WorkSafeBC handed down a lot of penalties for safety violations in 2010, but among the largest fines were those handed down to Marine Harvest Canada, Western Forest Products and Diveco Marine Ltd, a Powell River diving company.

The final 2010 WorkSafeBC report, released last week, shows that Diveco was fined $100,000 after one of its divers was fatally injured while diving to recover dead fish from a Marine Harvest fish farm pen at Lochalsh Bay on September 12, 2007. As he ascended rapidly to the surface from a depth of 31.5 m (103 ft.), he experienced an air embolism, lost consciousness and drowned. According to a WorkSafeBC investigation, the company did not have adequate safety procedures for diving operations, and it failed to provide its workers with the information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure their health and safety.

Another fine of $75,000 was assessed against Marine Harvest Canada of Campbell River, in connection with the same incident. The same WorkSafeBC investigation concluded that, as the prime contractor of a multiple-employer workplace, the company failed to coordinate the health and safety activities of all employers, workers, and others at the workplace, and it failed to establish and maintain a system to ensure compliance with the Workers Compensation Act and Occupational Health and Safety regulations.

Meanwhile, Western Forest Products Inc. was fined $75,000 following the death of a logger near Gold River on February 12, 2008. In that incident, two company tree fallers were cutting down trees within two tree-lengths of one another near the Galiano Forest Road. One faller cut down a tree that ended up striking and killing the other faller. A WorkSafeBC investigation into that accident concluded that the company failed to ensure that its fallers worked the required minimum two tree-length distance from each other, and that it failed to provide its workers with adequate supervision and instruction.

While last year WorkSafeBC imposed 256 penalties totaling more than $3 million against employers for violations of Occupational Health and Safety Regulations and the Workers Compensation Act, the agency notes that they only penalize those employers who are unmotivated by other means to keep their workplaces healthy and safe. A penalty is generally not imposed if an employer is found to have taken all reasonable steps to prevent violations that can lead to serious injury or death.

WorkSafeBC is an independent provincial statutory agency that serves about 2.3 million workers and more than 200,000 employers. Their enforcement arm includes officers who investigate serious workplace health and safety incidents, as well as occupational safety and hygiene officers who conduct inspections, respond to reported incidents and provide consultation and education to help achieve compliance.

After concerns were raised over a water filling station at the city of Whitehorse’s public safety building, The Yukon Workers’ Compensation Health and Safety Board (YWCHSB) decided to investigate and has identified short- and long-term occupational health and safety requirements for the city in an area where water delivery trucks pull up to either side of a filling station and use overhead hoses to dump water into tanks on the top of their trucks.

Currently, there is no area for the drivers to easily access the tanks, so water truck drivers are being forced to climb up their truck’s ladders and then walk along the top of the truck and attach the hose onto the spout on top of the tank, causing them to overstretch. There is no guardrail on the top of the trucks, so if there is any overflow of water and it freezes, there is a significant slipping hazard. YWCHSB is concerned that drivers may fall from the top of the truck.

In early March, while the YWCHSB acknowledged that it might take some time to design engineered control system, they ordered the city to put into place an interim solution in which they put together a basic fall restraint system. The Board hopes to have a timeline in place for a permanent solution very soon.

This was a relatively new issue when it was brought to the Board’s attention. Before the opening of the new Public Safety Building in late January, drivers had been able to pull trucks up to an area and climb stairs to work off a platform with guardrails around it, which greatly reduced the hazard of falling.

The City of Whitehorse has printed signs and notices have been placed at the filling station informing workers of the specific Occupational Health and Safety travel restraint requirements, and they are hoping to announce a long-term solution very soon.

A number of studies are being conducted by The Institute for Work and Health (IWH) in Ontario in the hope that the data may offer insights with regard to leading indicators that can be used by any and all workplaces to assess their health and safety performance.

The purpose of such leading indicators is to identify and address the conditions and characteristics of a workplace that may contribute to work-related injuries and illnesses. When employers know this sort of information they can work to address those issues before workers are injured. This approach is in contrast with the lagging indicators that most companies currently use, in which their injury rate sets the standard.

The IWH research project has completed the first of three stages. That stage examines the relationship between a company’s operations and health and safety performance. The second stage of the study will look at what it takes to turn around a company with a poor oh&s record. The third phase will examine how an organization’s health, safety and disability policies and practices relate to injuries and illnesses.

Though this seems like a new concept, the use of leading indicators dates back almost 150 years, when industries began to establish occupational exposure limits (OEL). Such measurements, such as OELs for noise and dust, serve as leading indicators of occupational disease, and have been measured regularly for many years. But the IWH approach this time is a bit different, because the intention is to develop leading indicators that apply to all industries.

They understand the difficulty in developing leading indicators that work across a large number of industries, but if they can identify the leading indicators common to oh&s performance in all industries, they will have a foundation for all workplaces to build upon. From that foundation, companies can make the necessary adjustments based on audits of their policies and programs.

WorkSafeBC has issued their enforcement report for 2010, and there were a lot of problems.

For the year, WorkSafeBC imposed 256 penalties totaling $3,163,898 against 232 different employers for violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation and the Workers Compensation Act. The amounts of individual penalties ranged from $1,000 on the low end to $145,046.98 on the high end. A total of 12 such incidents involved a fatality.

The high end penalty of $145,046.98 was imposed against Penfolds Roofing for an incident in which two of its workers were working on a roof between 4.5 m and 6 m above grade without using fall protection. The penalty was assessed in part because it was a repeat violation of the fall protection requirements as well as a violation of the requirement to provide workers with the information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure their safety.

While companies from 58 industry classifications received penalties in 2010, those employers in five construction-related classifications accounted for 65% of the penalties imposed. Those classifications were:
• Steep Slope Roofing – 34.7%
• House or Other Wood Frame General Contracting, Construction or Renovation Work – 11.3%
• Framing or Residential Forming – 10.9%
• Low Slope Roofing – 4.68% (12)
• Industrial, Commercial, Institutional or Highrise Residential General Contracting or Construction – 3.9%

WorkSafeBC has stepped up enforcement in recent years, as it increased the number of compliance and safety officers by 33%, from 185 in 2004 to 247 in 2010, so expect those numbers to rise in the future, unless companies work harder to make their workplaces safer.

If you’d like to see the 2010 penalty list or the Top 10 penalties , click on the links.

April 28, 2011 marked Canada’s National Day of Mourning (also known as Workers Memorial Day), the day each year in which the Canadian workers commemorate those who have been injured or lost their lives in the workplace. The first commemoration was held in 1984, and the federal government officially recognized it as a holiday beginning in 1991. Since then, this tradition is now recognized in nearly 80 countries around the world.

The National Day of Mourning is considered a significant day for workers throughout Canada, as they fight for workers’ rights and better working conditions. Worker safety advocates consider the day a great opportunity to raise national awareness on a number of issues and concerns shared by workers nationwide. The Canadian flag on Parliament Hill flew at half-mast all day, and workers throughout Canada held candlelight vigils, wore ribbons and black armbands and observed moments of silence.

Labour activists used the day to point out that nearly 1000 Canadian workers, or nearly 20 every single week, die in workplace-related accidents each year all. They use the day as an opportunity to motivate workers to fight for better safety regulation and enforcement. For example, the Canadian Labour Congress used its National Day of Mourning press release to highlight issues relating to workplace safety, citing a lack of resources to implement safety laws and regulations, as well as failure to enforce existing laws and regulations.

Some labour activists used this year’s celebration to demand that employers be held more accountable for workplace injuries and deaths. They called for greater enforcement of the Westray bill, noting that years after it passed, only two charges have ever been laid under the bill. They called for action by all levels of government to move forward with injury prevention practices in the workplace, as well as more officers trained to investigate whether or not there was compliance by the employer to provide that safe and healthy workplace, and not just to look for evidence of foul play

Though the National Day of Mourning has its origins in Canada, it has become something of a global phenomenon, with a number of events held in more than 80-countries around the world intended. For instance, a two-day conference was held in Casale Monferrato, Italy. Called “A World without Asbestos,” the event was organized by a global consortium of asbestos awareness advocates, such as Associazione Famigliari e Vittime dell’Amianto (AFEVA), and unions CGIL, CISL and UIL.

WorkSafeBC handed down a lot of penalties for safety violations in 2010, but among the largest fines were those handed down to Marine Harvest Canada, Western Forest Products and Diveco Marine Ltd, a Powell River diving company.

The final 2010 WorkSafeBC report, released last week, shows that Diveco was fined $100,000 after one of its divers was fatally injured while diving to recover dead fish from a Marine Harvest fish farm pen at Lochalsh Bay on September 12, 2007. As he ascended rapidly to the surface from a depth of 31.5 m (103 ft.), he experienced an air embolism, lost consciousness and drowned. According to a WorkSafeBC investigation, the company did not have adequate safety procedures for diving operations, and it failed to provide its workers with the information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure their health and safety.

Another fine of $75,000 was assessed against Marine Harvest Canada of Campbell River, in connection with the same incident. The same WorkSafeBC investigation concluded that, as the prime contractor of a multiple-employer workplace, the company failed to coordinate the health and safety activities of all employers, workers, and others at the workplace, and it failed to establish and maintain a system to ensure compliance with the Workers Compensation Act and Occupational Health and Safety regulations.

Meanwhile, Western Forest Products Inc. was fined $75,000 following the death of a logger near Gold River on February 12, 2008. In that incident, two company tree fallers were cutting down trees within two tree-lengths of one another near the Galiano Forest Road. One faller cut down a tree that ended up striking and killing the other faller. A WorkSafeBC investigation into that accident concluded that the company failed to ensure that its fallers worked the required minimum two tree-length distance from each other, and that it failed to provide its workers with adequate supervision and instruction.

While last year WorkSafeBC imposed 256 penalties totaling more than $3 million against employers for violations of Occupational Health and Safety Regulations and the Workers Compensation Act, the agency notes that they only penalize those employers who are unmotivated by other means to keep their workplaces healthy and safe. A penalty is generally not imposed if an employer is found to have taken all reasonable steps to prevent violations that can lead to serious injury or death.

WorkSafeBC is an independent provincial statutory agency that serves about 2.3 million workers and more than 200,000 employers. Their enforcement arm includes officers who investigate serious workplace health and safety incidents, as well as occupational safety and hygiene officers who conduct inspections, respond to reported incidents and provide consultation and education to help achieve compliance.

The head of the Canadian Auto Workers, Canada’s largest private sector union, is sending out a warning to everyone that a large number of the country’s youngest workers are being asked to work in unsafe conditions. Not only that, but young workers often have no idea of their rights, including the right to refuse unsafe work, according to CAW president Ken Lewenza.

The warning comes in the wake of a $350,000 fine levied last week against retail grocer Metro Ontario for an Occupational Health and Safety Act violation that caused the death of a 17-year-old worker back in August 2009.

According to a Ministry of Labour investigation, the accident occurred at a Mississauga Metro store on Erin Mills Parkway. The young worker, a CAW member, had only been on the job for about three weeks when he was told to remove a box that had been stored on top of a drop ceiling. When the worker climbed up a ladder and stepped onto the ceiling, he fell through and suffered a fatal head injury.

According to statistics from the government of Ontario, each year more than 10,000 workers under the age of 25 are injured on the job and are unable to return to work the next day.

If you have ever used power tools or run a lawn mower for a while, you’ve probably felt the tingling that occurs in the hands. That tingling is a side effect of the vibration of the motor. Now, imagine if you have to use them day in and day out for a living.

A number of workers who use handheld power tools extensively in the course of their work are exposed to large levels of vibrations in their hands and upper arms, and those vibrations can have negative health consequences, if proper precautions aren’t taken. Among the most common possible health problems is hand-arm vibration syndrome which, over time, can cause some workers to lose sensation in their hands or even to lose dexterity altogether. Some workers develop an inability to distinguish between hot or cold surfaces. Others experience Raynaud’s Phenomenon, which is a discoloration in the extremities of their fingers.

The solutions to these problems, however, can be surprisingly simple. A recent study on soil compactors, for example, which are used extensively at construction sites, found that exposure to vibrations could be reduced by as much as 60% just by upgrading the seat. Likewise, making sure workers are properly equipped with anti-vibration gloves when they use power tools, especially large ones like jackhammers, can have a positive effect on a worker’s health and safety.

Workplace standards have also been developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for whole body vibration (ISO 5982) as well as for hand-arm vibration (ISO 10068). They are currently investigating an international standard for anti-vibration gloves.

Even though prevention remains the best medicine, experts caution against pushing workers beyond their capacity just to increase productivity. Companies shouldn’t disregard the long-term effects of excessive power tool use in the name of short-term financial gains.

Keywords: worker safety, power tool safety, workplace safety

An elderly driver who killed a flagger three years ago was issued a suspended sentence last week, and the sentence has managed to anger members of the province’s traffic control workforce.

The accident happened in February 2008, as a work crew was clearing ditches. Two flaggers were resetting the work site up after their lunch break. Terry Mitchell was standing at the far end of the curved road, communicating via radio with another flagger, when the driver of the car, 88-year-old Mellie Pool, ran into him. Mitchell was airlifted from the site of the accident, but died later that same day,

Besides being 88 years old, Pool is also legally blind, and his licence hadn’t been renewed since 2001 as a result of that blindness. Pool received the suspended sentence from a judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia on March 3. In addition, Pool received two years probation, a further 10-year driving ban and was ordered to perform 15 hours of community service.

As one could imagine, a number of road workers and supervisors are quite upset with the judge in this case. A few have suggested that the lightness of the sentence actually served to devalue the flagger’s life. Some have suggested that, at the very least, Pool should be required to wear an electronic device to monitor his driving, or that some other measures be taken to keep him off the road.

A 7-year-old Quebec boy, Olivier Prescott, is home safe and sound after surviving what many have called a “freak accident,” in which he was trapped under a four-foot snow bank for nearly three hours.

The boy was playing outside a school across the street from his home in Longueuil,Quebec, when a snow plow drove by. Apparently, the operator didn’t see him, and the boy ended up buried in a mound of snow. Olivier later said that he saw the snowplow and tried to jump out of the way, but that his foot got stuck in the snow, and he couldn’t get out of the way in time. He said he covered his mouth with his toque before passing out.

The boy’s mother, Stephanie Prescott, had been shoveling her walkway while her son played across the street. When she looked over to check on him, he was gone. She knocked on doors when she couldn’t find the boy, and one neighbor told her a plow had cleared the yard just before the boy vanished.

By that time, several police officers joined the search, and several neighbors began digging. After 45 minutes of shoveling, the men saw the boy’s toque and boot. They dragged him from the snow, unconscious after nearly three hours under the snow. Olivier was taken to a neighbor’s house and revived before an ambulance took him to hospital, where he was treated for hypothermia and discharged later that same day.