Who could ever have imagined that breaking wind could make the roads safer and the air cleaner?  That’s certainly the hope of the Ontario provincial government.

It is a fact that one of the great difficulties with clearing highways during winter is having to deal with blowing and drifting snow. It’s not unusual for snowplow operators to clear a section of road, only to have to do so again because of snow that has drifted from a nearby field.

To combat this problem, Ontario has developed a special project in the West region to build partnerships with farming agencies and groups to encourage the planting of farm windbreaks, which are lines of trees designed to block drifting snow from blowing onto the highway. But it is also hoped that the project, which is supported in part by the Ontario Public Service Innovation Fund, will also provide environmental benefits.

The effects of blowing and drifting snow accounts for as much as 30% of plowing, salting and sanding costs,  which comes to about $3,000 per two-lane kilometre per year. Combined with the province’s purchase of state-of-the-art, efficient snow removal equipment and technology, it is hoped that the planting of farm windbreaks will result in significant cost savings.

But the benefit is not just about winter highway maintenance. While last winter saw major reductions in snow removal costs in areas where windbreaks already existed, area farmers who plant windbreaks see crop yields increase by 5-25% on average. The windbreaks reduce soil erosion, provide wildlife habitat, improve air quality, and have a cooling effect on climate.

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To help raise awareness, provincial environmental officials launched an advertisement campaign last year designed to attract the attention of farmers, including a brochure featuring the slogan “Break Wind, Make Money” that is currently being distributed at farm shows, grower meetings, conferences and workshops throughout Ontario. .

The Farm Windbreaks project is intended to promote sustainability, reducing the effects of climate change and to reduce the environmental contamination by road chemicals, as well as improve road and transportation safety.

So go ahead, break wind, and keep the roads clear.

The Ontario courts were busy last week, and in the space of four days, worker accidents cost three companies a lot of money.  Take a look at the details of each accident; every one of them was easily preventable with just some basic safety training and worker awareness.

1. In one case, elevator and escalator manufacturer Kone Inc. was fined $90,000 for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act that caused a worker to be injured.

The fine was for an incident that occurred on September 11, 2008, when a worker was repairing an elevator circuit board at the University of Western Ontario. The worker stood on a ladder in the pit and shaft area of the elevator while the elevator’s power was still on. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the worker wasn’t using rubber gloves, mats, shields, or other equipment to protect against electrical shock. Of course, when the worker touched the back of the circuit board, the resultant electric shock caused him to fall to the concrete floor of the pit, resulting in wrist and facial fractures.

Kone Inc. pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the worker used rubber gloves, mats, shields and other protective equipment and procedures adequate to ensure protection from electrical shock and burns.

2.  In another case, a $60,000 fine was imposed on Tri City Materials Ltd., a company that works with aggregates, after it, too, pleaded guilty for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act that caused an injury to a worker.

The incident that led to this fine occurred on December 30, 2008. A worker was cleaning out a trailer that acted as a hopper for various materials. Because the hopper’s chute needed power to stay open, the truck attached to the trailer was left running.  Unfortunately, when another worker shut off the truck during the cleaning process, the chute gate immediately closed and caught the worker’s leg.

A Ministry of Labour investigation found that the company’s procedure for safely cleaning the trailer required that it be locked out with its chute gate manually wedged open. They determined that the worker was improperly trained, and was unfamiliar with this procedure or the hazards associated with cleaning out the trailer.

Tri City Materials Ltd. pleaded guilty to failing to acquaint the worker with the hazards associated with cleaning out the trailer.

3. Within days of the above fines, Abitibi Consolidated Company of Canada, owner and operator of a paper mill in Fort Frances, was slapped with a $125,000 fine for their violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act for an accident that injured two workers and a student.

That incident occurred on August 20, 2008, when two of the paper mill’s electricians were changing the power box for part of a paper machine. In this case, the power to the box itself was locked out, but the power to the cabinet containing the box was not shut off or locked out. As the electricians removed the power box, they noticed a cable inside the cabinet that needed to be moved, so one of them reached into the cabinet with a metal tool to remove a clamp holding the cable in place. In doing so, the tool made electrical contact with a live conductor inside the cabinet, creating an arc flash, which in turn caused another arc flash from the live conductors overhead.

The accident caused both electricians to suffer first, second and third degree burns. At the same time, a student who was standing nearby and watching them suffered first degree burns.

Abitibi Consolidated Company of Canada pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that a tool was not used near a live electrical installation to prevent electrical contact with a live conductor.

In addition to the $275,000 in fines in the three cases above, the court also imposed a 25% victim fine surcharge, as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime. That puts the total cost to these three companies at more than $343,000, all for accidents that could have been prevented with a little health and safety awareness.

Proper health and safety training doesn’t cost. It pays.

Police in Lambton, Ontario stopped a truck driver at around 11:30 a.m. July 7 after a passing motorist reported that the tractor-trailer was weaving “all over the road,” according to a statement by the Ontario Provincial Police.

What police found after they stopped the 58-year-old trucker from Kitchener was one for the books. Apparently, the reason the  truck was weaving because the man was trying to perform self-dentistry, attempting to pull an aching tooth.

To accomplish this tooth-pulling feat, he had tied one end of the string to his tooth, and another to the roof of the truck’s cab. According to police, he was waiting for “one good bump” to yank the tooth out of his mouth.

Needless to say, police cited the truck driver for careless driving.

By the way, his little dentistry experiment apparently worked. When police stopped him, the string and his bloody tooth laid next to him on his seat.

As just about any company who’s experienced them can tell you, workplace accidents can be devastating to your company.  Besides the obvious hit to the bottom line when they bring your  operation to a standstill and force your company to pay a fine, the results can be even more tragic, such as when they involve serious injury or even loss of life. The number one priority of any business should be to avoid accidents, and one of the best ways to do so is to conduct periodic safety audits.

A safety audit should examine the entire work area and should cover all activities required in that workplace in order to optimize safety, to make sure everything is up to government standards and complies to the company’s safety policy.. Everything should be checked and all workers should be involved, and encouraged to put their best effort into making sure that nothing is missed.

There are obviously many ways to approach safety audits. But there are a number of elements that should be included in any workplace safety audit.

First, you need a plan. Gather all relevant company safety information, and define the scope of the audit. Then assemble an audit team to review all company policies and procedures, legislation, standards, guidelines and practice codes relevant to your workplace. Be sure the audit team is equipped with all special tools, equipment and safety gear to conduct the audit effectively and safely, and put in place escort arrangements and make sure the team familiarizes themselves with the site before the audit. The team should also know all the key role players, clarify the audit objectives and nail down the approach to be followed during the audit.

The audit team should then review all incidents and accidents that occurred during the audit period. This is an essential aspect of understanding the uncontrolled risks in the workplace they plan to audit. They will also have to review documents, interview staff and conduct physical inspections to determine whether or not all safety management system elements are correctly implemented.

A truly successful safety audit should involve every employee. While it’s true that outsiders can provide some perspective that everyday workers might miss, the workers themselves are often the best judges of what is and isn’t safe, and they will know what needs to be changed. Often, workers are reluctant to participate in such audits if they feel they are being second-guessed or their opinion isn’t being properly respected, so be sure to encourage their participation in the process, stressing the importance of the audit and putting them at ease about their participation.

The value of a safety audit is that it evaluates workplace safety in real time. And once a report is issued, take it seriously, and correct areas of weakness as soon as possible. Many times, the audit report will recommend more comprehensive training and this should be scheduled quickly.

No company can sit on its record when it comes to safety, and periodic audits should be part of your overall safety strategy. Without a regular check of your system, weaknesses will develop and the likelihood of an accident will increase greatly.

After a recent report by Nova Scotia’s ombudsman’s report noted a disregard for procedure on the part of the management and staff at the weigh station in Amherst, Transport Minister Bill Estabrooks would like everyone to know he’s tackling the safety and management deficiencies with urgency.

In addition to citing glaring deficiencies with regard to safety and management procedures, the ombudsman’s report also recommended eight ways to solve the problems, including the removal of human resources responsibilities from unionized supervisors and drawing up detailed operational policies and procedures for vehicle compliance.

Usually, compliance officers at the province’s weigh stations are supposed to enforce safety requirements for all trucks travelling on 100-series highways weighing more than 3,000 kilograms.

But an investigation discovered that the supervisor and manager at the Amherst station had inappropriately voided tickets for safety violations that staff had issued to truckers, and instructed staff to ignore trucks that didn’t stop at the weigh scale. According to workers there, the latter happened at least once per shift.

The investigation was triggered when an anonymous complainant contacted the ombudsman’s office last July. As a result, the office conducted 37 interviews with vehicle compliance officers, managers, supervisors, former workers, people in the trucking industry, the public prosecution service, the auditor general’s office, the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union, the Public Service Commission and the Justice Department in order to make its report.

Two preventable accidents that took the lives of two workers will cost Ford Canada  more than $1 million for violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The first accident occurred January 31, 2008, at the company’s Oakville assembly plant, when a 20-year veteran worker at the plant was crushed between two forklifts, and died as a result of their injuries.  A Ministry of Labour investigation revealed the vehicle operator did not keep a clear view of the forklift’s path of travel.

Just about a year later, on January 14, 2009, another tragic accident occurred when a worker with 12 years experience at Ford’s parts distribution centre in Bramalea drove a lift truck carrying a pallet which wasn’t secured properly.  As the worker drove the truck down a narrow aisle, the pallet struck a storage rack and  the worker was crushed between the pallet and the vehicle. In that incident, Ministry of Labour investigators found that Ford’s material movement policies and procedures were inadequate.

According to company officials, the death at the Oakville plant was the first involving a Ford employee in nearly 30 years, while the fatality at the Bramalea facility was the first in the operation’s history.  As a result of these accidents, Ford no longer uses the multi pallet platform that it used in the second accident.

Ontario Justice of the Peace Jerry Woloschuk levied penalties of $850,000 and imposed the legally required 25% additional victim surcharges of $212,500 against Ford after the company pleaded guilty to two counts of  failing to take all reasonable precautions in the circumstances to protect the safety of the workers.

Sudbury building supplies company Evans Home Building Centre has been hit with five compliance orders from the Ontario Ministry of Labour, after an employee was electrocuted while delivering a load of roofing shingles to a customer’s home.

The incident occurred on September 30 at about 10:20 AM, when 51-year-old worker Daniel St Jacques was making the delivery to a home on the north end of Sudbury, and his boom truck made contact with an overhead power line and caught fire. It is unknown whether St Jacques was inside or outside the truck when it made contact, but some police on the scene speculate that he was electrocuted when he attempted to reenter the vehicle.

Of the five compliance orders issued by the MOL, four of them related to the boom truck’s future repair and inspection, while the fifth concerns documents that Evans Home Building Centre will be required to provide to the labour ministry, including; training records for employees who operate delivery equipment; the boom truck’s inspection records; St Jacques’ time sheets for the days leading up to the incident; and any relevant company safety policies.

According to the MOL’s own statistics, there have been more than 70 electricity-related deaths on the job in Ontario within the last decade, and that “metal ladders, raised dump-truck bodies and crane booms have been implicated in a number of electricity-related injuries at construction sites.” While the ministry does not keep specific statistics on incidents involving boom trucks coming into contact with power lines, a similar incident did occur in August, 2007, when two employees of Rockway Building Supplies were delivering shingles to a home in Guelph. One worker who was standing outside the delivery truck touched the vehicle and was thrown to the ground almost a metre away, when a conveyer used to move the shingles off the truck touched an 8,000-volt power line.

That worker survived, but Rockway Building Supplies subsequently pleaded guilty in September of 2008 for failing, as an employer, to ensure that no object was brought closer than three metres to an overhead electrical conductor with a rating of between 750 and 150,000 volts, contrary to Section 188(2) of the Construction Projects Regulation under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. As a result, that company was fined $45,000, in addition to the 25% victim fine surcharge.

Nova Scotia workplaces be warned; the province is no longer only fining employers after a worker is hurt, and after a court determines there was a violation is found after the fact.

In order to better protect workers before tragedy strikes, beginning in January, the Province’s Department of Labour and Workforce Development’s occupational health and safety division will begin issuing fines when health and safety regulations are violated in the workplace, without necessarily bringing a court case and waiting for a judge’s ruling, which is how things have tended to work in the past.

The OH&S division issues about 4,000 occupational health and safety orders each year, when violations are found in the workplace. Previously, compliance was achieved through education, promotion, enforcement and prosecution. The new system will create an additional form of deterrence, by allowing inspectors to fine violators on the spot. It’s hope that the new system will encourage greater responsibility on the part of employers, supervisors and even workers. Though the workplace injury rate has been declining, in 2008 there were 29 workplace fatalities in the province and 8,000 incidents in which employees weren’t able to work the next day.

Anyone who receives notice of a penalty can appeal to the Occupational Health and Safety Appeal Panel. Penalties imposed on employers and supervisors will be larger than those imposed on employees, but in all cases, the penalty will increase if it is a repeat offence.

Nova Scotia is not the only Canadian jurisdiction with such a program in place. British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick and the Yukon already have such penalty systems in place.

The striking United Steelworkers union is promising to hold Vale Inco Ltd. officials personally responsible if any worker is injured or killed on the job when production resumes at some mining operations in which workers are currently on strike.

Last week, Vale Inco announced its intention to restart several operations so it can produce copper concentrate for sale during the strike. It is the first time in the company’s 60-plus years of unionized mining that it has resumed even partial production during a labour dispute.

If necessary, the union will invoke the Westray Bill, and make corporate executives personally responsible should unsafe conditions develop. That bill, formally known as Bill C-45, was passed back in 2003 and amended the Criminal Code of Canada that makes corporations responsible for failing to protect the health of their employees or the public. The amendments came in the wake of 26 worker deaths after an explosion in the Westray coal mine in Nova Scotia in April 1992.

The judge in charge of the public inquiry in that case blamed the tragedy on a series of safety lapses at the mine, to which provincial authorities repeatedly turned a blind eye. Just before the explosion, Westray workers had appealed to the USW because they knew the workplace was unsafe.

The USW charge that Vale Inco is putting workers’ lives at risk with its plans to resume partial production. They have held repeated meetings with Vale Inco to discuss the company’s plans.

Back in March 2009, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) awarded its first Performance-Based Area Maintenance Contract (AMC) in the York contract area, north of Toronto. This type of contract is far different from previous contracts in three significant ways.

First, the new AMC takes what the MTO calls a �one window approach’, in which maintenance, low-complexity capital improvements, and data gathering are all assigned to a single contractor covering a specific geographic area over several years. Secondly, the new contracts emphasize performance-based requirements with results-based oversight by MTO. The third difference is that contractors must now acquire and maintain ISO certification as a condition of the contract.

In previous years, the Ministry would contract all three of the above separately. With the new contracts, they are hoping to ensure more efficient services and better pricing, by bundling low complexity capital work and data gathering with a contractor who’s already working in and familiar with the area. New AMC contractors will perform low complexity capital work assigned by the MTO, as well as work that they propose in extra work reports, once approved by MTO. More complex capital work will continue to be identified and contracted separately from AMCs.

Before now, AMCs were narrowly method-based, and contract compliance was measured using time-based methods of oversight, which were quite labour-intensive. The new, performance-based AMCs require results-based oversight, based on pre-determined performance requirements. Results-based oversight is intended to hold contractors accountable to their tasks, allow for contractor innovation, and produce higher quality results, with less MTO supervision. Contract compliance is based on standard performance requirements for consistency, as well as specific contract requirements intended to address the needs of a particular area

New AMC contractors must also be ISO-certified for quality management system and environmental management system. ISO-certification is intended to assure that the new AMC contractors meet internationally recognized quality business standards and are subject to independent, third-party audits.

The new AMC template will give the ministry far more flexibility to create contracts that will serve specific areas, and they’ll allow contractors to be more innovative, while also meeting the performance requirements of ministry contracts.