A North Salt Lake City business, Thermal West Industrial Inc., has sued the University of Utah over a plumbing failure last November that left 12 workers with scalding burns.

The accident occurred beneath a parking lot in a vault near 300 South and 1850 East last November 1. The company had been hired by the university to install hot-water piping trunks in a new tunnel system through the school’s campus. As they worked on the underground pipe, at least 40,000 gallons of hot water poured into the tunnel system through a water line that was designated inactive and abandoned, burning the workers with 400 degree (Fahrenheit) steam, resulting in injuries to 12 workers, three of them critical.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigated the work-related accident and found Thermal West Industrial was not at fault. In April, the Utah Labor Commission cited the university for failing to cap the inactive water line, even though it was still connected to active lines.

In its lawsuit, Thermal West claims it has lost customers since the incident because the worker’s injury reports caused the contractor’s safety rating to drop, resulting in lost contracts with some of its biggest customers. In all, the suit seeks $4,505,000 in lost contract revenue and $325,000 in increased workmen’s compensation costs.

A YouTube video that has gone somewhat viral and has received more than140,000 hits to date has a lot of people shaking their heads. It shows a Gatineau, Quebec bus driver doing paperwork while operating his bus. Several times in the 57-second video, the driver takes his hands completely off the wheel and steers the bus with his knees.

Incredibly, the transit union that represents Gatineau bus drivers is claiming an invasion of the driver’s privacy with the video, and wants to ban passengers from taking video of drivers inside public buses. As union officials see it, drivers don’t need to be stared at or ridiculed every time they do something the public doesn’t understand.

Predictably, the passenger who took the video, Jaime Hill, disagrees with the union’s stance, noting that public transportation is not the same as private transportation, and that there is no expectation of privacy for a driver of a public bus.

According to Gatineau transit officials, the driver in the video has been disciplined, but he will not be fired.

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Ontario Court Clarifies Employers’ Incident Reporting Obligations

Although executives with the Blue Mountain Resort are unhappy and plan to appeal the recent ruling, the Ontario Divisional Court has issued a ruling clarifiying Section 51 of Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, which outlines the duties of an employer in all critical injury and fatality incidents.

According to Section 51, whenever a person is killed or critically injured from any cause at any workplace, the employer must notify an MoL inspector, as well as all other workplace parties. The employer must then secure the scene until an inspector clears the site, and send the ministry a written report on the incident within 48 hours.

But in the incident that led to the ruling, which occurred in December 2007, a resort guest drowned in an unsupervised pool at Blue Mountain, and the incident was never reported to the MoL. They only learned of it when a Ministry inspector conducted a field visit to the resort in March 2008. When the inspector found out, he wrote an order directing the resort to formally notify the MoL.

Justice Wailan Low, writing for the court, followed an earlier ruling from the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB), disregarding the resort’s argument that notification was unnecessary because the pool was not a workplace, per se, at the time of the incident. The resort had argued that the hazard involved in the guest’s drowning while apparently performing exercises underwater wasn’t likely to affect a worker, and they noted that whenever a guest was involved in a serious incident that could also have affected a worker, Blue Mountain had always been quick to notify the MoL.

In dismissing their argument, Justice Low noted that the OLRB “ought to have given recognition to the fact that [their] facilities are dual use premises – they are both recreational premises and a workplace, and the use may change depending on the circumstances.”

According to legal experts, the court ruling may impact a large number of Ontario workplaces, because it requires all employers to report all fatal and critical injuries that occur at a workplace, even if worker health and safety is in no way involved. The MoL is likely to see a much greater number of notifications from employers from industries such as health care, municipal, retail and other service sectors in which workers interact with the public.

The MoL considers the court’s decision to be consistent with their policy on enforcement of these requirements. They consider the requirement to be a reasonable expectation and in no way burdensome for employers.

If you are driving in New Brunswick, be aware that, as of June 6, it is now illegal to do so while talking, texting, or messing with your iPod, so you might want go hands free, or consider letting that call go to voicemail if not.

The new law prohibits the manual operation of use of any portable communications or entertainment devices while driving, and goes so far as to prohibit the manual programming or adjusting of any global positioning system while driving. That means, if your cell phone, GPS or MP3 player isn’t hands-free, you run the risk of a ticket.

And make no mistake; the ticket could cost you dearly. If police stop you, you could see a fine of $172.50 and lose three points from your license. In addition, the Insurance Bureau of Canada has strongly suggested that drivers can also expect to see higher rates for auto insurance.

Police throughout the province began enforcing the new legislation from day one, and they have let it be known that those who choose to disregard the law in its first few weeks do so at their own risk, as they plan no leniency. They note that the new law was passed in December, and the public has been aware that it was coming for months now, so they view that as a sufficient “grace period.”

Among the exemptions included with the new law are voice-operated systems, one-touch devices or built-in screens. Of course, police officers and other emergency personnel will be exempt, and drivers will be permitted to make emergency 911 calls when necessary without incurring a fine. Commercial vehicle drivers will still be allowed to use two-way radios, and ham radio operators can still use them for emergency activities.

Though New Brunswick is one of the last provinces to enact such a ban, lawmakers hope that the new legislation will create a cultural shift towards improved road safety. Lawmakers worry about the number of young people killed on New Brunswick’s highways every year as they play with their hand-held gadgets. Thus far, public feedback has been positive, although RCMP officers expect a bit of a learning curve. They note that the wearing of seatbelts has been required since 1983, but they still catch people driving without them.

According to the Canada Safety Council, drivers who take their eyes off the road to adjust their hand-held device are as much as 23 times more likely to get into an accident.

Last week, the Ontario Ministry of Labour announced that for the next month its inspectors will be conducting a safety blitz of construction sites with tower cranes.

A team of inspectors will be sent to focus mostly on sites in Toronto and Niagara. Not only will they be climbing towers to check access ladders, guardrails and fall arrest equipment, they will also examine inspection records, operator certification, and overall compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Inspectors will pay special attention to maintenance records, including proper documentation on the condition of the tower crane before and after erection, including engineer drawings. They will confirm that all cranes were properly inspected prior to first use and regularly inspected and maintained afterwards, and they will review log books to ensure operational functions such as limit and overload limit switches were properly tested.

This blitz was called because of concerns over an increased number of injuries and close calls resulting from incidents caused by tower cranes, including incidents in which workers were struck by materials being hoisted or pinned by loads that were lowered. There have also been several incidents in which cranes themselves struck scaffolding, or in some cases, tipped over.

A new project was unveiled by WorkSafeBC last week, one that hopes to get the word out about the importance of injury prevention at construction sites throughout British Columbia. If the project proves a success, that message will be difficult to miss, since the goal is to set up workplace signs everywhere to remind everyone working on construction sites to take safety precautions.

But WorkSafeBC is taking this project a step further than just promoting safety within the worksite itself. They are actually hoping to expand the scope of the message into the rest of the community at large by placing signs in areas, such as fences, that can be seen by the general public, and not just the construction workers themselves. This way, WorkSafeBC hopes to remind everyone to stay safe on the job, wherever they may work.

In 2010, WorkSafeBC saw 14,405 injury claims from construction sites across the province. Of that number, 32 of the injuries led to worker deaths, which is the largest number of work-related fatalities in any industry sector.

WorkSafeBC launched the project in partnership with The Community Against Preventable Injuries, otherwise known as Preventable, as well as a number of employers, including Stuart Olson Dominion, ITC Construction Group, Kindred Construction Ltd., Lafarge Aggregate & Concrete, and PCL Construction.

The Ontario Ministry of Labour (MoL) issued nine work orders, including two work-stoppage orders, after two miners died underground at Vale’s Stobie mine in Sudbury, Ontario. According to the MoL, the work orders were issued to secure the mine and to make sure workers aren’t exposed to any immediate danger.

Some of the orders dealt with excessive water around ore passes, although the MoL was hesitant to cite that as the actual cause of the accident. Inspectors are investigating the incident to determine if health and safety regulations were followed, and to make sure the workplace is safe.

The two workers, Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26, both of Sudbury, were working 900 metres underground in an ore pass, a vertical opening where ore is dropped to a lower level for handling, when they were suddenly overtaken by loose rock known as ”muck.”

Coincidentally, just a few days before the accident, Vale was awarded the John T. Ryan Trophy for the sixth time in seven years. The award, given to Canada’s safest metal mine, was presented to them because two of the company’s mines in Thompson, Manitoba, T1 and Birchtree, were tied for the lowest reportable injury frequency per 200,000 work hours. The award is given by the Canadian Institute of Mining every year.

Vale hasn’t set a date for resuming full production at the mine, but they have told workers they can stay home if they want until then, and they’re making counseling available to those who request it. Those who report for work will be provided with other jobs in the meantime.

Nova Scotia government officials are trying to send a message to employers that young people who are entering the workforce for the first time can feel uneasy or intimidated, and are unwilling or unable to speak up about any concerns they have, and often don’t ask questions about their jobs. But that doesn’t absolve employers of responsibility for keeping such workers healthy and safe.

Overall, 3,665 young workers under the age of 25 reported claims to Nova Scotia’s Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) last year, and WCB officials want to see those numbers fall. To do that, they want all employers to know they must make all employees aware of their right to refuse unsafe work, their right to be informed about any dangers on the job and their right to the proper knowledge and equipment to perform their work safely.

They also note the importance of parents and guardians in keeping young workers safe, and they encourage all to talk to them about approaching their work safely. Parents or guardians should not assume their child’s workplace is safe. They should also not assume that they receive proper training, or that they will speak up when they think something is unsafe. After they’re hired, investigate the workplace and find out as much as possible about the job. Research shows that young workers are five times more likely to be hurt in the first month than those who have been in their current jobs for more than a year.

Irving Shipbuilding Inc. is scheduled to stand trial in March 2012 on Occupational Health and Safety Act charges stemming from an industrial accident that injured a worker at the Halifax Shipyard three years ago.

The accident that led to the charges occurred on March 4, 2008, when a 50-year-old worker who was performing maintenance on the dry dock fell about six metres. Emergency personnel were called, and the worker was taken to hospital with unspecified injuries. The Nova Scotia Labour Department immediately launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the fall.

The result of that investigation led to the Labour department charging Irving Shipbuilding with four offences under the Occupational Health and Safety Act: failing to protect employees from a hazard of falling, failing to ensure there were adequate guardrails, failing to make sure workers entering a confined space wore full body harnesses; and failing to ensure the worker who fell had been provided with confined-space training.

The company had originally scheduled to go to trial in Halifax provincial court this coming September, but lawyers appeared before Judge Anne Derrick last week to ask for postponement, and she rescheduled the trial for 10 days, beginning March 5.

Halifax Shipyard is one of four yards, along with Seaspan Marine Inc. in Vancouver, Seaway Marine and Industrial in Ontario, and the Davie Yards in Quebec, who are bidding on Ottawa’s $35-billion national shipbuilding program. Irving Shipbuilding Inc. hopes to land the bulk of the contract, about $25 billion worth of work building 20 navy vessels.

According to an economic impact study done by the Conference Board of Canada, if they win the combat vessel contract, it could mean more than 11,000 new jobs in Nova Scotia by 2020, the height of construction. The deadline for bids is July 21, with a decision expected in September.

Ontario-based Goldcorp Canada Ltd., a mining operation doing business as Musselwhite Mine, an underground gold mining operation, was fined $50,000 last week for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act after a Ministry of Labour (MoL) inspection.

A Ministry inspector visited the Musselwhite Mine, located about 650 kilometers northwest of Thunder Bay, on November 14, 2009. As the inspector reviewed the mine’s training records, it was determined that one of the mine’s workers was not registered as fully trained in all of the prescribed training programs required for work in a hard rock underground mine.

As a result of that inspection, Goldcorp Canada Ltd. pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that a worker was trained as prescribed. Justice of the Peace Edith Baas imposed the $50,000, and also imposed the statutorily required 25% victim fine surcharge, as required by the Provincial Offences Act.

A failure to properly train one worker cost the company a total of $62,500.