the meantime, sex workers are celebrating the decision. “It’s a decisive win for safety, justice and equality for sex workers here and around the world,” said Chanelle Gallant, communications coordinator at Maggie’s: Toronto Sex Workers Action Project, at a press conference held in Toronto the day that the judgment was announced. In the unanimous decision written by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, the court said the prohibitions at issue heighten the risks posed to sex workers. “They do not merely impose conditions on how prostitutes operate. They go a critical step further, by imposing dangerous conditions on prostitution; they prevent people engaged in a risky — but legal — activity from taking steps to protect themselves from the risk,” she wrote. Sex worker advocacy groups claim that following the court ruling, more than 300 sex workers across the country have been targeted by police officers posing as clients. This has driven the trade further underground and away from safety, they say.

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Two-person armoured car crews deemed unsafe By Jason Contant

wo federal health and safety officers have ordered armoured vehicle company Brink’s Canada Limited to correct a hazard associated with two-person crews. The first ruling, delivered on January 22, followed a work refusal by a Brink’s messenger in Peterborough, Ontario in November. The 14-year employee refused to carry cash to and from an automated teller machine (ATM) without a guard, arguing that it was unsafe for him to carry the money alone while the other crew member stayed in the truck, said a statement from Unifor, which represents about 2,000 workers in the armoured car industry. Previously, cash deliveries or pick-ups involving a “one-off crew” — in which one member is outside the truck — would be conducted by three-person crews, with one person acting as a guard. “The diminished ability of a ‘one-off ’ crew to monitor for the risk or exposure to the known hazard of assault and injury during a robbery attempt while servicing front-loading ATM machines and during travel to and from the truck constitutes a danger,” wrote safety officer Bob Tomlin in his decision. Two days after Tomlin’s ruling, another officer, Michael O’Donnell issued an almost identical decision in connection with another work refusal in Sudbury, Ontario. Brink’s has been ordered to take measures to correct the hazard immediately, provide a copy of a written response to the occupational health and safety committee and post the ruling in the workplace. “Although the driver was able to park in the most desirable location at this store, his ability to monitor for suspicious activity and potential threat was restricted to the exterior of the building,” Tomlin wrote. “It is not always possible to get the best parking location that would afford optimum sight lines for the driver.” Unifor has requested a meeting with Steven Blaney, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, to discuss two-person crews as well as to press for a taskforce to undertake comprehensive policy research, gather stakeholders’ views and develop recommendations and legislative guidance to address outdated regulations. “There’s a patchwork of regulations across the country,” says Unifor national representative Mike Armstrong, noting that there are federal regulations dealing with firearms licensing and authorization to carry, but provincial legislation for business licensing, vehicle safety and drivers’ licences. Armstrong adds that there are no regulations on the length of training for personnel or the crew size. “The armoured car company itself must be licensed and registered, but only in certain provinces, so anybody can start an armoured car company.”

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TRANSPORTATION OF DANGEROUS GOODS

off the o o R AoI L S BY JEFF COTTRILL

It was Canada’s worst rail disaster in more than a century. In the early morning hours of July 6, 2013, a 72-car freight train derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic, a small town in southern Quebec with a population of about 6,000. The train, owned by American company Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA), had been carrying petroleum crude oil from North Dakota towards the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. At about 12:56 a.m., the unattended train broke loose and began to roll downhill towards Lac-Mégantic before derailing on a sharp curve. An estimated 47 people were killed, with at least 30 buildings destroyed.

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.A. Ash, Toronto-based head of the dangerous-goods team with the Railway Association of Canada (RAC) in Ottawa, witnessed much of the aftermath while visiting Lac-Mégantic for 15 days following the disaster. “I’ve been in the railway business for over 35 years and I’ve been responding to dangerous-goods incidents for 25 years,” Ash says. “I’ve never seen one with that many fatalities.” Quebec’s environment department estimated that of the 7.6 million litres of crude oil that the train had been carrying, nearly six million litres had spilled or burned in the disaster. Some crude contaminated the local sewer system, while 100,000 litres spilled into the nearby Chaudière River and other oil landed as far as 120 kilometres away. Raynald Marchand, general manager of the Canada Safety Council in Ottawa, believes that the disaster was due to a combination of several factors connected to security failure. Among the details that have come out: the cargo was improperly labelled; the train employed only one crew member — the locomotive engineer; the engineer retired to a hotel for the night, leaving the train unattended on a hill in nearby Nantes with the engine running; and an insufficient amount of hand brakes were applied during the stop. “And when that failed,” Marchand says in reference to the train’s security, “the inevitable came along.”

PACKING HEAT While the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is still investigating the incident, it has already issued several safety-advisory letters. As early as July 19, 2013, the TSB sent a letter to Transport Canada (TC) asking that the government review railway operating procedures to ensure that trains carrying dangerous goods were not left unattended on main tracks. Last September, the TSB sent letters to TC and the United States Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, asking them to review how suppliers documented the hazardous qualities of the goods they moved. The oil on the Lac-Mégantic train was documented as being far less dangerous than it was. Test results revealed that the crude had been a Packing Group II product, meaning that it had an initial boiling point above 35°C at an absolute pressure of 101.3 kilopascals and a flash point lower than 23°C — equivalent to the danger of gasoline. Nonetheless, it was labelled as Packing Group III, a classification for less flammable material. “The lower flash point of the crude oil explains in part why it ignited so quickly,” the TSB concluded in a statement issued on September 11. A railway safety inspector with Canadian Pacific (CP), who has asked not to be identified due to a “conflict”, clarifies that the Packing Groups are not actually packaged differently; they are merely identified and distinguished by label. “The numbers on the placard tell you what the flammable content is inside the car,” the inspector says. The TSB also notes that a broken piston in the train’s engine may have caused unburned fuel to spill into the engine, which would have created sparks and smoke that could have triggered the initial fire less than 90 minutes earlier. Before the derailment in Lac-Mégantic, the train had caught fire during 28

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the stop in Nantes. The fire was extinguished at around midnight — about 10 minutes after it had been reported to the rail-traffic controller. Further investigation suggests that the applied force of the hand brakes — backups for the air brakes — was insufficient for a train parked on a slope on a 1.2 per cent descent, causing the locomotive to roll down towards Lac-Mégantic. According to safety guidelines, the attendant should have activated 40 per cent of the train’s hand brakes on five locomotives and 11 tank cars. In Canada, the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act of 1992 regulates the shipment of oil and other flammable materials. Under the Act, TC is expected to inspect rail companies on a regular basis. Other requirements include proper documentation, safety marks and sufficient reporting and training. Aside from safety requirements and standards, the Act also deals with emergency-response plans, means of containment and monitoring compliance. “Oil and gas are routinely shipped safely across the country every day,” says federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt from Parliament Hill. “If regulations are not followed, we will not hesitate to take whatever course of action is available to us.” Raitt responded to the disaster last October by ordering all importers to conduct hazard-classification tests on any petroleum crude oils or flammable liquids that had not undergone such testing since July 7. The ministry also issued directives for the rail industry with new rules regarding supervision, security and brake use on trains carrying dangerous goods. “We are also examining whether we need further measures to strengthen rail safety and the transportation of dangerous goods,” Raitt adds. FULL SPEED AHEAD But federal Opposition Transport Critic Olivia Chow is not satisfied with the government’s efforts to keep people safe from rail accidents. “Transport Canada lacks a consistent approach to planning and implementing compliance activities to make sure railways are following regulations,” Chow says from Ottawa. “Worse still, where problems were discovered, 73 per cent of the time, Transport Canada did not follow up to see if the problems were fixed. This is incompetent public administration that is putting the public in danger.” Statistics Canada notes that the amount of crude oil travelling on Canadian railways has increased enormously over the past few years. About 68,000 carloads of fuel oils and crude petroleum were transported by rail in Canada in 2011; that figure leaped to 115,000 carloads in 2012. In 2013, Canadian railways moved 160,000 carloads. There were 118 rail accidents involving dangerous goods in 2011 and 2012 each — down from a five-year average of 147, the TSB reports. “The federal government has not adapted its safety programs to deal with this rapid change in our transportation system,” contends Chow. “We know the government is not doing enough, because they are cutting transport regulatory oversight by $6.7 million.” Nonetheless, Raitt maintains that the government’s top priority is the Canadian public’s health and safety. “Transport

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Canada is moving forward to further enhance the safety of railway operations and dangerous-goods transportation in Canada,” she says. REGULATION DERAILED? One of the most enlightening responses to the Lac-Mégantic tragedy is an October of 2013 report by Bruce Campbell, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Ottawa. Campbell’s report, The Lac-Mégantic Disaster: Where Does the Buck Stop?, charges that government deregulation has made the rail industry unsafe. Rail companies have jumped to meet the enormous demand for oil transportation due to the shortage of pipelines, but have been trusted to regulate themselves on safety — and have failed to do so because the bottom line has taken higher priority. According to the report, MMA — an independent entity in the United States that already had a poor safety record — took advantage of lax Canadian regulations. “Ultimately, it’s a flawed regulatory regime and it’s the selfregulation aspect to it that is the root cause of it,” says Campbell. “If we’re going to really address the problem, what I would call for, fundamentally, is for Transport Canada to take back regulatory authority that it has ceded to the corporations.” It is a pattern that Campbell claims has been going on for about 25 years. Most significantly, changes to the Railway Safety Act in 2001 allowed rail companies to implement their own standards, or Safety Management Systems. Then in 2012, the Cabinet Directive on Regulatory Management (CDRM) added new barriers against federal regulation. According to the CDRM, departments and agencies must repeal one regulation for every new one that causes “red tape”, or administrative burdens on corporations. In addition, regulations are expected to accomplish their objectives while imposing the lowest possible costs to businesses. As a result, companies have been cutting corners to reduce costs at the expense of safety. Before the Lac-Mégantic incident took place, crews on hazardous trains were reduced, insufficient tank cars were used to transport crude and brake rules were left vague. The government’s Transportation of Dangerous Goods Directorate is supplying 35 railway safety inspectors, or one for every 4,000 tank carloads of oil moved by rail each year. The department’s budget of $13 million is inadequate for the massive increase in crude transported via rail over the past five years — an increase from close to zero to nearly 275,000 barrels per day, Campbell’s report notes. Campbell says this negligence has stemmed from the contradictory responsibilities of government and the private sector. “Ultimately, it’s the government’s responsibility to protect the public, and the first obligation of the company is to maximize value for the shareholders,” he argues. When the government cedes its responsibility to big business, “the companies are always going to lean towards their costs of production,” Campbell adds. “Was it a reasonable measure for Transport Canada to allow MMA to operate a train like that, one of these mega oil trains with, in this case, 72 cars and tonnes of product, with one engineer? Or to allow it to park on the main track, un-

locked and unattended? Until Lac-Mégantic, they were allowed to do that,” Campbell says. As the Toronto-based director of the rail division at UNIFOR, Canada’s largest private-sector union, Brian Stevens agrees that this hands-off approach poses a security problem. “Can you imagine if the aviation industry was run in the same way as the rail industry?” he says. “We leave it to the employers or the railways themselves to regulate, and they’ll create a nice report on an annual basis and send it off to the regulators and say, ‘Hey, listen, we’re doing our job.’” Stevens adds that railway safety inspectors — whose role is to monitor and promote regulatory compliance in all aspects of the rail industry through audits and inspections, as well as provide education and awareness of safety — are not working as effectively as they could be. “The federal government said there are as many inspectors today as there were 10 years ago,” he notes. “But it seems like they’re spending more time dealing with regulatory submissions and paperwork, as opposed to doing blitzes out in the field. And they’re relying on the good graces of the railways themselves to do what they say they’re supposed to be doing.” The source at CP who did not want to be identified affirms TC’s shortage of safety inspectors. “You only have two inspectors in all of Ontario,” he says, citing that the government claims this is due to financial constraints. “I know that for a fact, because I applied there a few years back and they told us outright that the reason why they didn’t hire anybody on is because there’s a shortage of funds.” He claims TC inspectors have “been kicked off properties for going and doing their jobs.” WEAR AND TEAR One problem that Campbell highlights in his report is the inadequacy of the tanker cars being used to carry bitumen. It has been known since the early 1990s that the CTC-111A car, also known as DOT-111 in the United States — an allpurpose car with a single steel shell — has a tendency to puncture during derailments. Although the United States National Transportation Safety Board introduced CTC-111A design modifications in October of 2011, including thicker heads and shells, normalwww.ohscanada.com

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ized steel, head shields half-an-inch thick and top-fitting protection, 80 per cent of Canada’s tanker fleet still consists of older CTC-111A cars, which comprised all of the carriers in the train that derailed in Lac-Mégantic. “Transport Canada was really quite complacent about the threat,” Campbell suggests, citing internal TC memos. “We’re learning that the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Directorate didn’t consider oil to be a dangerous good.” He adds that there are no regulations in place to upgrade any of the older tank cars. “The life of those cars is about 40 years, so at the current rate, it’s going to take ages for that fleet to be replaced.” Stevens points out that an appropriate tank car, which would have the capacity to handle such volatile fuel, has not yet been constructed. “The industry knows that, the shippers know that, the regulators know that, the lawmakers know that, but no one’s pushing the manufacturers to make sure we get enough cars,” he charges. More recently, CTC-111A cars were involved in another accident in New Brunswick. On January 7, a train carrying crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas to Saint John derailed in Plaster Rock, causing a fire and forcing an evacuation of 150 nearby residents. A second train also derailed in New Brunswick later that month. But industry is dragging its feet on the issue of replacing the cars — a costly endeavour. “How many millions of miles have we put on these things over the years without incident?” Ash says. “If we thought these things were unsafe, we wouldn’t have moved them. And that comes from experience. And we’re more than willing to work with everybody to make them even safer.” PIPELINES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES Another view is that rail simply is not a safe way to ship crude. A recent study by right-wing think tank The Fraser Institute, entitled Intermodal Safety in the Transport of Oil, suggests that disasters like the Lac-Mégantic derailment are 30

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less likely when crude is moved via pipeline. The study examined oil spills in North America over the past 20 years and concluded that pipeline transport is statistically safer than rail shipment, when one takes into account the average number of incidents and injuries per billion tonnes of petroleum shipped per mile each year, as well as the number of fatalities for each mode. “There’s no risk-free option involved with regard to moving goods,” says Dr. Kenneth Green, PhD, the institute’s senior director of natural resources in Calgary who co-wrote the study with Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute. “But some are riskier than others.” Dr. Green concedes that the vast majority of oil shipments reach their destinations without incident, regardless of method. But he stresses that with pipelines, “you move the product without moving the container, whereas for trains, you have many moving containers that are large, heavy and dangerous.” Rail transport, Dr. Green says, has a far greater range for human error. “Rail lines, by intent, connect up population centres, which means your exposure to people is higher. The train cars carrying bitumen on the rails with other goods interacts with other surface transport, so you have much more opportunity for accidents.” The RAC counters that 99.997 per cent of dangerous goods shipped by rail reach their destinations without any safety problems. But what about the other 0.003 per cent that do not? “It’s a valid question,” Ash admits. Nonetheless, Ash maintains that rail transport is safe. “We took this incident personally, because we do work hard in the railway industry to ensure everything is running safely,” he explains. “We work hard with the regulators as far as developing regulations. We work hard with the car builders to make these tank cars. We work hard with our employees as far as doing safety audits and inspections and training. And not only that, we work with the first responders.” MUNICIPAL MATTERS Aside from affecting the companies responsible for derailments of locomotives carrying dangerous goods, these accidents can have catastrophic effects on industries in surrounding communities as well. “In addition to the tragic loss of life, homes and businesses,” Chow says, “agricultural land becomes unusable, drinking water sources are threatened, regional tourism is affected and important rail supply chains are interrupted. All of these problems can be avoided when we have an effective, strong regulatory process in place that prevents disasters before they occur.” Chow adds that municipalities need to be pre-warned of the extent and frequency of dangerous goods passing through their borders. “We need to ensure that all rail companies have adequate insurance, so that when tragedies do arise, those who are directly affected have the appropriate compensation.” Since the catastrophe in Lac-Mégantic, the government is waking up to these issues. On November

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20, 2013 — more than four months after the derailment — Raitt introduced a protective directive decreeing that everyone who transports dangerous goods by rail must disclose information to the municipalities through which they travel. All transporters of dangerous goods must provide yearly aggregate information on the nature and volume of the transported goods to the designated emergency planning officials of the relevant municipalities and also provide TC with full contact information of those who deal with the municipalities’ Emergency Planning Officials, via the Canadian Transport Emergency Centre. MAKING IT BETTER Apart from beefing up regulations on the transportation of dangerous goods, how else can disasters like Lac-Mégantic be averted in future? Marchand suggests investing in technology, such as Positive Train Control (PTC), aimed at preventing accidents rather than responding to them after they occur. The PTC system monitors and controls train movement to avoid collisions, enforce speed restrictions and protect rail workers at wayside locations — “particularly for passenger trains, where the speed of the track is enforced automatically if the conductor doesn’t react to the requirement for that speed,” he says. Marchand also stresses regular maintenance as an important factor in rail safety, especially when it comes to keeping tracks and brakes in a good state of repair. “The safety system

is to avoid the crash in the first place. That’s what it’s all about, and that’s where the railway needs to go.” Another possible solution is to upgrade the rail system itself. “The rail infrastructure in some cases is old and degraded,” Dr. Green says. “Some of the older cars are more prone to accidents and derailing and might need to be upgraded.” Ash recognizes that once the TSB publicizes its report and makes recommendations, stakeholders involved in the transportation of dangerous goods will need to kick things into gear and make significant changes. “Talk is cheap, but we have to put things into action,” Ash says. “I can see we’re going to be doing some more work in the future. We’re constantly out there, and we constantly want to improve on safety.” This will be possible only if the rail industry is willing to be subject to external regulations and, in cooperation with the government, make safety a top priority. “Transport Canada needs to show transparency and disclose who they are inspecting, how often and how they will make sure that companies are complying with laws,” says Chow, adding that the government should conduct a review to determine how to improve the system of self-regulation. “Victims and taxpayers should not be left with the bill when companies cut corners to drive up profits.” Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Jeff Cottrill is editorial assistant of

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Safety First? The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) announced in Ottawa on January 23 three recommendations for rail companies shipping dangerous goods, which the TSB, in partnership with the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States, want to see put into effect immediately. The following three measures were recommended: • Tougher standards for Class 111 tank cars, including older ones: All containers carrying flammable liquids must have enhanced protection, and the gradual phase-out of unprotected older cars is not good enough; • Better route planning for dangerous goods: Railways must choose routes more carefully, noting what lies along the current routes as well as alternate, less risky routes; and • Emergency response assistance plans: Resources must always be in place to minimize the consequences of a spill of dangerous goods and/or a fire. This follows an emergency directive issued by Transport Minister Lisa Raitt on October 22, 2013 to Canadian railway

companies in response to the Lac-Mégantic disaster. This directive requires the following measures to be taken: • A minimum of two qualified employees must operate every train carrying dangerous goods; • Operators must never leave a train with dangerous goods unattended on a main track; • All cars carrying dangerous goods must be secured against unauthorized entry; • Remove directional controls from unattended trains; and • Brakes must be applied sufficiently and properly on all locomotives left unattended. But some see Transport Canada’s actions as too little, too late. “Why did it take an accident like Lac-Mégantic to make those changes?” asks Bruce Campbell, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Ottawa. “There is a need for independent investigation to really get to the bottom of this. I’ve seen what parliamentary committees do, and they’re not really effective towards that respect.”

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Raising the

Stakes BY JUSTIN SAUNDERS

The imposition of a $1-million fine against metal-mining giant Vale over a workplace incident that killed two workers has not only raised eyebrows, but also led many to wonder if penalties for workplace safety infractions may be getting larger. What effect, if any, do sky-high penalties have on the health and safety practices in mining and other heavy industries? As the court alters its approach to enforcement, the regulatory landscape may also be about to change.

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n September of 2013, Ontario Court Justice Randall Lalande fined Vale Canada, a subsidiary of one of the world’s biggest mining companies, a record $1.05 million under the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) for a workplace incident in June of 2011 that killed two workers at the company’s Stobie nickel mine in Sudbury. The accident happened when the workers were transferring muck (broken rock and ore) through a transfer gate at an ore pass. A sudden release of muck, sand and water erupted through the gate, resulting in the death of both workers from blunt-force trauma. Following an investigation, the labour ministry discovered that the hang-up of wet muck in the ore pass was a result of Vale not dealing with water issues in the mine. Vale pleaded guilty to three counts of OHSA violations: failure to prevent the movement of material through an ore pass while hazardous conditions existed; failure to maintain the drain holes at the 2,400-foot level of the mine, resulting in the accumulation of water, which created the hung-up wet muck; and failure to ensure that water, slime and other wet material was not dumped into the ore pass at the 2,600-foot level. Meanwhile, six charges against the company and six charges against a supervisor were withdrawn. Large fines, such as the $1-million penalty handed down to Vale, seem to be an emerging trend in Ontario; it is relatively rare for courts to impose them in the case of workplace safety violations in mining or other trades. “This is the highest-ever total fine levied by a court in Ontario for contraventions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act,” notes William Lin, a spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Labour (MOL) in Toronto. Although stricter penalties may be on the rise, this does not necessarily translate into a safer environment for workers. “If Vale had been fined two million [dollars] instead of one million, how much of a difference would that have made to worker safety? I don’t know,” says Ryan Conlin, partner at employment and labour law firm Stringer LLP in Toronto. “I always think you’re better off by improving the legislation and being proactive in working with employers rather than relying upon enforcement.” Toronto-based Gerry LeBlanc, head of safety, health and the environment at United Steelworkers (USW) — the union representing the Stobie nickel miners — sees the Vale sentence as an indication that safety enforcement is still lacking. “Quite honestly, I don’t think things have changed a lot, and certainly not for the better. What we’ve seen with Vale is a validation that it’s simply the cost of doing business, paying a large fine in the case of a couple of fatalities,” says LeBlanc. “A million dollars in terms of Vale’s bank account is very minimal.” In the executive offices of Vale Canada in Toronto, it seems the idea that larger fines are driving changes in the way the industry conducts its mining operations does not hold water. When asked if the $1.05 million penalty has affected his company’s approach to safety practices, Cory McPhee, Vale Canada’s vice-president of corporate affairs, is candid. “No. Health and safety is a core value,” says McPhee. “Learning from incidents that do occur and preventing them from occurring in

the future is motivated by keeping each other safe and healthy — not by the size of the fine.” However, when asked to detail specific measures that Vale Canada is taking to improve safety following the worker fatalities in the Stobie mine, McPhee is tight-lipped. “When incidents occur, they are investigated diligently and thoroughly in order to learn whatever we can to prevent the same incident from happening in the future,” he says. “Our priority, of course, is preventing incidents from occurring in the first place, by placing an emphasis on and building awareness and capacity for identifying and managing risks to as low as reasonably achievable for each and every task.” Chris Hodgson, president of the Ontario Mining Association (OMA) in Toronto, shares the sentiment that the advent of larger fines has little effect on the industry’s overall approach to safety. “We do welcome those types of initiatives, though. We want to make sure that everything is done properly, to the best of everyone’s ability,” Hodgson says. BEHIND BARS Workplace safety practices in Ontario’s mines are governed primarily by Regulation 854 of the OHSA, which outlines employers’ responsibilities. Workplace inspections and prosecutions for egregious violations are the main vehicles of enforcement. In metal mining, as in most industries, fines are typically issued after an employer is convicted. Even in cases in which fatalities have occurred, jail terms are rarely handed down. “Of the thousands of charges laid under the OHSA,” notes Conlin, “there has only been about two dozen or so jail terms.” Labour representatives are increasing calls for jail sentences instead of fines, positing that increased fines do not go far enough in cases in which serious violations result in deaths. In a statement following Lalande’s sentencing against Vale, USW called the outcome “another betrayal” of workers and their families. The union pointed out that “numerous other charges” against Vale and a mine supervisor were dropped in the plea bargain and that the record fine against Vale still fell well short of the maximum allowed under the Act — $500,000 for each contravention. But all of this may be changing. Additional fines and a jail sentence of up to one year can be levied against individuals for OHSA violations. In an Ontario court in November of 2013, a roofing company supervisor at Roofing Medics Ltd. was given a sentence of 15 days in jail for an incident in which a worker had fallen to his death. Conlin highlights the Roofing Medics case as an example of a potential shift towards more stringent

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enforcement of the OHSA on the part of the courts, which could have a significant effect on mining companies. “It may very well be the new norm that if someone dies in an accident, you can be looking at a jail term. That’s dramatic, because previously, jail terms were usually confined to situations where someone did something intentionally wrong, or a flagrant violation of the Act, or obstructed an inspector.”

solutely no sentences that are allowed under that legislation have been handed out in the mining industry.” Despite a successful conviction and a hefty fine in the Metron case, the sentence did not include jail time. Provincial governments may also be reluctant to lay charges under the Westray Bill, which falls under federal legislation, instead of their own provincial regulations, to prose-

“This is the highest-ever total fine levied by a court in Ontario for contraventions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.” The Ontario Federation of Labour in Toronto has linked the tough sentencing to their “Kill a Worker, Go To Jail” campaign, which was launched in the wake of the deadly scaffolding incident. In that case, four employees of Metron Construction were killed on the job and another was seriously injured when the scaffold on which they were working collapsed. The company was fined $750,000 by the Court of Appeal for Ontario last September. This case may prove to be even more significant than the one against Vale. What is notable about the conviction is not the size of the fine, but that it was prosecuted partly under the Westray Bill with criminal negligence charges. After the Ontario Court of Justice issued Metron Construction a mere $200,000 fine, Appeal Court Justice Sarah Pepall, writing on behalf of a three-judge panel, called small fines in such cases “manifestly unfit”, as they would not deter employers who could afford to simply pay the fine as a cost of doing business. However, criminal charges against company executives were later dropped. The Westray Bill or Bill C-45, named after a methane explosion in a Nova Scotia coal mine that killed 26 workers, was passed by Parliament in 2004 after extensive lobbying by organized labour and the deceased workers’ families. While the Westray Bill attributes criminal liability to organizations for workplace safety violations, it has only been used by the courts sparingly. According to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) in Hamilton, Ontario, there have been only eight cases in which charges were laid under Westray. As Leblanc notes, “most of them have been plea bargained out, and ab-

cute employers. According to information from the CCOHS, Parliament intended the Westray Bill to be used for “the most serious offenses” and not to “supplant or interfere with the provincial [regulations].” Typically, prosecutions for safety violations will proceed using either Bill C-45 or the OHSA, although employers can be charged simultaneously under both acts for the same incident. Leblanc sees the scale of sentencing as a regulatory issue and thinks that different regulations should be used. “When all is said and done, the [Vale] charges came under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. But this is a case that should have been investigated under the Criminal Code, using the Westray amendment,” LeBlanc contends. The USW made a similar recommendation in a report on the Stobie deaths, released after its own eight-month investigation. CHANGING TIMES The Vale fine comes at a time when a number of other significant changes are on the horizon in the mining industry. For example, workplace inspections are on the rise. Lin points to a series of mine inspection blitzes as evidence of a mining safety policy aimed at “focused enforcement”. From 2011 to 2013, inspectors conducted some 4,445 visits to mining workplaces to step up emphasis on identified hazards, such as ore-pass and loading-pocket systems, ground control and the internal responsibility system. Notably, it was the ore-pass system that was directly implicated in the deaths at the Stobie nickel mine. In December of 2013, Ontario’s labour minister also announced a sweeping review of health and safety in the province’s mines, which promises a comprehensive look at training, employer compliance, technological best practices and the sufficiency of the regulations themselves by comparing them to other jurisdictions, such as other provinces in Canada and international jurisdictions like the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. This could mean a rewrite of any part of the OHSA that deals with mining — something that may be long overdue. Conlin notes that this is a natural progression. “Obviously, the technology that’s in place and the mining that’s takwww.ohscanada.com M A R C H 2 0 1 4

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ing place now is very different than the mining that was taking place when the regulations were initially drafted.” The minister’s announcement came on the heels of the Vale conviction, and Conlin sees a strong connection between the two. “I don’t think there’s any question that there’s a link — not only in the increase in charges, but also in proactive inspection,” he says. “[The safety review] is a game changer because it’s looking at a multifaceted series of issues.” In response to the safety review, Hodgson states that the OMA is “very pleased” with the minister’s appointment of the chief prevention officer to lead the safety review. “The lessons learned through this review will benefit mining, and I know the chair wants to make sure it can apply to other industrial sectors,” he says. SAFE UNDERGROUND The mining sector, which directly employs 27,000 Ontarians, is a high-profile industry in the province, bringing in more than $9 billion in 2012, according to figures from Natural Resources Canada. Metal-mining operations in the province extract nickel, zinc, gold, copper, platinum and, more recently, diamonds, while others extract salt, gypsum and chalk. Altogether, there are 41 mines operating in the province. Historically, mining has suffered from a poor public perception surrounding a number of issues, including its safety record, the environmental impact of mining operations, and the approach companies have taken to obtaining the consent of First Nations. According to Statistics Canada, most mines are located in rural and northern areas, and are often in close proximity to Aboriginal communities. Despite its size, some experts do not see any unique regulatory challenges with respect to the industry. “I don’t believe

In terms of absolute numbers, many of Ontario’s workplace time-loss injuries occur outside of the mining industry. The manufacturing sector had 8,467 time-loss injuries in 2012 — compared to 1,640 in mining, the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada reports. This was not always the case. Hodgson notes that while mining safety has improved to the point that it is, statistically at least, one of Ontario’s better industries for workplace health and safety, “if you’d said that 20 years ago, you would have been laughed out of the room.” Hodgson points to a dramatic decrease in lost-time injuries, which he attributes to improvements in worker safety over the past few decades. This, he says, is due to “a partnership between the industry, unions, government and [mine] management.” He also cites a University of Toronto study that suggests the industry now “spends about $1,800 per employee” annually on worker safety. “Since we had the Ham report in 1976,” says Hodgson, “we’ve seen a 96 per cent improvement since that time in losttime injuries.” Following high rates of lung cancer and silicosis among uranium miners in Elliot Lake, Ontario appointed a Royal Commission to investigate health and safety in mines chaired by Dr. James Ham, which became known as the Ham Commission. The commission’s report included more than 100 recommendations concerning mine health and safety. It also developed the idea of an internal responsibility system, which required government, employers and workers to cooperate to improve health and safety, and recommended joint labourmanagement health and safety committees. Reported injuries have steadily declined over the past 10 years. Leblanc notes that in large unionized operations the

“Of the thousands of charges laid under the OHSA…there has only been about two dozen or so jail terms.” mining is more difficult to regulate [than any other industry], at least in Ontario,” says Candys Ballanger-Michaud, president of Workplace Safety North, a resource industry safety association headquartered in North Bay. Conlin concurs. “You’re talking in most cases of mining dealing with fairly large, sophisticated organizations that should be capable of implementing what’s been mandated.” On paper, Ontario’s mining workplaces seem no more hazardous than any other industry and compared to some, may fare even better. 36

death and injury rates have become “fairly minimal” and points to the lengthy history of advocacy by labour groups around issues of health and safety. “I think that the labour movement would take a certain amount of credit for the adoption of best practices.” Apart from lost-time injuries, however, fatalities continue to be a problem. According to figures provided by Workplace Safety North that were taken from Ontario’s Workplace Safety Insurance Board, although the total number of incidents is relatively low, the fatal injury rate per worker in mining is

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Beefing Up The imposition of a $1-million fine on Vale Canada following two worker fatalities has led many within the mining industry to wonder if companies could be facing stiffer sentencing for safety violations. Following intense public interest over the fine, Ontario’s Ministry of Labour announced on December 18, 2013 that it would be conducting a comprehensive mining safety review in early 2014. Headed by the Chief Prevention Officer, the collaborative review involving industry, labour and health and safety representatives seeks to focus on new technology, training and ground stability in the province’s mines. The ministry plans to investigate a wide range of areas, including the following: • Exploring technological advances, such as new bolting and reinforcement techniques, to prevent collapse and

among the highest of any industry in the province. Over the past five years, it has been exceeded in only two sectors: aggregates and agriculture. The rate for the province’s mining sector in 2012 was 10.5 per 100,000 workers, compared to 11.2 in agriculture and 13 in aggregates. “Statistics bear out that mining is one of the safer areas in which to work. Unfortunately, of course, when there’s an accident in mining,” says Conlin, “the consequences are serious.” GLOBAL MARKET Leblanc identifies a lack of political will as a potential impediment to the increased use of criminal penalties, as lawmakers might be reluctant to impose stiff fines on an industry widely seen as a key economic player. “I think [economic considerations] might prevent political changes. Everything really seems to have a price tag attached to it,” suggests Leblanc. He adds that stockholders are primarily interested in how much money they can make out of a mine. “That’s really it. It’s very competitive, it’s very global right now. There are places where it’s much cheaper to mine, obviously, East Africa, Mongolia, [where] we see reduced labour costs and low standards around the environment and health and safety.” McPhee disagrees. “The notion that anything is put before safety — including profits and growth — is simply not true. The industry long ago realized that good safety is good business,” he says. Yet it is a business that is now global in nature, and many mining companies are multinational. Leblanc says there is a high degree of foreign ownership of Canada’s domestic mining operations. Vale, which started as a government-owned entity in Brazil, is now a multinational corporation with operations on every continent. It acquired its Canadian operations when it bought Inco — previously one of Canada’s largest mining companies — in 2006. Leblanc fears that the globalized nature of mining may, in the end, have a negative impact on safety in jurisdictions such as Ontario. “When we’re dealing with multinationals, they have a multinational mindset. I may be cynical, but I don’t think they have the best practices, but rather, the lowest common denominator. The thinking may be, ‘Well, in Surinam,

rock bursts; • A ssessing current health and safety regulations and enforcement mechanisms to compare their effectiveness with regulations in other jurisdictions; • Examining the education and training of employers, supervisors and workers on injury prevention to identify skill shortages and gaps in qualified health- and safetyrelated expertise; • Ensuring that appropriate ground stability and water management practices are being used; • Confirming proper use of barricades and warning systems, particularly with respect to open holes; and • Examining the internal responsibility system in the mining sector and past mining-related coroner’s jury reports and inquiries.

we don’t do it like that.’” Hodgson, however, remains confident in the Ontario mining industry’s health and safety record. “We’re one of the safest mining jurisdictions in the world, but we think we can improve,” he says. ‘ZERO HARM’ Whether stiffer financial penalties for safety violations will prevent fatalities in Ontario’s mines remains to be seen. McPhee says his company’s “objective is zero harm to employees and communities.” What seems fairly certain, however, is the imminent potential for regulatory changes in conjunction with higher penalties within the industry. Mining safety violations are clearly not flying under the radar. The case against Vale, and outside the industry against Metron and other companies, have led both employers and the province to take increased note of workplace safety. As Conlin says, “in part why [this review] is happening is the reality of certain high-profile actions, certainly some activism on the labour side — and even on the employer side, a recognition of important changes.” In light of their disappointment in the sentencing outcomes of OHSA prosecutions, organized labour hopes to see changes stemming directly from the safety review. Rick Bertrand, president of USW Local 6500 in Sudbury, said in a statement that miners “are counting on this review to produce timely and meaningful action to significantly improve health and safety in our industry.” Conlin points out that when dealing with workplace safety, companies can always do better. “It’s important to appreciate that the philosophy of health and safety is continuous improvement,” says Conlin. “The Ministry of Labour does a pretty effective job of enforcing mining safety. It is a fairly heavily regulated area. There is a dedicated team of inspectors. There has certainly been a significant increase to the number of inspectors over the last few years. But I think the reality is... is it ever enough?” he asks. Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Justin Saunders is a writer in Toronto. www.ohscanada.com M A R C H 2 0 1 4

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WORKPLACE HARASSMENT

Boss when the

Bully is the

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BY STEFAN DUBOWSKI

British Columbia has recently introduced new regulations on workplace bullying and harassment. As of last November, organizations in the province are required to create guidelines that address bullying and harassment within their workforces. According to a study published in The Journal of Nursing Administration in 2005, 81 per cent of workplace bullies are managers. When policies can go only so far to eliminate interpersonal conflicts, how are employers facing up to such challenges?

IMAGE: STEVE DININNO

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ichelle Bell is no pushover. As a former youth and family substance abuse counsellor with the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) — now known as Island Health — she has had lots of experience handling difficult people. And as a current city councillor in Duncan, British Columbia, she would not shy away from tough negotiations. Bell is certainly not the type one would expect to be a victim of workplace bullying or harassment. Yet from 2007 to 2009, Bell says she faced persistent aggressive and threatening behaviour from her manager at the VIHA. Her manager yelled at her during meetings and, when he was upset with her, demanded that she do menial tasks outside her job description, such as filing and cleaning the office, according to Bell. “When you’re in this field, you think you can deal with conflict really well or communicate. So I kept trying to manage his behaviour myself,” she says. She would try to placate the manager, aiming to smooth things over. “I would bring his favourite treats into staff meetings, I would make coffee, I would try and use humour to lighten his moods,” she recounts. After putting up with the situation for two years without improvement, Bell says she went to management for help and participated in mediation. During the mediation process, however, Bell says she was accused of making the situation out to be worse than it was. She got the sense that upper management thought that she — not her manager — was the problem. Bell filed a grievance through the union without any resolution and in 2011, she resigned as she felt pushed out by a toxic environment and management that seemed to favour the manager. Now employed as a project coordinator focused on life skills for employment at Community Options Society, a family counselling service in Duncan, Bell is nonplussed about her experience at the VIHA. “I’m a healthy individual. I’m not running around causing problems. I don’t have a lot of drama. I don’t fight with my neighbours, so this was like The Twilight Zone.” ONE STEP FORWARD A recent development in British Columbia seeks to prevent other workers from going through the same ordeal as Bell.

As of November 1, 2013, all organizations in the province — except those that are federally regulated — are required to develop their own standards regarding bullying and harassment, create procedures to investigate incidents and train staff members on these standards and procedures. The changes were set in motion last March, when WorkSafeBC’s board of directors approved three occupational health and safety policies under sections 115, 116 and 117 of the Workers’ Compensation Act dealing with workplace bullying and harassment. The policies — one for employers, one for supervisors and one for workers — were developed to clarify the obligations of these parties in preventing bullying and harassment in an occupational setting. Employers, consultants and health and safety experts are reading closely to understand what these changes mean for workplaces and what employers are required to do to prevent bullying and harassment. Roberta Ellis, WorkSafeBC’s senior vice-president of corporate services and human resources, stresses the importance of understanding what constitutes bullying and harassing behaviour. “Not every difficult, challenging or unpleasant conversation or set of circumstances that you deal with in your working life is bullying,” she says. “We’re talking about the kind of conduct where the intent is to humiliate the person.” WorkSafeBC defines workplace bullying and harassment as “any inappropriate conduct or comment by a person towards a worker that the person knew or reasonably ought to have known would cause that worker to be humiliated or intimidated, but excludes any reasonable action taken by an employer or supervisor relating to the management and direction of workers or the place of employment.” Behaviour that constitutes bullying includes verbal aggression, vandalism and hazing practices. A resources page on WorkSafeBC’s website, which includes definitions, scenarios and sample policies and procedures, offers guidance to organizations for compliance with the new policies. The samples are particularly useful for small businesses, which may not have dedicated human resources personnel or health and safety experts to draft policies and procedures from scratch. “We wanted to make it as easy as possible for our workplace stakeholders to do this,” Ellis says. If an inspector finds that an organization has not complied with WorkSafeBC’s bullying and harassment policies, the inspector may issue an order directing the organization to com-

Know Your Role New policies to address workplace bullying and harassment under British Columbia’s Workers Compensation Act came into effect on November 1, 2013. The policies, which apply to approximately 215,000 employers and 2.2 million workers regulated by WorkSafeBC, set out the general duties of employers as follows: • Do not engage in bullying or harassment; • Develop a policy statement; • Take steps to prevent bullying and harassment;

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• D evelop and implement procedures for dealing with incidents and complaints; • Inform and train workers; and • Review the policy statement and procedures annually. Provisions against bullying and harassment also apply to supervisors and workers, who must not bully or harass workers, colleagues or employers. They are also required to report incidents of bullying and harassment and comply with policies and procedures.

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“We’re talking about the kind of conduct where the intent is to humiliate the person.” ply. If an employer still fails to comply or is repeatedly found to be non-compliant, WorkSafeBC may issue a fine of up to $500,000 for the first offence and up to $1 million for subsequent offences. Ellis says penalties will be the last resort. KEEPING IN LINE The new policies are the latest development in British Columbia’s efforts to address workplace bullying and harassment. The first step came about last summer, when the government amended the Workers’ Compensation Act to expand the scope of mental disorder claims to include those related to bullying and harassment. As a mental injury can also arise from bullying and harassment, Ellis says WorkSafeBC was tasked with developing policies to prevent such behaviour in the workplace. Now that the policies are in effect, many organizations in the province are signing up for seminars and training sessions conducted by lawyers and consultants to better understand the policies and employers’ obligations. Andrew Wood, partner at Vancouver law firm Harris & Company LLP, says his team has seen much interest in the webinars and seminars organized by the firm. “In the month of October, I probably spent 80 per cent of my time at least dealing with bullying and harassment issues — drafting policies, helping employers review their policies, assisting employers to develop their own training programs,” he says. WorkSafeBC has indicated that there is no planned inspection blitz after the policy takes effect, but it will be responding to enquiries and concerns about workplace bullying and harassment through existing inspection practices. Nonetheless, Wood says employers should start developing policies and procedures or amend existing documentation if they already have such policies in place. “Whatever you’re doing, don’t be doing nothing,” Wood advises. For many organizations, when it comes to bullying, the pocketbook takes the hit. Bullying results in high staff turnover, which increases employer costs, according to Ontario’s Public Health and Safety Association. Bullying also decreases morale, harms productivity and causes worker burnout, which in turn contributes to higher costs, says the College of Registered Nurses of Nova Scotia. Erica Pinsky operates a respectful-workplace consulting firm in Vancouver. Pinsky says financial losses stemming

from workplace bullying and harassment put to rest arguments made by some businesses that bad behaviour motivates workers. “There are all sorts of messages telling us that bullying is actually helpful to increase productivity, to get people to work harder,” Pinsky says. “And in the short term, maybe it is. If you look in financial services for example, it’s all about how much money you bring in and less about how you’re bringing it in. If you have to step on somebody else to succeed, who cares?” Pinsky cautions that employers should not be fooled into thinking the short-term gains that bullying and harassment may appear to afford are worthwhile in the long run. Rather, organizations have a compelling reason to prevent bullying and harassment in the workplace: the costs far outweigh the benefits. She points out that bullying leads to health problems, absenteeism and distractions among the workforce. “You’re paying someone 100 per cent to do a job 100 per cent of the time. If for 50 per cent of that time they’re distracted, right away there’s an economic argument,” she notes. Pinsky advises employers to assess how workers manifest their power, the manner in which they interact with one another and how they deal with conflict. Organizations should evaluate new workers on behaviour as well as skill. “It is not about adopting a policy or providing training. It is about having the same rigorous approach to psychological safety as an employer does to traditional safety.” A TOUCHY AFFAIR That said, businesses need to be careful about how they manage incidents of bullying and harassment among employees. Marli Rusen, owner of consulting firm MR Resolutions in Victoria, British Columbia, recalls investigating a case at a company where employees had documented numerous incidents over two years in which a manager had harassed staff. In her investigation, Rusen confronted the manager with the employees’ documentation. The manager felt blindsided and humiliated. “He was in tears,” she says. “He didn’t deny it… But he wondered, why didn’t someone tell me sooner?” If the employees had known better, they probably would have brought the matter to the employer’s attention earlier, she notes. “Documenting it for two years meant they lived with it for two years.” Rusen’s practice is to empower employees to prevent bulwww.ohscanada.com

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“It is about having the same rigorous approach to psychological safety as an employer does to traditional safety.”

lying and harassment. She says it is important for workers to “distract and disrupt” interactions that could be considered bullying or harassment. For example, if a worker sees a colleague belittling someone, the worker could intervene and ask the colleague for help on a task elsewhere to interrupt the interaction. “My bottom line for bystanders is if you are not doing anything when you see dysfunction in the workplace, you are actually contributing to the dysfunction,” Rusen says. However, she cautions co-workers not to assume anything, as what appears to be bullying might be a “negotiated relationship” — meaning that is just the way they interact. “Feel free to ask the apparent victim if anything is wrong, but don’t assume the person needs help,” Rusen advises. Pinsky says these problems take place across sectors. “I’ve seen it in the resources industry. I’ve seen it at municipalities. I’ve seen it in a small doctor’s office with five employees.” Vigilance is key to preventing workplace bullying and harassment; so is nipping the problem in the bud to prevent things from progressing to a point where formal complaints are lodged and investigations are conducted. “This process is so destructive to their personal and professional lives,” Rusen says, noting that word spreads over time and people begin taking sides, which can lead to more incidents. “Things build and fester,” she says. “It becomes a team dysfunction. It eats away at the morale and integrity of the entire department.” PAVING THE WAY Many businesses already comply with WorkSafeBC’s policies. For instance, six years ago, credit union BlueShore Financial drafted a comprehensive policy regarding workplace culture that includes bullying and harassment. Today, that policy informs many aspects of the company’s business, such as hiring. 42

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“We spend a lot of time in the interview on the person’s management and coaching style,” says Vancouver-based Marni Johnson, BlueShore Financial’s vice-president of human resources and communications. “And we check references really carefully in that regard too, just to make sure we are hiring somebody who is going to work in a style that fits with our culture.” In particular, the company is looking for candidates who deal with conflict in a constructive way, resolve differences fairly and respect alternative points of view. This pre-emptive approach helps to weed out candidates who have an abrasive disposition. Johnson is optimistic that the new policies will help businesses curtail bullying and harassment. Robyn Durling, spokesperson for the BullyFreeBC Society in Vancouver, thinks that WorkSafeBC’s latest move signals a wave of change. “We are going to have, potentially, a change in culture — the same way we did with sexual harassment over the last 20 years, where people know it’s not acceptable.” Marino Sveinson, lawyer at Bull Housser & Tupper LLP in Vancouver, anticipates a rise in legal proceedings relating to workplace bullying and harassment now that WorkSafeBC policies require employees to report incidents. NOT ENOUGH Bell says the WorkSafeBC policies are certainly a step in the right direction, but she believes they do not go far enough. She would like to see provincial legislation passed, like Bill M203 proposed by the British Columbia NDP, which allows incidents of workplace harassment to be investigated, compensated and dealt with in the same manner as workplace accidents. Bell believes that WorkSafeBC policies would not have helped her had they been in place when she was dealing with issues at her former workplace, since the VIHA had good workplace bullying and harassment policies. “The thing is, they don’t follow them,” Bell charges. “There’s no accountability. There was no one I could go to and say, ‘My employer is not following these policies.’ If they had followed them, this would have been resolved in the first stage.” For its part, the British Columbia Government and Service Employees’ Union, of which Bell was a member at the VIHA, responds that it does not comment on the circumstances surrounding specific member grievances, when asked about Bell’s grievance. Sarah Plank, spokeswoman for Island Health, says the organization seriously considers allegations of harassment and bullying and takes actions, including investigation, coaching and mediation, “until a matter reaches resolution.” She adds that the organization updated its respectful-workplace policy in 2010 and hired a respectful-workplace specialist to oversee investigations into bullying and harassment incidents. Bell hopes that other workers across British Columbia do not have to experience what she did. “I just don’t want to be yelled at in my job and I don’t want to be fearful to come to work,” she says. Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Stefan Dubowski is a writer in Ottawa.

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SAFETY GEAR

EYEWASHES/EMERGENCY SHOWERS

Flushed Away By Jeff Cottrill

egardless of whether one is typing an email, operating machinery or examining a patient, eyesight is key in guiding us through our daily activities, both in life and at work. But our eyes are also vulnerable to injury and potential vision loss if they are not shielded from harm. For this reason, eye protection is imperative in industries in which workers deal with hazardous materials. Organic peroxides, flammable liquids, compressed gases and cryogenic or corrosive liquids are just a few of the substances that could seriously damage the eyes — even to the point of blindness. Exposure to small particles floating in the “Manufacturers air may also put workers’ eyes at risk. When goggles or similar personal of eyewash are protective equipment fail and somenow adding thing nasty gets in the eye, a worker has a limited window of time to flush buffering it out before the damage gets worse. For workplaces with harmful subagents... stances, it is essential to have a designated area for an eyewash station or to deal with emergency shower. “If you have a chemical burn to the caustic the eye and if it’s not treated within 10 seconds, the chances of you losmaterial that ing your sight or permanent corneal is causing the damage is very significant,” says Ed Maloney, an agent with A-Med Supeye injury.” ply in Kingston, Ontario. “As soon as you can get something in your eye to start neutralizing, diluting, washing it out, the better off you’re going to be to minimize the injury.” Eyewashes are intended to flush out irritants like dust or wood shavings, which may not be harmful to the skin or face. If dealing with substances that can harm not just the eyes but also the skin, then a full emergency shower system is needed. KNOW YOUR DANGERS Margo Mee, product manager with Haws Corporation in Sparks, Nevada, says eyewash stations and showers, which can be purchased separately or in combination units, are vital to ensuring safety in industrial workplaces where airborne materials could strike the eyes. “You see them all over the place,” says Mee. Working in a warehouse, handling chemicals and operating in dusty environments all warrant the use of eyewash stations or emergency showers. Commercial arenas, refineries and wastewater-treatment plants are also among the workplaces Mee cites as environments that require these products. On top of that, workers’ eyes are also vulnerable to dishwash 44

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ing detergents in restaurants, flying wood chips and shavings in lumber shops and oils in autobody shops. Even science laboratories in schools sometimes have eyewash stations, Mee adds. When a company is selecting an eyewash or shower system, the first thing to consider is the specific hazards the workplace presents, explains Jim Johnson, general manager of Encon Safety Products in Houston. “You see a lot of companies today putting in the full shower and eyewash combination unit,” Johnson points out. “If it is a hazardous material that is an irritant to the eyes, then only eyewash is necessary. But if it is also problematic for the skin, then obviously you need a face-wash, and if there is enough quantity of the product, then a full shower and facewash [is required].” The range of hazards can vary depending on the industry, says Mee. “If you are running forklifts, then you are going to have a battery-charging area, and you should have a unit over near that battery-charging area because of the fuels,” she adds. Employers should take note of the chemicals being used and the potential risks involved. A review of Material Safety Data Sheets and labels can also help to evaluate the hazard, suggests Mee. “Golf courses need to have it where they’re dealing with fertilizers; pools need to have it where they’re dealing with chlorines,” she adds. “Even where they do oil changes, there are tons of reasons why you would need to have emergency equipment.” It is also important to note the number of workers in the hazardous area, because additional stations may be needed throughout the work facilities. Kelly Piotti, senior product manager with Honeywell Safety Products in Smithfield, Rhode Island, says some companies have the misconception that only one eyewash station or shower is required even when the facility may need many more than that. “It’s like saying if you have one fire extinguisher, that’s enough for your entire building,” she says. CHERRY PICKING There are a variety of products from which to choose. Haws offers a full gamut of products, including wall-mounted eyewash and face-wash stations, combination units containing both eyewashes and showers, portable units, versatile lab units that are either wall-reliant or mountable on a deck, and custom-engineered tempered water-booth solutions for inclement weather situations. The majority of Haws products offer AXION MSR — the only technology that follows medical protocols by washing the eyes from the inside out, which reduces further injury and eases discomfort. Honeywell offers portable emergency eyewash devices, classified as primary stations that produce a 15-minute flow and secondary stations for a shorter flow or with one-handed activation. Many of its products rely on replaceable, factory-

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PHOTOS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT): BRADLEY CORPORATION; ENCON SAFETY PRODUCTS; HAWS CORPORATION.

sealed fluid cartridges, which reduce the chances of contamination and eliminate the need for plumbing installment. A-Med manufactures two eye solutions. One is a bottled and ready-to-use eyewash, and the other is a preservative that reduces algae fungus when added to regular eyewash liquid. Encon is another company that provides a wide product range, including supplemental bottles of eyewash, face- and eyewash stations and full showers and combination units. Bradley Corporation, headquartered in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, offers innovative products such as its SpinTec showerhead, which forces water into a spinning motion that allows the water to drench more areas of the body. Meanwhile, the Halo eye/face-wash system is designed to drench 85 per cent of the average user’s face — from the forehead to the chin, including the temples. The Halo station also has dust covers to keep dust and debris off the water spout, and separate supply and waste pipes to avoid mixing new with used water. “If you have a supply and waste that share a common casting, there’s always a chance for porosity or pinholes to emerge in the casting, and then your wastewater can infiltrate into your supply side and contaminate things,” cautions Ryan Pfund, emergency-fixtures product manager with Bradley. “That was really revolutionary and new in the industry,” he says of the separation of the supply and waste pipes. INDUSTRY ADVANCEMENTS “There are always more slow, incremental changes that take place within the industry,” adds Pfund, citing other ways that his company has been making advances in eyewash and emergency shower products. “We ensure that we do not get stagnating water in the spray head, so all the water is allowed to drain from the ball valve forward. This makes it a little cleaner environment when you are initially activating that fixture, so you do not have bacteria building up inside the spray heads,” he says. Bradley also offers an enclosed safety shower — “a fabricated small building”, as Pfund describes it — that protects users from elements, such as precipitation or cold temperatures. Maloney points to recent advancements in the chemical makeup of eyewash solutions. “Manufacturers of eyewash are now adding buffering agents to their eyewash to deal with the caustic material that is causing the eye injury,” he explains. For example, adding a phosphate-buffering agent to eyewash has become a trend. Maloney says it uses “better chemistry to neutralize or contain the acid or alkali, whatever it is that’s going into your eye.” Besides improvements made to the function of eyewash stations and emergency showers, Maloney says there have also been changes in how eyewash is packaged. Non-resealable bottles prevent the sterility of the eyewash from being compromised, while Blow-Fill-Seal (BFS) technology is gradually

becoming the norm in North America for creating bottles of eyewash and other products that must remain sterile. A recent whitepaper by Honeywell, entitled How to Identify Safe and Effective Emergency Eyewash — and the Hidden Dangers to Avoid, warns that some eyewash fluids may be more harmful than helpful. Added chemicals like boric acid, benzalkonium chloride and benzethonium chloride, though intended to kill bacteria, can cause allergic reactions or infections by adding harmful impurities to the eye. Honeywell recommends using buffered, sterile saline because of its purity and compatibility with tears. Furthermore, buyers can play it safe by checking that any product manufactured in the United States has been approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). Close attention should be paid to the ingredients. Beware of additives or chemicals, while making sure that the fluid includes sterile saline made from 100 per cent sterile water from the inception. Employers should also be wary of any product with a New Product Application, which means that the fluid is officially classified as a new product that has not yet been FDA-approved. Product prices vary for Among the various eyedifferent kinds of stations or protection products availshowers. Piotti says a tank-style able are eyewash stations station ranges between $200 to from Bradley (top left) and $300 depending on the manuHaws (bottom left), and facturer. “The reason those are combo eyewash showers a little less expensive is because from Encon (top right). you’re doing those refills more frequently, so the average cost of the life of the product tends to be equal to that of a selfcontained cartridge-style station. And cartridge-style stations can average anywhere from $300 to $500 or $600.” Factors influencing the cost of an eyewash or shower system include the make, style and seller. Simple emergency showers can range from a few hundred dollars to well over $1,800. In comparison, personal-sized eyewash bottles like the kind A-Med manufactures are relatively inexpensive, with each bottle going for as little as the low double-digits. REGULAR MAINTENANCE Like most workplace equipment, eyewash stations and emergency showers need to be checked and tested on a regular basis. Johnson suggests frequently flushing the system to reduce the chance of contaminants building up in the supply pipe. “Also make sure that your water supply and your piping are fairly fresh,” he says, “because it’s recommended you use potable water, chemically treated, or some water that’s suitable for drinking.” As well, regular visual checks should alert the buyer to any problems that need to be fixed immediately. For example, valves tend to corrode over time, depending on how hard the www.ohscanada.com

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LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) in Hamilton, Ontario offers several recommendations regarding where an eyewash station or emergency shower should be located in a workplace. A contaminated person should be able to reach the station or shower within 10 seconds, and a highly visible sign with an obvious visual symbol should be posted to identify the station. The CCOHS also advises the following: • The station or shower should be located as close as possible to potential hazards; • No partition should separate the work area from the shower area, although the latter must be away from pos-

water is or whatever the valves are exposed to externally. “If there are heaters involved, then you want to make sure that your water and heater are all flushed, just like the heaters you would use domestically or commercially,” says Johnson. For a station that uses fluid cartridges, Piotti recommends a monthly visual inspection “to ensure that the unit hasn’t been tampered with.” The cartridges themselves generally expire at the end of the month and, naturally, have to be checked and replaced on a regular basis. Meanwhile, tankstyle stations that use potable water, either as a concentrate or an additive, will need to be drained, disinfected and refilled every four to six months. According to Pfund, regular inspection will typically provide a good indication of when a system needs to be replaced. “You need to do an annual, more in-depth assessment of all of the fixtures to make sure that everything is working properly, and as a safety coordinator in the facility, you also need to assess the hazard,” he says. “Maybe during the course of the year, an operation has changed or materials are moved into an area of the plant that were not there before. You have to make sure the fixture is serving its original intended purpose and that you don’t have gaps somewhere else in your facility.” It is equally important, notes Mee, for employers to train workers on how to use the equipment properly. “It’s not just a matter of going and turning it on and putting your face into it or standing under it,” she says. “If you’re using the eyewash, you have to open your eyes properly to make sure that it’s giving a full rinse. A lot of things go into making sure that the employee will be properly saved if they run into an issue. Training is vital.” RULES OF THE GAME In Canada, most provinces have adopted regulations similar to those stipulated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in Washington, D.C. Since Canada does not have a federal standard for designing or installing eyewash stations or emergency showers at present, companies generally follow the regulations set by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which oversees such standards for a multitude of products and systems. The ANSI Z358.1 standard, last revised in 2009, is the set of guidelines designed specifically for these products. It stipulates the minimum requirements for the measurements, performance and maintenance of all eyewash or shower equipment, some of which are as follows: 46

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sible further contamination; • The path between the shower area and the hazard should not be obstructed by doorways or other machinery; • The shower area should be on the same floor as the hazard and easily visible to workers; • There should be an emergency exit nearby to allow easy access for emergency personnel; • There should be a drainage system; • Electrical equipment must not be close enough to come into contact with fluids from the shower area; and • The shower area should be protected from freezing when emergency equipment is installed outside.

• Equipment must be made of corrosion-resistant material; • Fluid used in the equipment must be non-injurious and protected from any airborne contaminants; • Fluid temperature must be tepid, as measured by a temperature gauge; • Valves must go from off to on in one second or less; • Equipment users must flush their eyes and/or bodies for at least 15 minutes; • Eyewash-station nozzles must be between 84 and 114 centimetres from the floor and a minimum of 15 centimetres from any walls; • Showerheads must be between 208 and 243 centimetres from the floor, with the centres of the heads at least 41 centimetres from any walls; • Water flow and pressure must be 20 gallons per minute (GPM) at 30 pounds per square inch (PSI) for showers and three GPM at 30 PSI for eyewash stations; and • All plumbed equipment must be activated weekly to check that fluid is provided, while self-contained equipment should be visually inspected for the same. Maloney points out that the ANSI standard does not cover the personal eyewash bottles that A-Med and other companies produce. “OSHA says an employer must provide a suitable eyewash where there is known risk. And that’s all it says. It could be water off the street.” But in this country, eyewash fluid is classified as a drug and, as a result, the quality of eyewash is regulated by Health Canada. “That side of it is where a lot of suppliers get into trouble, because it’s a drug regulated by Health Canada, and now it’s sold for use to an employer in an entirely different marketplace, the industrial marketplace.” Maloney suggests that this may pose problems because industrial workplaces are governed by oh&s regulations rather than by the standards for food and drugs. What distinguishes eyewash stations and emergency showers from other workplace safety products is that, while goggles, hard hats, steel boots and other equipment serve as preventive measures, eyewash stations and emergency showers are used only after an accident has occurred. That said, it is just as important to be prepared for an emergency as it is to stop it from happening in the first place — especially for a body part as important as the eyes. Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Jeff Cottrill is editorial assistant of

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ERGONOMICS

ACCESSIBILITY

Inclusive Design By Carmelle Wolfson

mployers in Ontario may need to start thinking more about making their workplaces accessible to employees with disabilities. As of January 1, 2014, organizations regulated by the province must comply with new rules under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), which seeks to remove barriers for persons with disabilities. The AODA, enacted in 2005, sets out guidelines, to be phased in progressively, with the goal of making the province accessible by 2025. Starting this year, the new requirements mean that private and non-profit organizations with 50 or more employees must comply with the following regulations as part of the AODA: • Create a multi-year plan to remove accessibility barriers within the organization; • Establish policies to help achieve accessibility goals and inform employees and customers about them; • Consider accessibility in the design of kiosks; • Make new websites more accessible; and • File an accessibility report. “The deadlines are different for different employers,” says Darren Cooney, manager of public education and partnership at the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario in Toronto. “The intent of the law was to recognize different capacities of different types of organizations. The public sector could lead by example, and then the private sector could pick up on our example.” FORWARD THINKING Looking ahead, employers of large private and non-profit organizations will have two years to meet the AODA requirements that relate specifically to employment standards, while small organizations will have until 2017. This covers all aspects of employment, including: recruitment, assessment and selection of applicants for jobs; informing employees of supports; communication with employees; individual accommodation plans and return-to-work processes; performance management; career development; and redeployment. While the laws coming into force in 2014 do not focus on workplace ergonomic requirements, the AODA requirements should get employers thinking about accessibility, notes Kathy Kawaja, Canadian Certified Professional Ergonomist and principal ergonomics consultant at Human Factors North in Toronto. “Employers need a lot of awareness before they’re going to do something,” says Kawaja. She suggests employers “think ahead” when it comes to accommodating workers with disabilities. “So whether they are retrofitting their current office space, or could be an industrial establishment, or maybe they’re moving to a new building,” she says, “it’s thinking about all this in procurement or planning.” When accommodating a worker in a wheelchair or scooter, the first thing that an employer should do is consult with the employee, recommends Ian Parker, a wheelchair user and 48

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senior advisor of direct funding at the Centre for Independent Living in Toronto. The organization helps people with disabilities learn independent living skills and integrate into the community. “Ask them [employees] what their needs are, because it’s different for everybody when you get down to the fine-tuning,” he says, adding that it is important to keep communication open at all times, in case further difficulties arise. In terms of specific measures that can be taken to make the workplace accessible to employees in wheelchairs, the sidewalk outside the building should have curb cuts, and accessible parking and an accessible drop-off area near the door should be made available. The entrance should have level access and an automatic door. “Lever handles on the doors make them much easier to handle than doorknobs, or for people with poor hand function, remote openers that will open the outside door or the office suite door,” notes Parker. Elevators should have buttons that a worker in a wheelchair can reach, “Most accomand the hallways should be wide enough — about 90 centimetres, modations are according to Kawaja — for a wheelchair to pass. quite inexpensive Although the setup of the work station will vary depending on the or free,” notes individual worker, in an office environment, Parker says it is imporCooney. tant to have a printer that is not too high and tables and desks that are at a good level for people in wheelchairs to get underneath, while still being able to reach the surface. “We have some adjustable-height desks here that we use,” he notes. “By pushing a button, they can go up or down, and that’s extremely useful because they can be used by somebody different just by raising it or lowering it.” In his office, Parker uses Dragon Naturally Speaking, a voice-activated computer software. “Speech recognition software is getting much better,” says Kawaja. “But in the past they haven’t been very efficient.” She notes there are other options that can help people with varying abilities who use computers at work. “There’s something called word cue. It basically guesses what your next word is, similar to what our smartphones do now. So there’s less typing,” Kawaja says. For people with Parkinson’s disease, who may have hand tremors, foot switches can be used. Voice macros can also be employed for functions that the user does frequently. By giving an auditory command, the worker can tell the computer what to do, eliminating mouse and key strokes. “So let’s say you go to Google as your homepage a lot. A voice macro would be ‘go to Google,’ and then your computer just goes to it.” Besides physical immobility, such as being confined to a wheelchair, employers should also be aware of other disabilities, such as cognitive and perceptual impairments. “I think when it comes to accommodating people with disabilities, it

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really is a case-by-case basis. It depends on their disability,” says Kawaja. “And then it depends on what they’re doing at their job.” FUNCTIONAL DESIGN As an occupational therapist with March of Dimes Canada in London, Ontario, Mary-Rose Hackbart has conducted workplace assessments in hospitals, long-term care facilities, fast food joints and manufacturing plants to accommodate employees with impairments who are returning to work from disability leave due to injury or illness. In one case, she was asked to look at modifications for a position at a healthcare facility that required reaching overhead to dust walls and ceilings. In this type of situation, Hackbart recommends using tools with longer handles. “That sort of thing could be applied to someone without an injury too, like for all their workers,” she suggests. “That would eliminate overhead reaching for everyone.” In a production setting, where several shifts of workers are coming in and out, Hackbart suggests designing equipment so that it is within reasonable reach, to minimize the amount of time spent with arms fully extended. Making the workstation height adjustable is also helpful. “Those sorts of things, they do follow the principles of universal design,” notes Hackbart. The universal design principles were developed as a guide for designing products and environments that are usable by all people to the greatest extent possible, without adaptation or specialized design. Hack-

bart suggests that employers may want to look at using these principles within their workplaces, which can eliminate the need for workers to request accommodations in the first place. Universal design follows seven principles: equitable use (the design is useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities); flexibility in use (it accommodates a wide range of preferences and abilities); simple and intuitive use (it is easy to understand); perceptible information (it effectively communicates necessary information regardless of ambient conditions); tolerance for error (it minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions); low physical effort (it can be used efficiently and comfortably with minimum fatigue); and size and space for approach and use (appropriate size and space is provided for approach, reach, manipulation and use regardless of the user’s body size, posture or mobility). “Let’s put it this way, universal design is best practice. The return-to-work process as part of the employment standards is a compliance; it’s going to be a requirement,” says Kawaja. Meanwhile, the province plans to continue conducting audits and inspections where warranted, as well as educating employers on workplace accessibility, reports Cooney. “Often times, we hear the fear that accommodations are going to be expensive, but the reality is that most accommodations are quite inexpensive or free,” he notes. Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Carmelle Wolfson is assistant editor of

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Congratulations to the following OHS professionals who have recently been granted the Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP)® Professionnel en sécurité agréé du Canada (PSAC)® designation. Abbasi, Muhammad Kamran Ali Adams, Dean Ajibulu, David Toope Almond, Rodney Anwer, Muhammad Iqbal Awomodu, Gbolahan Bahadoorsingh, Yugash Balango, Scott Baratelli, K. Michelle Barnett, Chelsey Beauchamp (McReynolds), Jane Becker, Joel Benoit, Martin Berze-Butts, Shaun Betzema, Arnold Bhatnagar, Pravin Kumar Bidlock, Shelly Blank, Janina Blasius, Lavern Bluzat, Michelle Bodnar, Ashley Boone, Christie Bouchard, Eric Briese, Amanda Brigden, Sean Brown, Barclay Brown, Kurt Campbell, Amber Campbell, Janice Campbell, Paul Canning, James Carter, Charles Castro, Dario Chaffey, Aaron Chamberlain, Darrell Chisholm, Alicia Ciconte, Rita

Clements, Warren Coca, Jairo Cole, Julie Collins-Cavers, Kathleen Comaniuk, Paul Cox, Quentin Crack, Brent Craig, Cathy Croisetiere, Terri Cyr, Marc Da Silva, Chantel Dahlgren, Karla Davidge, Richard Decunha, Anzette Dennett, Aisling DeWitte, Joe Di Giovanni, Ester Doherty, Linda Donnelly, Timothy Donovan, Jo Anne Durdle, Dion Eastaugh, Douglas Enns, Richard Essilfie, Samuel Everatt, Brittaney Fernandez, Edgar Fillier, Damien Fonseca, German Franko, Danielle Freake, Jeffrey Golshahi, Hooman Gonzalez Chapman, Antonio Goodall, Jaclyn Grannum, Korie Greenlay, Kathryn M. Grega, Tammy Gunter, Ian

Haldorson, Zizhen Hall (Caron), Shannon Hamidnejad, Ramin Hendrie, Carl Hirang, Francisco Jr. Hnidan, Kory Houlden, Earl Hunter, Ronald Hurry, Shelly Iqbal, Mohammad Zahid Jacques, Emile Jardine (Rainville), Marilee Javeed, Saadat John, Ray John, Siju Johnson, David Jolly, James Michael Jones, Doran Jones (Solomon), Corissa Kachanoski, Kevin Kearney, Derek Kendall, Sterling Kennedy, Mary-Anne Klapstein, Carmen Korney, Colin Kriekenbeek, Hans Krueger, Anneliese Lagani, Jennifer Lakusta, Michael Lam, Patrick Lamb, Robert Landreville, Joseph Lashek, Amy Lawrance, Monique Libatique, Almira MacDougall, Heather MacNiven, Rob

MacSween, Blair Mah, Steven Maniatogiannis, Georgios Mason, Edmund McComb, Geoffrey McDougall, Darrell McNamara, Amber Mills, Patrick Montgomery, Wes Mossman, Bruce Mudford, Hillary Mueller, Dana Muhammad, Ibraheim Mullowney, Laura Murphy, Craig Murphy, Lynn Nyan Murray, Lyndsay Murray, Richard Nagel, Tammie Newman (Hollett), Dana Newton, Roger Nhan, Kyle Nikmaram, Kevin Nummela, Jani Nyambaka, Geoffrey Oftebro, Tanya Page, Rylan Parker, Holly Perrin, Douglas Perrin, Leah Phelan, Jason Phillips, Tanner Polson, Jody Melissa Rayner, Ben Reimer, Allan Reynolds, Brett Riley, Brian

Robertson, Joan Robins, James Rodgerson, Patrick Rooney, Shawn Rousseau, Jo-Anne Runge, Leah Sabharwal, Rick Sathiyavanthan, Subajinie (Suba) Schwabe, Chad Scott, Crystal Shek, Wei-Ting Short, Charles (Darrell) Shupe, Cindy Smith, Morgan Snell, Keri Soldan, John Soong, Edmund Sperling, (Aileen) Tal St. Hilaire, Jacques Stasyk, Kendra Szuch, Daniel Takenaka, Lori Taylor, Robert Tchalakova, Magdalena Thompson, Matthew Topolniski, Valerie Upham, Elise Varrasso, Brian Vijayakumar, Joseph Way, Chesley Webber, Krista Wellon, George Wilding, Nancy Wilkie, Janice Zang, Armand Zaszewska, Justyna

The BCRSP is a self-regulating, self-governing organization accredited by the Standards Council of Canada to ISO 17024 (Personnel Certification Body) and certified by BSI Management Systems to ISO 9001 (Quality Management System). Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals/Conseil canadien des professionnels en sécurité agréés 905-567-7198, 1-888-279-2777, www.bcrsp.ca

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SPECIAL REPORT

WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE

Getting a Foothold By Jean Lian

n March 8, women around the world will be marking the gains made over the years towards greater equality in the workplace. For Samantha Espley, general manager of mines and mill technical services with Vale in Sudbury, Ontario, there is a lot to celebrate on International Women’s Day. Espley is the recipient of the 2013 Trailblazer Award, which recognizes women who have taken personal career risks and helped to advance the careers of other women. Things have come a long way since Espley joined the mining industry 25 years ago, when she was one of only three female students at a mine site in northern Quebec. At that time, there were no women working full-time underground. “There is a superstition that if a woman goes underground, it’s bad luck,” she laughs. “But since then, we have got women working in pretty much every department, every role that we have in the business right now.” While many will celebrate the strides “It is the made towards equality between the sexes on International Women’s Day, wominvisibility of en continue to face workplace discrimination and barriers to employment in the dangers male-dominated fields. There may be more women in mining today, but the in women’s fairer sex remains significantly underrepresented in Canada’s minerals explojobs that ration and mining industry, in which women comprise about 14 per cent of makes those the workforce, Espley notes. “That is probably the lowest of all industries.” risks more While access to career-advancement opportunities often comes to mind dangerous.” when addressing gender gaps in the workplace, the repercussions on workplace safety are often overlooked. Karen Messing, professor emeritus with the department of biological science at the Université du Québec à Montréal, stresses that equality and health and safety have to be linked. “You can’t deal with health and safety without dealing with equality,” Messing says, noting that there is still a tendency to segregate jobs by gender. For example, men often hold jobs involving the most visible dangers, such as construction and occupations that require physical exertion or the operation of heavy machinery. On the other hand, women tend to be employed in sectors, such as the services industry, healthcare and education, in which physical dangers are less visible and soft hazards like musculoskeletal injuries are more predominant. “It is the invisibility of the dangers in women’s jobs that makes those risks more dangerous,” Messing says. “Women have unique health and safety challenges that re 50

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sult from workplace inequality,” says Vicki Smallman, director of women and human rights with the Canadian Labour Congress in Ottawa. She cites workplace violence and stress as some of those challenges. “When social attitude or stereotypes about women’s role are brought into the workplace by co-workers or supervisors, that does put women at risk.” Smallman adds that women are more likely to hold nonstandard or precarious jobs that can give rise to a host of negative health and safety outcomes, such as irregular hours, low pay and lack of job security. Women are also more likely to have erratic work schedules or combine part-time positions to accommodate their childcare responsibilities. “The unequal division of labour between women and men, where caregiving is concerned, contributes to the increase of precarious employment and also to stress on the jobs,” she says. NOT THE SAME Gender inequality in the workplace can also manifest itself in other ways. A review paper released in 2007 by the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women, which analyzes research related to women and the workplace health, safety and compensation system, notes that women’s occupational health and safety has historically been and remains a little-studied field. In the scant data that is available, women are underrepresented. For example, a study published in 1976 on cancer in the lead industry excluded 950 female workers in order to ensure a uniform sample. As well, women are affected more often by occupational diseases that are not immediately noticeable than by workplace accidents, which have historically been the focus of intervention. This contributes to the underreporting of women’s occupational injuries. Messing, who co-authored a report entitled Gender Equality, Work and Health: A Review of the Evidence for the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2006, notes that the underestimation of work-related injuries and diseases is more prevalent among women than men. Women’s paid work is generally regarded as safe, women’s occupational injuries and illnesses are under-diagnosed and women’s claims for compensation for some health problems are preferentially refused. Data from the Swedish National Board of Occupational Safety and Health indicate that only 23 per cent of women’s reported work-related diseases assessed by the social insurance office in Sweden between 1994 and 1997 were approved, compared to 44 per cent for men. A breakdown by diagnosis shows greater inequities. For example, 21 per cent of women’s claims for assessed musculoskeletal disorders were approved, compared to 38 per cent for men. For mental illness, only 12 per cent of women’s claims were accepted against 35 per cent of men’s. Data from Quebec show similar inequalities for stress-related claims and musculoskeletal disorders, the report states.

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FAIR PLAY

There are many reasons why promoting gender equality in the workplace makes good sense for both employers and employees. Apart from fully utilizing the workforce, adopting equitable practices in pay and promotion matters helps boost employee morale and productivity. Companies that have fair and transparent systems in managing human resources will also enhance staff retention. That said, more work needs to be done to promote gender equality in the workplace. A 2011 survey by staffing company Randstad Canada, which garnered responses from employees in 29 countries, revealed that 34 per cent of Canada’s male employees and 25 per cent of female em-

Gender bias in occupational health and safety research is another outcome. Available research tools and methods, which have originally been developed in relation to maledominated sectors, may not be valid when analyzing women’s jobs. Messing notes the WHO report found that occupational exposure limits provide significantly less protection to women than men. Safe exposure levels to toxic substances, which have often been based on studies of healthy young men, have become standard for female workers. “Genetically-determined metabolic differences may affect toxicity,” Messing wrote in Physical Exposure in Work by Women, a paper she authored in 2004. “The same level of exposure to a chemical may be more detrimental to one sex than the other, due to sex differences in skin thickness, percentage of fat tissue, airway dimensions, breathing patterns [and] respiratory volume,” the paper concludes. AGAINST THE GRAIN While women have made inroads into employment sectors that were traditionally male-dominated, “for those women doing non-traditional jobs like driving trucks and mining, there are particular challenges in terms of their health and safety that relate to access to safe washrooms and changeroom facilities — things that employers don’t necessarily have to think about when it is just men on the job,” Smallman says. Espley can speak to that experience within the mining industry, which has become more diverse over the years. “Some of our mines are over 100 years old. We only had facilities for men, because we only employed men 100 years ago,” she says. But as more women were hired and assigned to mine sites the companies upgraded facilities to provide the appropriate washroom changeroom facilities for women. Applying a gender lens to workplace health and safety can help resolve some of these issues. Smallman would like to see more studies being conducted on the challenges and the specific types of injuries that women might face on the job, and more women taking positions as health and safety representatives. “When women are not represented at the table, it does make it challenging for employers and unions to come up with good policies,” Smallman says. Alex Johnston, executive director of Catalyst Canada Inc. in Toronto, is likely to agree. “As you increase women’s representation in the ranks and you have visible role models across an organization, you start to get at those kinds of issues relevant to women in the workplace, whether that is safety or compensation or feeling able to achieve your potential.”

ployees say their employers tend to choose men over women even when there are equally suitable female candidates. Results also found that 57 and 47 per cent of female and male employees in Canada respectively believe that their organization performs best when the ratio of men to women on the team is equal. “Despite the great efforts to tackle gender equality in the workplace, this research shows we have a ways to go,” Stacy Parker, executive vice-president of marketing for Randstad Canada, said in a statement. ”A diverse leadership team prevents group think and leads to solutions that will better meet the needs of your market.”

HAVING A VOICE Smallman cites the Canadian Auto Workers’ (CAW) Women’s Advocate Program as an example of how enlisting women in an organization’s health and safety effort can make a significant difference in the workplace. The initiative is a referral program jointly run by the company and the union. A women’s advocate, who is either appointed by the leadership or elected by the membership and supported by a trained management person, is a speciallytrained workplace representative who assists women with issues, such as workplace harassment and domestic violence, and provides support to women accessing community and workplace resources. Apart from helping female employees work through health and safety issues, a women’s advocate can also assist in safety planning for the workplace, notes information from the CAW’s women’s department. The union hosts a 40-hour women’s advocate basic training program biannually for new advocates. “That program, I think, is a model that could be applied in many workplaces,” Smallman says of the Women’s Advocate Program. For Espley, the mechanization of the mining industry has benefited both men and women. The only place where male and female employees remain segregated today is inside the changerooms and washrooms. She explains that Vale has a hiring standard that requires both male and female employees to possess a certain physical strength in order to operate the necessary equipment. “So if you are working underground, you need to have some physical strength, be it a man or a woman,” Espley says. “Other than [the changeroom and washroom facilities], we haven’t really made any changes other than just mechanization that has come with the industry.” The company also applies a safe production model, which looks at every job, conducts risk assessments and analyzes how to mitigate or control those risks across the organization. For female employees who have to sample a fluid by using a long pole with a scoop attached to one end of it, Espley says they have to recognize their limitations and how they are going to do the job safely. “Women do think differently than men,” she adds. “Diversity is an excellent way to get some of the best solutions to our challenges as a society.” Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Jean Lian is editor of

ohs canada.

www.ohscanada.com

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ACCIDENT PREVENTION

OCCUPATIONAL VIBRATION

Feeling the Vibes BAD VIBRATIONS: Every day, workers across industries are exposed to vibration, either from powered hand tools or motorized vehicles. About eight million workers in the United States are exposed to either hand-arm or whole-body vibration on the job, according to 2003 data from the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH). Workers who may be exposed to vibration in their jobs include foundry workers, shipbuilders, chainsaw operators or forestry workers, construction workers, utility workers, steel workers, engineers and drivers or transportation workers. Understanding the health effects associated with occupational vibration can serve as a guide in developing measures to protect these workers from harm. WHITE KNUCKLE: Hand-arm vibration happens at frequencies ranging from five to 1,500 Hertz (Hz). Exposure to hand-arm vibration can affect the tendons, muscles, bones, joints and nervous system. According to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) in Hamilton, Ontario, the most common condition affecting workers who operate handheld vibrating tools is vibration-induced white finger, in which one or more fingers whiten when exposed to cold. White finger is one of various symptoms of hand-arm vibration syndrome. Other symptoms include: tingling or loss of sensation and light touch in the fingers; pain and cold sensations between periodic white finger attacks; and loss of grip strength and bone cysts in the fingers and wrists. Starting with the tips of one or more fingers, handarm vibration syndrome develops gradually and increases in severity over time. It can take anywhere from a few months to several years for the effects to be noticeable. The Health and Safety Executive in the United Kingdom found that workers using grinders often do not experience blanching of the fingers for as long as 14 years.

GENERAL VERSUS LOCAL: The effects of prolonged vibration exposure can be experienced following local vibration or general vibration. Local vibration involves one part of the body and typically occurs in the hand and arm while working with electric vibrating hand tools. Workers may be exposed to hand-arm vibration from common hand tools such as chainsaws, electric screwdrivers, sanders, polishers, grinders, disc cutters, riveting guns, breakers and chipping hammers, as well as bush cutters and mowers. On the other hand, whole-body vibration involves the entire body. Operating vehicles or heavy machinery like vibropackers, tractors, earth-moving machinery such as loaders, armoured fighting vehicles like tanks, excavators, bulldozers, forestry machines, mine and quarry equipment and forklift trucks can all induce whole-body vibration. Exposure to body vibration can also occur while operating some trucks, trams, helicopters, trains, buses, aircraft, motorcycles and even cars.

REDUCING RISKS: Employers and workers can reduce the associated health risks of vibration by taking steps to control the amount of exposure to workers. WorkSafeBC in Richmond, British Columbia recommends that workers grip tool handles with the least amount of strength possible and wear full-fingered antivibration gloves that meet International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards. Employers and workers should also ensure that tools are properly maintained and serviced and that tools like chisels are sharpened. Try to cover handles, especially steel handles, with a layer of resilient wrapping and replace old tools with new ones that have lower vibration frequencies. Whenever possible, employers and workers should eliminate or reduce processes that require vibrating tools and control the length of daily exposure through job rotation, suggests WorkSafeBC. 52

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VIBRATION SICKNESS: The immediate short-term effects of wholebody vibration are often described as ‘vibration sickness’, which is similar to the motion sickness that one might get when travelling. Motion sickness is associated with frequencies between 0.1 to 0.5 Hz, while wholebody vibration frequencies range from 0.5 to 80 Hz. The acute effects of whole-body vibration include: discomfort; impaired vision and continuous hand control; changes in physiological functions; and neuromuscular, sensory and central nervous changes, the International Labour Organization notes. These effects commonly manifest as headaches, chest pain, abdominal pain, nausea, fatigue and loss of balance; however, symptoms normally disappear a few minutes to a few hours after exposure to vibration ends. Other effects of whole-body vibration include increased heart and respiratory rate, increase in oxygen uptake and changes in the blood and urine, the CCOHS reports. Whole-body vibration is a major source of lost time in occupational environments, according to an article published in 2011 by the American Society of Safety Engineers. Over the long term, whole-body vibration can lead to chronic musculoskeletal problems, including lower back pain, damage to the spine, deterioration of the discs in between the vertebrae of the spine and herniated discs, information from WorkSafe Alberta notes.

CONTROL MEASURES: To protect against whole-body vibration, WorkSafeBC suggests that employers and workers take the following safety measures whenever possible: • Choose a suspended seat that contains a vibration-damping mechanism that is adjustable for the worker’s weight; • Dynamically balance vehicle wheels; • Fit tires with a low-vibration tread pattern; • Regularly grade surfaces that vehicles operate on; • Reduce speed over bumpy surfaces; • Avoid sudden load changes and bumping into obstacles while driving; • Fit vibration-damping mechanisms; • Maintain shock absorbers on vehicles; • Isolate booths by setting them on their own separate foundations; and • Train workers not to jump when exiting equipment, particularly from an elevation.

RISK FACTORS: Not every worker is built the same. Various factors can affect the risk of developing hand-arm vibration syndrome, how quickly symptoms appear, the speed of onset and the severity of symptoms, notes WorkSafe Alberta. Frequency of exposure, duration of exposure, level of acceleration, direction of vibration, ergonomics, grip force, cold temperature, impact, tool weight and posture are among the factors that can affect how a worker reacts to vibration exposure. Vibration-related diseases are not easy to diagnose, as not all doctors are trained in this area. As well, the disease progresses over many years, the causes cannot always be identified and there are no objective clinical tests available, the CCOHS notes.

IN THE KNOW: Employers or workers purchasing powered hand tools or vibrating machinery should inform themselves about the vibration characteristics of the products being used. They should refer to standards on vibrationexposure limits issued by the American National Standards Institute, ISO and the ACGIH. Companies are also encouraged to obtain information from the supplier, research available resources and measure the frequency-weighted acceleration values before purchasing the equipment. One good resource is the Off-Highway Plan and Equipment Research Centre’s Hand-Arm Vibration Test Centre — a database that includes machine performance statistics, such as vibration emissions and vibration-acceleration values, which can be accessed for free online. www.ohscanada.com

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PARTNERS IN PREVENTION 2014 HEALTH & SAFETY CONFERENCE & TRADE SHOW

YOUR BEST INVESTMENT

in Health & Safety CANADA’S LARGEST HEALTH & SAFETY EVENT

APRIL 29-30, 2014

THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE 6900 AIRPORT ROAD, MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO

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Partners in Prevention Trade Show

More than 400 exhibit booths with an extensive range of products and services

TRADE SHOWS

under one roof! Canadian Environmental Conference & Trade Show returns in 2014, located in Hall 1

The Safety Factor Quiz Show The Safety Factor Quiz Show will challenge your skills and knowledge in health and safety. This fun and entertaining game is moderately competitive and unexpectedly gripping. Drop by and compete for some great prizes. Sponsored by

Healthy Living Centre and Cooking Stage The Healthy Living Centre offers interactive, educational demonstrations and presentations to ensure you make the healthiest choices in lifestyle, body and mind. Don’t forget to visit the FREE health check screening area.

Working at Heights Pavilion

Check out the Working at Heights Pavilion and see demonstrations of safety products and procedures. Take in a session where you will hear from industry experts, and enjoy your own real hands-on experience. Sponsored by

Hotel Information Room blocks have been arranged at special rates at the following hotels. Please book directly, indicating that you are a delegate or exhibitor of Partners in Prevention 2014. The Westin Bristol Place

Crowne Plaza – Toronto Airport

$156 – Rate expires April 6 416-675-9444 or 1-800-WESTIN1

$132 – Rate expires March 27 1-877-859-5899

Partners in Prevention 2014 PRELIMINARY GUIDE

IAPA March 2014.indd 55

www.ohscanada.com

MARCH 2014

14-02-11 3:52 PM

PARTNERS IN PREVENTION 2014 HEALTH & SAFETY CONFERENCE & TRADE SHOW

DRAEGER

3M Personal Safety offers a wide array of personal safety solutions for visibility, respiratory, head, face, eye, hearing and fall protection. 3M is passionate about protecting the health and safety of workers in all types of industries. This passion helps drive us to continue to innovate across technologies and industries to help keep your workers safe and protected. We strive to deliver comfortable, well-designed PPE that offers your workers the most effective protection available.

GLOVE GUARD

Dräger is an international leader in the fields of medical and safety technology. Dräger products protect, support and save lives in mining, fire and emergency services. The safety division offers products and services for integrated hazard management, including stationary and mobile gas detection systems, respiratory protection equipment, fire training systems, professional diving equipment as well as alcohol and The Goggle Guard™ clip works drug detection units. “Technology with both full-brim and cap style hard hats to keep safety goggles for Life” is the guiding philosophy. securely held. The integrated pencil clip fits No. 2 pencils, carpenter pencils or small to medium-sized pens. Customize your clip with a project ID, contact information, logo or safety slogan imprint.

Toll free number: 1-877-372-4371 www.draeger.ca

HAWS®

Axion MSR™ – Medically Superior Response® is the only eyewash system specifically designed to operate in concert with standard healthcare protocols and the natural function of the human eye.

www.gloveguard.com

Haws Corporation 775.353.8390 www.Hawsco.com

3M.ca/Safety Visit us at Booth #335

Visit us at Booth # 653

Visit us at Booth #743

Visit us at Booth # 824

MASTERLOCK

MSA

ProTELEC

SHOWA-BEST

Do you have employees that work alone?

You want your employees to be safe from workplace accidents. Their lives and the reputation of your company depend on the safety initiatives you take. Master Lock Safety Solutions protects your employees by reducing the possibility of disastrous mistakes when multiple employees have access to machinery. As the industry leader, Master Lock Safety Solutions can help protect lives in virtually every industrial workplace.

ProTELEC is a proactive, automated communication service designed to check on people The V-Gard® GREEN Protective working alone to ensure their Helmet is the first industrial safety product produced from renewable safety. ProTELEC’s emergency response team responds to any resources. The GPE is manufactured from sustainable sugarcane- unanswered calls or alarms. CheckMate does not require based ethanol. Even though the V-Gard GREEN is made from sus- the purchase of hardware or software. CheckMate provides tainable GPE, it still provides the same performance as resins made an audit trail and helps to meet from nonrenewable raw materials, workplace safety legislation for employees working alone. delivering the same high level of head protection that our V-Gard brand is known for worldwide. A Safety Helmet That Protects More Than Your Head

ProTELEC CheckMate Sales Inquiries and for more Information 1-866-775-6620 info@protelecalarms.com Visit MSAsafety.com Keyword: GREEN

Visit us at Booth # 834

MARCH 2014

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Visit us as booth # 513

Showa-Best Glove the inventors of the world’s first disposable nitrile glove, N-DEX®, now bring you the world’s first biodegradable disposable nitrile glove GreeN-DEXTM. Reaching a major breakthrough with ECO BEST TECHNOLOGYTM (EBT). EBT accelerates the biodegradation of nitrile in biologically active landfills and anaerobic digesters as validated by independent certified laboratories using internationally recognized test methods.

www.showabestglove.com/

Visit us at Booth # 313

Visit us at Booth # 560

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14-02-11 3:29 PM

EXHIBITOR PREVIEWS IMPACTO® TURBOTOE

MARTOR

INDUSTRIAL SCIENTIFIC LAKELAND

By wearing the Tango, which The TURBO TOE steel toe cap includes two identical sensors for overshoe protects the toe area the detection of the same gas, from accidental impact, crushing workers will be the safest single or stubbing. Ideal for any work gas monitor users in the world. place where there might be risk of The Tango’s three-year runtime toe damage or has a steel toe cap and patent pending DualSense™ requirement. Fits tightly over most Technology increases worker shoes and boots. Great for visitors safety, regardless of bump test and temporary workers. 100% frequency, while reducing overall waterproof, CSA Certified. maintenance costs.

Lakeland Protective Wear is the leader in disposable, chemical, HazMat, FR clothing and turnout gear. We have a dedicated sales team to assist end users in determining the correct clothing requirements to match the needs of each unique end user. Please visit us at the PIP 2014 Booth #600, Glenn and Jason will be happy to assist you with your safety clothing needs!!

The Merak is a GS-tested safety knife for precise cutting with fully automatic blade retraction, ideally suitable for cutting most packaging materials. Designed with a squeeze-grip in a comfortable ergonomic shape, it ensures low-fatigue and high productivity. Shallow cutting depth minimizes damage of contents of cardboard boxes. Made from nearly indestructible engineering plastic.

www.indsci.com/tango 1-800-DETECTS (338-3287) E-mail: info@indsci.com

www.lakeland.com 1(800)489-9131

www.martorusa.com

Visit us at Booth #635

Visit us at Booth #912

Visit us at Booth #600

Visit us at Booth # 929

SUPERIOR GLOVE

UNB

WORKRITE

YOW

Put the Safety of Your Hands in Ours

• Expert advice and recommendations based on 100 years in business • Onsite training with complimentary glove analysis • Glove specialties that include cut-resistant, heat-resistant gloves

www.superiorglove.com

Visit us at Booth #724

The University of New Brunswick is the leader in online OHS education. Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety Designed to help practitioners develop the broad base of competencies needed to be effective in OHS programs and systems. CRSP Exam Preparation Designed to help aspiring CRSPs write the Board exam successfully. Advanced Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety Designed those wishing to advance their careers in OHSManagement and Leadership.!

Workrite has launched Workrite Canada, a product line specifically developed to meet Canadian standards and practices for industries such as oil & gas, mining, utilities and manufacturing. Products include coveralls, insulated bibs, parkas and hoods made with leading FR fabrics and CSA-configured reflective tape.

University of New Brunswick www.unb.ca/cel/unbohs 1 888 259 4222 ohssales@unb.ca

For more information: (855) 855-2785 Workrite.com

Visit us at Booth # 948

Visit us at Booth 414

YOW Canada Inc. provides high quality occupational health and safety training and materials to aid Canadians with safety compliance. Some of our online courses include WHMIS, Transportation of Dangerous Goods, Fall Protection and many more. We have recently launched online courses for Ontario Health and Safety Awareness training which is mandatory. Over the years, YOW Canada has trained hundreds of thousands of people across Canada! Visit our website today for more information! www.yowcanada.com info@yowcanada.com 1.866.688.2845

Visit us at Booth #449

www.ohscanada.com

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Registration Info

Your full conference or one-day registration fee includes breakfast, lunch and two coffee breaks

2 easy ways to register

www.PartnersinPreventionConference.com or Call

1-877-494-9777 and we’ll do it for you! Regular Conference

Super Early Bird Before March 31

Early Bird Before April 14

Regular Price After April 14

2 Day Registration

$599 + HST

$649 + HST

$699 + HST

Tuesday Only

$379 + HST

$399 + HST

$429 + HST

Wednesday Only

$379 + HST

$399 + HST

$429 + HST

Free

$29 + HST

Exhibits Only

Student Pass (only with I.D.) $49.00 (on-site only)

Professional Development Courses (PDC’s)

Amount

Volume Discounts:

PDC 101

Conducting Office Ergonomics Assessments

$319 + HST

PDC 102

The Prevention and Control of Water Damage in Buildings

$199 + HST

PDC 103

Hearing Conservation

$399 + HST

PDC 201

Combustible-Dust Workshop

$399 + HST

PDC 204

Emergency Management in Ontario: How Does It Work?

$199 + HST

PDC 301

Managing Heat Stress in the Workplace

$199 + HST

PDC 302

AODA Compliance – Are You Prepared?

$199 + HST

PDC 303

Elements of a Respiratory-Protection Program and Qualitative Fit Testing

$399 + HST

CSA 101

Establishing and Managing Hearing Loss Prevention Programs

$300 + HST

CSA 102

Psychological Health & Safety in the Workplace

$300 + HST

6 to 9 registrations 10 to 15 registrations 16 to 20 registrations 21 or more registrations

5% 10% 15% 20%

To be eligible, registrations must be made at the same time.

Y IN

in Attend both for a combined price of $525 + HST

If we receive your registration and payment before March 31, your badge will be mailed during the week of April 7. Note: $50 cancellation fee before March 31. No cancellations accepted after March 31. Delegate substitutions allowed any time.

Pa 58

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Partners in Prevention 2014 PRELIMINARY GUIDE

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PARTNERS IN PREVENTION 2014 HEALTH & SAFETY CONFERENCE & TRADE SHOW 2014 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Tom Wujec

World Renowned Expert on Innovation

Return on Imagination Innovation Breakthroughs Through Visual Thinking

Sheldon Kennedy Former NHL Hockey Player, Co-Founder, Respect Group Inc.

Why I Didn’t Say Anything: The Psychological Impacts of Abuse

YOUR BEST INVESTMENT

in Health & Safety

Michael “Pinball” Clemons CFL Legend and Toronto Argonauts Vice-Chairman

Winning Against the Odds

CANADA’S LARGEST HEALTH & SAFETY EVENT

APRIL 29-30, 2014

THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE 6900 AIRPORT ROAD, MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO

To register or request our Preliminary Guide

PartnersinPreventionConference.com 1 877 494 WSPS (9777)

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PRODUCT SHOWCASE an advertising feature

ACUTE ENVIRONMENTAL & SAFETY SERVICES ACUTE is committed to partner with our customers to exceed corporate and legislative requirements. ACUTE provides health and safety services for more than just legal compliance, but in order to help their most valuable assets, people, stay safe and successfully working.

www.acuteservices.com

3M™ RUGGED COMFORT HALF FACEPIECE REUSABLE RESPIRATOR 6500 SERIES Designed with tough and dirty worksites in mind, the 6500 Series keeps workers protected and productive. The new 3M™ Rugged Comfort Half Facepiece Reusable Respirator delivers comfort, durability and stability, with a firm, lightly textured silicone faceseal and strong body construction. A few key features include: adjustable head harness assembly; Quick Latch drop-down mechanism; and, an overmolded, low-profile design.

3M.ca/Safety or call 1-800-3M HELPS

FLAME-RESISTANT WORKWEAR Workrite introduces an exciting new line of dual hazard knit polo and t-shirts featuring a new fabric TenCate Tecasafe® Plus. They’re engineered to withstand industrial laundering, providing excellent wear life, comfort and after wash appearance. The shirts have completely new styling, meet HRC 2 and are certified to NFPA 2112.

Workrite Uniform Company www.workrite.com/knits 800-521-1888

ENCON® THERMA-FLOW® Encon’s Freeze-Protected Showers resist freezing by maintaining an internal water temperature above 50° F (10° C). Internal water temperatures are maintained using a thermostat controlled self-limiting heating cable on Therma-Flow® showers and a radiant heater or heating cable in the Therma-Flow® Plus product. Encon® offers a customized model selection, allowing you to design a product that meets the specific needs of your facility.

Visit www.enconsafety.com/thermaflow/

GLOVE RINGS Reduce suit up time while increasing wrist and hand mobility with the Glove Rings® accessory! Made from a strong, flexible plastic they provide a firm surface for taping that makes a better and more consistent seal. Perfect for hydro-blasting, industrial cleaning, hazmat, raingear, asbestos abatement and much more!

Glove Guard 1-888-660-6133 www.gloveguard.com

MARCH 2014

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3M www.3M.ca/safety For ad see page 64

BCRSP www.bcrsp.ca For ad see page 49

Draeger www.draeger.com For ad see page 63 www.gloveguard.com For ad see page 17

Haws www.hawsco.com For ad see page 43

Impacto www.impacto.ca For ad see page 13

www.ohscanada. com

ProTELEC Checkmate

www.indsci.com For ad see page 9

ww.proteleccheckmate.com For ad see page 25

Superior Glove

Internet Based Learning

www.superiorglove.com For ad see page 16

www.whmis.net For ad see page 18

Showa-Best

Lakeland

www.showabestglove.com For ad see page 14

www.lakeland.com For ad see page 12

Workplace Safety & Prevention Services

Martor USA www.martorusa.com For ad see page 11

www.PartnersinPreventionConference.com For ad see page 54

Masterlock

ADVERTISING DIRECTORY

Glove Guard

Industrial Scientific Corp

www.ohscanada.com

A D V E R T I S I N G D I R E C T O RY C A N A D A

Workrite

www.masterlock.com For ad see page 5

www.workrite.com/canada For ad see page 7

MSA

Yow Canada

www.msanet.com For ad see page 2

www.yowcanada.com For ad see page 13

Nasco www.nascoinc.com For ad see page 15

So, what’s on your mind? MARCH 2014

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014

Are healthcare workers at higher risk of violence than police officers?

Are conducted energy weapons like Tasers safe for use?

Yes 56%

Yes 34%

No 26%

No 53%

Not Sure

Undecided 13%

Total Votes

18% 160

Total Votes

Go on — have your say. Check out www.ohscanada.com to vote in our latest poll.

www.ohscanada.com

ad index March 2014.indd 61

MARCH 2014

14-02-13 3:07 PM

TIME OUT STICKY SITUATION: Being a mayor can be hard work. Constantly shuffling from meetings to press conferences means one minor delay could lead to major setbacks. This became abundantly clear when Toronto Mayor Rob Ford showed up at a recent Economic Club of Canada lunch 45 minutes late, after allegedly getting stuck in an elevator, The Canadian Press reports. Ford was scheduled to give a speech at the January 23 event, but did not reach the podium until 15 minutes before the meal was supposed to wrap up. Displaying his usual sense of responsibility, the mayor was quick to accept blame for the matter. “I want to thank the Economic Club of Canada for hosting today’s event and getting me stuck in the elevator for 45 minutes,” he reportedly told the crowd of business people. JUICED: Kids can be really picky when it comes to what

they eat or drink. Four-year-old Azia Iannantuono is no exception. In mid-January, Azia’s mother gave her an Oasis juice box to drink, but the girl complained that it tasted funny, reports CBC News. Then the juice box went around the table. Mama Iannantuono took a sip. Papa Iannantuono took a swig. They all noticed the funky taste. When the family dissected the juice box, they discovered disgusting greenish debris inside it and two other boxes in the same package. The juice maker’s parent company, Quebec-based Lassonde Industries, claims the containers were damaged during distribution. Parents might be wise to listen up the next time their children say their juice tastes “gross”.

FINAL FRONTIER: The Canadian Space Agency (CSA)

is testing out some new astronaut gear here on earth. Half a dozen explorers were scheduled to voyage to Antarctica on February 2, where they were expected to try out Montreal designer Carre Technologies’ new Astroskin prototype, QMI Agency reports. The CSA reportedly said Antarctica was comparable to the extreme environment and isolated conditions experienced in space. After all, Antarctica and space have a lot of similarities: they are both cold and dark and there is no living creature in sight. The “smart shirt” measures the user’s vital signs and sends the data remotely to a medical team. For those who hate going to the doctor, take note: the smart shirt could be coming to a store near you soon, as the CSA says the Astroskin could be used by land dwellers too.

NOT-SO-SAFE-WAY: Grocery shopping could be more

dangerous than you think. A woman claiming that she was knocked out by a grocery store door at a Calgary Safeway on January 14 is seeking $1 million in damages, QMI Agency reports. The woman alleges that she was smacked in the head twice upon trying to exit the supermarket, causing multiple head injuries, and that she blacked out as a result of the runin with the door. Following the incident, she says she experienced dizziness, ringing in her ears, sleep disturbances and a stiff spine. She is seeking damages for potential loss of income and future cost of care. The allegations have yet to be proven in court, but once others catch wind that shoppers can walk into a supermarket and walk out $1 million richer, the lineups at Safeway will certainly get longer. MARCH 2014

York got a little slap-happy over a customer’s Happy Meal. The female cashier allegedly hit a woman in the face when she asked for cheese on her son’s cheeseburger, The New York Post reports. The customer is reportedly suing the Brooklyn McDonald’s franchise over the altercation, for which her lawyer says the restaurant is liable since no one tried to stop the ensuing violence. The defence lawyer claims that the restaurant fired the employee immediately. In future, McDonald’s might want to consider a workplace policy of mandatory angermanagement courses for its irate employees.

BATTLE OF THE BOARDS: Ski resorts are unfairly ste-

reotyping snowboarders as “reckless” and “inconsiderate”, claim four snowboarders who have initiated a lawsuit against the Alta ski area east of Salt Lake City, Utah. The suit also claims Alta is annoyed by snowboarders’ baggy clothes and overuse of the terms “gnarly” and “radical”, The National Post reports. The plaintiffs took to the Alta hills with their boards and tickets in mid-January, but were allegedly turned away. Skiers complain that snowboarders are putting their safety at risk, but the plaintiffs argue that Alta’s ban violates the right to equal treatment under the United States Constitution.

SESAME SNACKS: Sesame Street is battling junk-food

culture by promoting healthy eating to youngsters, The Associated Press reports. For fans of Cookie Monster, do not fret; he has not morphed into Carrot Monster. A workshop launched in Colombia by Sesame Street producers and a New York cardiologist teaches children healthy habits like eating nutritious food and regular exercise. Plans are currently underway for an American version of the project in New York City. After the three-year test run in Colombia and Spain, kids aged three to five years old were reportedly begging their parents for cauliflower, salads and bananas instead of unhealthy snacks.

TOILET TROUBLE: Despite a hefty budget, the toilet facilities at this year’s Olympics in Sochi, Russia might not be up to par. On a press tour, one reporter discovered two toilets side-by-side, with nothing but a garbage bin between them, BBC News reports. After the reporter posted the photo online, it became a detail that Russians at every level of society could not help but comment on. Even the president of the Russian Olympic Committee had a laugh, reportedly claiming that after all, the sports event was a “biathlon”. DO NOT REPLY: A BP oil employee has inadvertently

initiated a sort of internal cyber attack, infecting company e-mail accounts around the globe, reports Gawker. The worker reportedly sent an e-mail that was meant to inform a co-worker that a transferred worker had been removed from the distribution list. But the note was accidentally sent to an e-mail list that reached nearly every BP employee around the world. It allegedly led to a productivity drain, consuming the company for most of the day after a chain of more than 150 response e-mails were sent to workers worldwide. Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

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