Ontario courts continue to slam companies with huge fines for violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Wal-Mart Canada Corp., for example, was hit with two fines totaling $120,000 in less than a month; a $45,000 fine on June 23 and a $75,000 fine on July 16.

The $45,000 fine resulted from an incident that occurred on September 27, 2008. A worker was operating a forklift outside a Wal-Mart store in Barrie, to place skids of bottled water near the main entrance. While doing so, the forklift struck and injured a customer’s feet.

A Ministry of Labour investigation found that the worker did not have full view of the forklift path of travel and its load.

In that case, the company pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that the operator of material handling equipment has a full view of the intended path of travel of the equipment or its load, and to failing to make sure material handling equipment is only operated as directed by a competent signaler who is stationed in full view of the operator with a full view of the intended path of travel of the vehicle and its load.

The $75,000 fine resulted from an incident that occurred on January 19, 2009, when a worker employed by a Wal-Mart store in Welland climbed a ladder to get five boxes of toys from a shelf. As the worker began to climb back down with the boxes held in one arm, he missed a step at the bottom of the ladder and fell, injuring his arm.

A Ministry of Labour investigation found that the worker carried the boxes in such a way that his or her safety was endangered by not keeping the required level of contact with the ladder.

Wal-Mart Canada Corp. pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that materials required to be lifted, carried or moved were lifted, carried or moved in a way that did not endanger the safety of any worker.

Also on July 16, Concord-based Welded Tube of Canada was fined $140,000 for an incident that occurred on July 31, 2008, in which a worker was injured as he prepared a two-and-a-half ton bundle of steel tubes and sent them down a conveyor to be processed for shipping. That worker and a co-worker then began to make a mechanical adjustment in the path of the conveyor. The bundle of tubes needed to be rearranged, so it was sent back on the same conveyor, where it struck the worker and injured his leg.

A Ministry of Labour investigation found that the conveyor was not protected by a guard to prevent access to the path of travel while it was in motion.

Welded Tube of Canada pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that a machine with moving parts that may endanger a worker is equipped with a guard or other device which prevents access to the moving parts.

And on July 9, 2010, grocery store operator Metro Ontario Inc. was fined $100,000 for an incident that occurred on January 18, 2009. A worker at the company’s North Bay location was using a band saw to cut beef in the meat department, when his hand slipped, and the saw’s blade partially amputated some of his fingers.

That Ministry of Labour investigation found that the machine’s blade was improperly guarded, and Metro Ontario Inc. pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the saw was equipped with a guard that prevented access to its moving blade.

In addition to the huge fines levied in the cases above, in each case the court imposed a 25% victim fine surcharge, as required by the Provincial Offences Act, which is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

Following criticism that the provincial government has been lax with its investigations of problem employers, Alberta is shaking up its occupational health and safety department.

The shake-up began earlier this month, when executive director Dan Clarke left his post. The government is now advertising for a replacement, and it sees the replacement as part of a structural overhaul of occupational health to make it focus more on compliance and enforcement of safety rules in the workplace.  It hopes to have a new executive director by the end of the summer.

There are many who would say it’s about time. Alberta currently has one of the highest rates of worker deaths in Canada with 166 deaths in 2008 alone. This past April, an auditor general’s report said the department was lax on enforcement and even suggested they had hidden the true number of companies that refused to make safety improvements.  The review showed that the department had suspended compliance orders filed against dozens of companies with high injury rate for no apparent reason. But when they looked more closely, they discovered that many of them were suspended just to make its own statistics look better, and in a number of cases, the compliance orders were reopened in the next fiscal year with no evidence that the companies took any action to improve worker safety.

The auditor general also found that in many cases, companies that ignored safety violations were still getting rebates from the province under a program that rewards firms with good worker safety records. Violations that went unchecked for years ran the gamut, ranging from a lack of hearing and eye protection to fire and explosion hazards.

Alberta Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk  has promised to announce more details with regard to the overhaul in the coming weeks.

A coroner’s inquest was held late last month, looking into the death of worker Roger Hill, who died from severe injuries after being trapped in a rock crusher. The inquest determined that the tragedy was at least partly caused by missing and ineffective safety mechanisms on the rock crusher.

The accident happened late in the afternoon of January 21, 2008 at a Ridgemount Quarries site in Fort Erie, Ontario owned by Walker Industries in Thorold, Ontario, which had a contract with the now-defunct Hard Rock Group of Companies (the worker’s employer) to set up a portable crushing plant at the site.

According to coroner’s counsel Graeme Leach, at about 4 pm on that day, a massive rotor weighing several tons – with outer bars capable of spinning at 100 miles per hour – stopped working. Hill and two co-workers each took turns trying to get the machine restarted. Unfortunately, the clutch re-engaged while Hill and a supervisor were still in the impactor chamber.

According to Leach, several safety violations contributed to the accident. Lockout and tagout procedures were not followed and the engine in the impactor chamber was left running.  Also, while Hard Rock Group safety procedures mandated that a “safety bar” be placed between the bars of the rotor to prevent spinning,  the company had “two impactors, but only one bar, so the bar would be shared between the two and the bar was off-site on the day of the incident.”

The crusher was also equipped with a limit switch, which had become inoperable. “If it had been working properly, it should have automatically killed the fuel to the engine. … The evidence in my mind was unclear if it had been broken and just never repaired or had been deliberately tampered with.”

As a result of the inquest, the coroner’s jury issued nine recommendations, including:

• That the Ministry of Labour (MOL), Infrastructure Health and Safety Association and provincial safe work organizations (SWOs) continue to work together to educate workers, supervisors and employers on the “extreme importance” of compliance with ‘lock and tag‘ procedures and maintaining and testing equipment safety features by referencing the potentially tragic consequences of failing to do so;
• That MOL and SWOs review the effectiveness of the Internal Responsibility System and undertake an mandatory audit of surface mining operations to ensure that senior employer representatives conduct routine and regular safety checks on employees at remote workplace locations (with the results reported to SWOs when safety deficiencies are discovered);
• That the MOL and Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities work together to develop a system to track what mandatory OH&S training workers have and alert workers, employers and the MOL “when workers have not completed mandatory training within the required time periods;”
• That the MOL continue conducting regular spot checks of all safety features of dangerous equipment and consider imposing an obligation on employers to periodically certify that safety features have been tested and are in good working order;
• That the MOL investigate the feasibility that where ‘lock and tag’ equipment is deficient or absent, an immediate stop work order be issued.
• That all surface mining workers be required to have core training and, if mandated, specialty training modules prior to workers being permitted to commence work on a surface mine;
• That the number of inspectors for surface mining be increased; and, consider the requirement for a minimum number of workers before an oh&s committee or designation of a safety representative is mandatory.

Several bystanders and Winnipeg firefighters are credited with saving the life of a worker for Winnipeg-based Fox Contracting who was pinned in a narrow trench under a 700-pound chunk of concrete last week.

At around 9 a.m., the worker was crouched in the hole, which was about half a metre wide and three metres deep,  as he worked to repair the foundation of a 105-year-old house in St. Boniface. Suddenly, a long, narrow piece of concrete broke off and fell on his back, trapping him in the hole.

Five bystanders, led by an infantryman who had just returned from Afghanistan, heard the cries of that worker and a co-worker, and worked quickly, tying a rope around the three-metres-long concrete slab, and used all their strength to lift it just enough to prevent it from crushing the worker. Though the rope kept slipping and caused some rope burns, they managed to hold on for at least ten minutes until Winnipeg Fire Department emergency personnel arrived on the scene.

As the bystanders held on, firefighters used a jack to lift the concrete slab slightly, then tied a second rope around it so as to lift it just enough for the worker to crawl to safety. At that point, two firefighters pulled the worker from the trench.

The worker was then taken to Health Sciences Centre, where he was in stable condition.

Police and Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health officials are investigating the incident.

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.

It certainly pays to do a little research before signing on the dotted line…

It seems that a company has been calling small business owners in Nova Scotia and other parts of Canada, and causing them to scratch their heads and call the Department of Labour and Workforce Development for answers.

Numerous business owners have recently reported having been approached by a vendor claiming to offer a new training program based on what it claims are recent changes to the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System regarding the retraining of workers.

The problem is, of course, that the information they are giving is bogus. According to the government’s Occupational Health and Safety division leadership, there haven’t actually been any recent changes and they warn companies to be wary of anyone claiming to have information about new safety programs. While they note that any training that boosts awareness of occupational health and safety is good, business owners should use proper caution when evaluating training programs.

In many jurisdictions, any occupational health and safety service providers who provide people with inaccurate information could be subject to fines.

At least one union, The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), representing  more than 172,000 workers across Canada, has called upon the federal government to vote down a new piece of legislation because it fears the new law will “seriously undermine the right of federal workers to refuse dangerous work.”

They are specifically concerned with some of the new wording introduced in Part 21 of Bill C-9, an omnibus budget bill currently before the Senate National Finance Committee. Part 21 contains proposed amendments to the Canada Labour Code (CLC) so that the code will stipulate that a worker must file a notice of appeal with the Minister of Labour, as opposed to an appeals officer when that worker refuses work he or sheconsiders to be unsafe work, but is overruled by a health and safety officer. Based on the new wording in the legislation, the minister could then “appoint” an appeals officer whom he deems  qualified, whereas under the current code, his authority is to “designate” an appeals officer.

Union officials feel that the proposed amendments would change the definition of the appointment and functions of appeal officers. And while the difference may seem inconsequential on first glance, union officials note that the altered wording would result in significant changes to the process.  For example, the new wording could lead the minister to hire specialized lawyers on a case-by-case basis to serve as appeals officers, rather than the public servants who currently fulfill the appeals function full time. The union worries about the ability of an appointed appeals officer to be impartial and to deal with an issue objectively.

A spokesperson with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada suggests, however, that the appointment of outside experts will actually  serve to “strengthen the independence and impartiality of the appeals process” and streamline the process “to make it more efficient and timely.” Employers and employees will still have the right to appeal decisions, and that employees will still have the right to refuse dangerous work.”

As several recent stories have reminded us, working around electricity is nothing to take lightly; proper, thorough training is a must to avoid needless tragedy. And everyone should agree that the electrical industry is an inherently hazardous industry, and it’s in everyone’s best interest to stress safety on the job. To that end, executives at Nova Scotia Power and officials with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers jointly signed the CEO Health and Safety Leadership Charter. The charter was launched in 2005 and is administered by the Conference Board of Canada, and has a goal of supporting continuous workplace health and safety improvement.  The charter has been signed by about 250 organizations across Canada. By signing the charter, employers and employees pledge to make safety the number one priority in the workplace.
Both the company and the union praised the charter as a symbolic commitment to health and safety by both. In signing it, they hope to encourage other organizations in Nova Scotia to consider ways to make their own workplaces safer.

In a press release touting the signing of the charter, the company cited a number of safety milestones, including a million person-hours without a lost-time injury for the more than 500-person customer operations team. This team isn’t just office personnel; it includes control centre workers, planners, engineers, fleet operations, vegetation management (they clear trees and bushes away from power lines) and power line technicians. The company also announced a public awareness campaign to educate Nova Scotians about the dangers of working around electrical wires and encouraging people to stay at least six metres back from power lines.

Nova Scotia’s minister for labour and workplace development, Marilyn More, praised the efforts of Nova Scotia Power and IBEW to create a culture of workplace safety. She also noted that Nova Scotia had improved its health and safety record overall, including a7% drop in the number of claims registered with the Workers’ Compensation Board between 2004 and 2008. That drop was double the national average. In addition, lost-time claims in the province dropped 12%, compared to 9.6% nationally. She noted that Nova Scotia still has a lot of work to do, since they still have the highest injury rate in the Atlantic region and they fifth among the provinces.

It’s been a pretty hot summer so far, and we’re not even halfway through, so perhaps this is would be a good time to remind you to take special precautions on scorching hot summer days, in order to keep your workers safe and productive.  The higher the temperature goes, the less comfortable workers feel, which makes them more prone to accidents and also causes them to slow down a bit. But just as importantly, excessive heat can be extremely dangerous, and building a culture of safety requires that you keep your workers as safe as possible.

If possible, try to reduce the demand on each worker by reducing  the level of physical exertion such as excessive lifting, climbing, or digging. If possible, try to use relief workers or assign extra workers.  Try to reschedule the most strenuous activities jobs for the cooler part of the day and reserve the hottest part of the day for routine maintenance and repair work.

For those workers who must work outside during the hot part of the day, they should wear light, very loose-fitting clothing, with long sleeves and long pants, in order to avoid serious UV damage from the sun.  For areas of the body that are still exposed, such as faces, hands and necks, be sure to have adequate supplies of good quality sunscreen on hand as well.

Make sure all outside workers are provided with plenty of water. And that should be water, as sugary drinks and drinks with caffeine actually cause faster dehydration. They should also be given plenty of breaks during which they can drink the water. It is far more beneficial to drink small amounts of water at frequent intervals than to drink a lot of water all at once. If the work is particularly strenuous and is performed in direct sunlight, try to provide a shady area or tent, where workers can sit down, drink some water and recharge.

If your workers are toiling away in an area with a combination of high temperature and high humidity,  be aware of the increased risk to such workers of heat stroke or heat exhaustion. In addition to workers who don’t take adequate breaks or drink enough water, pay close attention to workers who take certain medications, older workers or workers who are not in peak physical condition, as they are especially susceptible to complications from heat-related stress.

Some of the warning signs for heat-related illness include headaches, lightheadedness, confusion, irrational behavior, loss of consciousness, abnormally high body temperature and hot, dry skin.  When a worker starts to complain that he or she isn’t feeling well, you would do well to take the complain seriously and sit that worker down in the shade with a cup of water and let them recover.

Other potential risks to the health of workers toiling outdoors in summer aren’t necessarily heat-related. It might be a good idea to have workers regularly check for ticks, which sometimes carry Lyme Disease. Be sure to watch out for mosquitoes, which can carry West Nile Virus, and plants, such as poison oak and poison ivy, that can cause skin rashes and make it difficult to work.

The Federal Government has made a major investment in a literacy and essential skills development project designed to help Canadian manufacturing workers and businesses make their workers more productive and keep them safer.  The program hopes to identify best practices and create tools to help businesses incorporate critical skills in their training programs.

As the Government sees things, Improving adult Canadians’ literacy and essential skills is a key part of the its commitment to creating the best educated, most skilled and most flexible workforce in the world. The Office of Literacy and Essential Skills was created in order to help increase the literacy and essential skills of adult Canadians.

Skills shortages remain a significant challenge for the Canadian economy, but beginning with an initial investment of over $38 million in 2010–2011, it is hoped that the Office can create an environment in which Canadians have the literacy and essential skills they need to participate fully in the labour market and in their communities.

In addition to providing funding and conducting research, the Government’s Office of Literacy and Essential Skills works with provincial and territorial governments, as well as non-profit organizations across Canada, to help employers, practitioners and trainers incorporate literacy and essential skills into their training programs.