Alberta is promising to hire 30 new occupational health and safety officers over the next three years, in addition to the 16 officers already hired during the 2010-2011 fiscal year, so that by 2014, they will have 132 OHS officers, a 55% increase from the 86 officers they had early last year.

The goal is to improve what many consider to be the province’s woeful record on workplace accidents.  The inspectors will conduct on-the-spot inspections of workplaces and investigate serious accidents, as well as educate employers and workers on OH&S legislation.

The ministry will also divide the province into three enforcement regions instead of two. The old regions of north and south, which are currently divided near Red Deer, will become north, central and south, which will allow for a greater focus in northern Alberta, where the province is seeing the greatest industrial growth.

The provincial government also announced a series of focus inspections to take place this year. These inspections will take place in addition to their regular random inspections, and will focus on certain infractions. The first such inspections of forklifts were based on statistics regarding those pieces of equipment. The next focus will be on young and inexperienced workers.

While the Alberta Federation of Labour, which represents more than 140,000 workers, welcomed the announcement of additional officers, they note that Alberta is one of the most dangerous places in Canada to work, with its concentration of jobs in hazardous industrial sectors such as petroleum development, construction, processing and manufacturing, and that a lot more needs to be done. They remain skeptical of the promised hires, and they question where the money was coming from to pay for the inspectors, since the latest budget only allowed for a 1.5% increase for inspections.

The Federation has recommended that inspectors be given the power to issue on-site administrative fines and stop-work/stop-use orders when they discover violations. They would also like to see Crown prosecutors pursue charges against more workplaces that violate the Occupational Health and Safety Code. They note that 142 workers were killed on the job from 2006 to 2009, and the province prosecuted less than 3% of the employers involved.

Springside Paving & Construction Limited in Concord, Ontario was assessed a $100,000 fine for an accident that led to the death of a worker on July 13, 2009, after the company pleaded guilty to a violation of Ontario’s Regulations for Construction Projects last month. According to a statement from Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, the company failed, as an employer, to ensure that a signaller assisted a vehicle operator if his view of the intended path of travel is obstructed or if a person may be endangered.

The incident that led to the fine occurred on July 13, 2009, as three workers were replacing an asphalt driveway and re-leveling an interlocking walkway at a residential property in Vaughan, north of Toronto. After disconnecting a trailer from a truck, one worker boarded the vehicle and slowly began reversing the truck toward the work site, and the vehicle ran over and killed another worker.

The company initially faced four charges, but three were dropped when the company pleaded guilty.

According to the MoL, between 2005-2009 a total of 40 workers died after being struck by construction equipment or the material they were handling, the MoL reports. Last summer, the MoL kicked off an enforcement campaign involving construction projects. During that campaign, inspectors issued 2,728 orders, 14.4% of which related to equipment, material handling and general storage. The campaign also led to 158 orders citing equipment maintenance or operation problems, and 76 orders noted improper handling or storage.

British Columbia Provincial Court Judge Terese Alexander has handed the United Steelworkers Union a victory in its fight to see that Weyerhaeuser faces criminal charges in the death of a B.C. sawmill worker more than six years ago, when she ruled that the union presented enough evidence to proceed.

The worker at the Weyerhaeuser sawmill in New Westminster, Lyle Hewer, died on November 17, 2004 when he walked into the bottom of a hopper that fed wood waste into a grinding machine, called a hog. The wood waste that had been wedged above him came loose and rained down on him, killing him.

A report by WorkSafeBC investigators noted that Weyerhaeuser management knew that unclogging the machine was very dangerous, since a worker had previously been injured doing it, but they did nothing about about the situation, out of concerns for costs. In fact, entering the machine from underneath was still common practice at the time of the accident, even though it violated safety regulations.

In 2007, WorkSafeBC levied a $297,000 fine against Weyerhaeuser for the accident, saying safety risks were ignored at the mill. At the time, the fine was the highest the workers compensation agency had ever issued.

Police also investigated the incident at the time, and recommended criminal charges against the company. The Crown concluded, however, that although it would be in the public interest to prosecute, it was unlikely that a prosecution would proceed. Because of this, the union launched its own private investigation, which led them to conclude that there was enough evidence to charge Weyerhaeuser with criminal negligence in Hewer’s death. When they present the evidence to the judge, she agreed.

The judge’s ruling means Weyerhaeuser will be issued a summons to appear in court, and the Crown will be forced to either decide to proceed with a charge or have the case dropped.

A mine worker was killed recently after he and the bulldozer he was operating at a northern Saskatchewan mine plunged through the ice on a frozen lake.

The worker was employed by DJ’s Drilling of Aldergrove, B.C., but he was working under contract for Can-Alaska at the company’s Cree East uranium project at the time of the accident. He was clearing a small section of snow off Cree Lake in preparation for drilling when he and the bulldozer went into the water. The company has claimed that the ice had been tested before the accident, and approved the thickness of the ice, which was more than 75 centimetres deep. They have suggested that it’s possible there was a crack in the ice that went undetected, and when the bulldozer went over it, it just couldn’t handle the weight.

Other workers went into the water after him, but by then he was already apparently submerged, face down.  Because water freezes over very quickly up there, they essentially had to extricate him from the ice.  CPR was performed at the scene, but there was no response.

Can-Alaska is touting its safety record at the site, which is about 600 kilometres northeast of Buffalo Narrows, and says this is the first incident there in five years.

Beginning with new regulations that took effect February 1, 2011, the Government of Manitoba is letting everyone know it is getting serious about preventing all types of workplace harassment.

The new regulations extend protection to workers against psychological harassment. That means the definition of harassment has been broken down into two types. The first is inappropriate behavior to a person based on their race, sex, age or a categories.   The second is basically workplace bullying, which includes “severe, repeated conduct that adversely affects a worker’s psychological or physical well being,” as well as “a single occurrence, if shown to have a lasting, harmful effect on a person.”

According to the Ministry of Labour and Immigration, the new regulations have been in the works for some time, and were created based on feedback from a number of groups, including employers, labour groups, and professional and trade groups. They also listened to a number of individuals who suffered from work place harassment and learned the toll it took on their mental health. The number one reason cited for disabilities-based health leaves is mental health issues, and the new regulations were crafted in order to help with both health and productivity. The new legislation hopes to help by putting on employers the obligation to have policies to prevent harassment.

There is plenty of information available for those who would like to learn about the new laws. A brochure, available at safemanitoba.com, includes detailed examples of types of inappropriate behavior, as well as scenarios to further illustrate how the new boundaries work. For employers who need to rewrite their own harassment policies, the website also features a sample harassment prevention policy.

You may recall a terrible tragedy that occurred in August 2009, when 3-year-old Michelle Krsek and members of her family were taking relatives from Romania were walking the streets of downtown Calgary, when a windstorm hit, and they were struck by falling construction material. The little girl was killed, and her father and 7-year-old brother were injured in the incident.

Well, nearly 18 months later, two construction companies, Germain Residences of Quebec City and subcontractor Flynn Canada, have received fines of the statutory maximum $15,000 after pleading guilty to Alberta safety code violations. According to court records, the companies were charged with not properly securing a stack of roofing material.

While some have suggested that the fine sends a “strong message” to construction companies in Calgary, many others aren’t so sure, including the judge in the case.  As he made his ruling and assessed the fine, the judge expressed frustration with the provincial legislation and the maximum penalty allowed, and said the fine is “woefully inadequate.”

This particular case has served to highlight the inconsistencies with regard to provincial fines, and what many say has been poor enforcement of safety at construction sites.  For example, while the fine for this incident was capped at $15,000, if a worker had been killed by the same sheet metal that killed the three-year-old bystander, the maximum penalty to the company would have been $500,000 and/or up to six months in jail for a first offence.

Calgary Municipal Affairs Minister Hector Goudreau agrees with the judge’s assessment, and he plans to make recommendations to others in the city to make the fines much stiffer in the future.

A business consortium from India has expressed a desire to reopen the Jeffrey asbestos mine in Asbestos, Quebec, and an anti-asbestos advocacy group, the Rideau Institute, is upset about the government’s reaction to the overture.

The provincial government is considering a $58-million loan guarantee to the Indian consortium, which is led by Balcorp Inc. The lure of jobs in a down economy is cited as a major reason for even contemplating the deal. The Quebec government is considering paying for routine inspections in India to make sure the asbestos is used safely.

The Rideau Institute, however, believes it would be impossible to regulate safe use of asbestos throughout India because of the generally poor working conditions in that country. For example, when asbestos cement products are dispersed, they will end up in thousands and thousands of poor villages and slums.

The Institute also objects to the fact that Quebec’s Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail du Québec (CSST), their workplace health and safety board, is part of an economic mission to India next week to promote the safe use of asbestos. They say the Quebec government should not be helping to export asbestos to India, or anywhere else, for that matter.

The Northwest Territories and Nunavut have begun the process of making drastic changes to their Occupational Health and Safety Regulations (OHSR), but the proposed draft has many businesses concerned.

In fact, there were so much concern expressed by members of the NWT Construction Association and the NWT Chamber of Commerce, that the Workers’ Safety & Compensation Commission (WSCC) of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut announced an extension of the public consultation period for the OHSR to March 31, a full five months later than had originally been scheduled.  It is hoped that the extension will give businesses time to examine the proposed regulations and provide meaningful feedback to the Safety Regulation Review Committee.

The WSCC and the two territorial governments studied the regulatory framework under the current Safety Acts and found it to be “fragmented, outdated, unclear and difficult to enforce,” according to a WSCC press release. The review committee spent two years developing the draft OHSR, which would replace all regulations under the Safety Acts, including the integration of regulations related to asbestos, workplace smoking, silica and soundblasting, among others, and combine them all into a single set of regulations.

Among some of the other changes included in the draft regulations are:

• Creating an enhanced role for joint occupational health and safety committees;
• Facilitating a partnership between employers and workers for greater safety at work sites;
• Facilitating a greater use of practice guidelines, standards and codes, with employers, workers and other stakeholders taking a much greater role in their development;
• Updating requirements for personal protective equipment;
• More directly addressing unique safety issues for workers in extremely cold weather;
• More provisions for radiation safety, including protection of pregnant workers and;
• More regulations dealing with harassment and violence on the job;

Some business groups, however, have complained about what they refer to as the WSCC’s “misguided approach” to developing the new regulations. They point out that a rewrite of the rules doesn’t necessarily lead to improved safety performance in the workplace.

Some have also expressed concern over the size of the draft, which runs approximately 350 pages, which seems excessive to some. In a business climate in which 97% of businesses fit into the “small” category, they wonder how many business owners will read the whole thing and recognize the regulations that apply to them. They worry about the “one-size-fits-all” nature of the new regulations, their lack of a risk assessment component. There are also cost concerns about regulations relating to internal safety committees, additional training and the shutting down of sites if the combined temperature and wind chill drops to -45 C or lower.  A few businesses indicated that they might as well shut down for the winter under such conditions.

For their part, the WSCC acknowledges the media attention they’ve received over the cold weather regulations, and they are sensitive to many other concerns, as well. When the current consultation period ends, they will decide if more consultation is necessary. They hope to put the new regulations in effect by the spring or summer of 2012.

According to a preliminary report by WorkSafeBC, a worker who died two days after he fell 14 metres while working on the sails at Canada Place on Dec. 2 “was not using a personal fall protection system” at the time of the accident.

Apparently, the 30-year-old worker, Diego Herrera, was wearing a safety harness, but that harness was unattached  when he fell through what the report describes as a “mouse hole” in the sails.

An inspection report taken at the work site also noted a number of violations of safety regulations at the work site, including ropes, straps, webbing, electrical cords and construction debris around the mouse hole in violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation. The report made it clear that there were grounds for imposing an administrative penalty against Birdair Inc. of Amherst, N.Y, the company that was hired to replace the sails at Canada Place by Ledcor Construction Ltd., which is managing the project on behalf of Canada Place Corporation.

The report read, “The employer did not have a fall protection plan for the sealing up of the mouse hole. The mouse hole was not guarded or guard-railed. The area in front of the mouse hole had many slip and trip hazards.”

No further action will be taken, however, until WorkSafeBC’s investigation of the incident is complete.

WorkSafeBC regulations stipulate that an employer must have a fall protection system in place when work is being done at heights of 3 metres or more. The $21-million project to replace the sails — originally erected in 1984 — began in July 2010 and is expected to be completed later this year.

Texting while driving is a bad idea when you’re alone in your car. But in an age when everyone seems to have a camera or video camera on their person at all times, you have to wonder about someone who goes even farther.

AToronto bus driver faces disciplinary, up to and including firing, after a passenger took a photo of him texting while operating a bus. The vehicle carried approximately 30 passengers and travelling at approximately 50 kilometres per hour at the time the photo was taken, according to the passenger-photographer.

The Toronto Transit Commission has made it clear that, in addition to being illegal, it considers such an incident as a serious breach of public safety and commission rules, and is taking this ”extremely seriously.”

Texting while driving has been illegal on Ontario roads since October 2009 and violators face fines of up to $500. But beyond that, it violates a TTC policy that was in place long before the Ontario law took effect.

The passenger who took the photo says he doesn’t want the driver to lose his job, but he also doesn’t want people texting while driving, either. He said that several passengers saw the driver texting, but no one else bothered to say anything to the driver.

This isn’t the first time a TTC employee has been caught off-guard by someone with a camera. Last January, someone photographed a fare collector sleeping on the job. Before that, a passenger took video of a driver engaged in a prolonged coffee break while passengers were on the bus, and the bus was left idling.