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.

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.

Last summer, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) began testing a fully mobile work zone barrier system during a concrete repair project on Highway 115, southwest of Peterborough.

The new system is fully mobile, consisting of a wheeled unit, which is pulled by a standard truck tractor. The unit can be deployed relatively quickly and, because of its reversible axles, it can easily be reconfigured for either right or left applications in about half an hour.

These new mobile units, which are bright orange to alert drivers that road work is taking place, reduce the need for road crews to set up a Temporary Concrete Barrier (TCB), which means they can finish road work and reopen a lane in less time.  By adding panels, the size of the work zone can be expanded to as much as 31 metres, and the systems are also customizable, including such options as portable message signs, auxiliary lighting and a privacy barrier. The unit meets U.S. National Cooperative Highway Research Program 350 TL-3 crash test requirements, as well.

The mobile work zone barriers increase the safety of maintenance and construction crews, according to a number of test projects, and past use by others. The state of California has been deploying such mobile barriers since 2004, for example, and they have proven to be very time effective and safe. California refers to its mobile barriers as “Balsi Beams,” because they were developed after worker Mark Balsi was killed by a motorist while picking up trash along the highway. California’s Balsi Beam was among those demonstrated to MTO officials at a conference several years ago, which led to last summer’s trial.

Construction crews have so far found it easy to adapt to the devices, and feel very confident working behind them.  The Highway 115 trial project proved the units to be so effective that the contractor’s schedule was advanced, and work was completed ahead of time, because they were able to eliminate the work necessary in placing and removing the TCB.

Due to the success of the initial mobile barrier trial, MTO expects to expand their use for projects such as pothole filling, pavement testing, crack sealing, bridge and guide rail repairs, and even accident scene investigations.

Photos of the mobile work zone barrier system in action can be found here.

On Tuesday, January 18, emergency crews from La Ronge rescued a 61-year-old worker after he had been trapped for more than eight hours in a five-story chute that leads down to a rock crusher at a northern Saskatchewan gold mill.

RCMP responded to a call from the Jolu gold mill, which is operated by Golden Band Resources, Inc. and is located approximately 130 km north of La Ronge, shortly before 3 p.m. The worker, who is employed by Kitsaki Procon Joint Venture as a welder, was working above the crushing machine when the ground beneath him gave way. He slid down the chute and was pinned against the wall, buried in ore from the waist down.

According to the La Ronge fire department, the space was so small that Arsenault had to do most of the actual digging himself, with rescue crews lifting the buckets of ore out as he did so. They felt they had to move carefully to prevent further problems. This made the rescue effort was long and grueling. Eventually, when the worker was able to get one leg free, he squeezed his other leg out, and rescuers were able to use a harness to lift him out the rest of the way.

Finally, at about 11:30 p.m., the worker was above ground, where he was taken to hospital and treated for hypothermia and mild frostbite, and then released.

Operations at the mill were suspended Wednesday, as they looked into the cause of the incident.

The large number of wildfires that are burning across large swaths of forest  British Columbia have sparked major concerns with regard to the occupational safety and health impact of such natural disasters, because the toll could end up being huge. Currently, more than 100 active fires are burning throughout the province.

The smoke in some areas has been quite intense, and has at times drifted far enough east that Edmonton and Calgary have been forced to call smoke advisories. Workers throughout the province, especially those working close to the affected areas, have suffered from headaches, respiratory issues, sore throats and upset stomachs. There have also been cases in which loggers have suffered near-misses, because they could not see machinery up ahead due to poor visibility, and several contractors have watched as machines burned up in the fire.

The British Columbia Ministry of Forests and Range has recommended voluntary shutdowns or going to night hauling to take advantage of cooler temperatures, but that doesn’t address the issue of smoke, so a large number of companies remain shut down completely, and have no idea when they can resume operations, and do so safely.

WebSafety, Inc. has announced the release of a mobile application they call CellSafety, which should go a long way toward making the roadways safer for everyone.  You see, this particular application actually disables texting and emailing from a moving vehicle.

The company recently increased the application’s compatibility to more than 60 smart phones in the United States and has now expanded CellSafety so that it works on the Bell Mobility and Telus networks in Canada.

CellSafety uses proprietary technology to detect when a vehicle is moving at speeds of more than 10 mph and then prohibits the driver from sending or reading text and email messages, or even using the phone’s web browser.

Texting and emailing while driving is considered one of the most dangerous distractions facing drivers today, and new laws have been passed all over as a response to this hazard. More than 30 U.S. states and seven Canadian provinces now have laws to prevent distracted driving, and President Obama signed an Executive Order banning federal employees from texting while operating government vehicles. WebSafety developed CellSafety as a solution to the problem.

The CellSafety mobile application is available starting at $9.99 per month, with substantial discounts available for commercial and governmental accounts, and can be purchased by visiting www.mywebsafety.com.

As has been promised, Albertans will soon have a new website to check out; one designed to provide them with greater access to employers’ injury and fatality records.

Of course, as usual some folks still have no plans to be satisfied. Some feel that the information will be too limited, and won’t offer an adequate picture of most companies’ safety records. The Alberta Federation of Labour, for example, has issued a statement saying that the government’s “watered-down” website falls short of what they promised eight years ago, and that it doesn’t hold employers accountable.  They would like to see more information on the site, such as specific work site inspection reports, safety violations and enforcement orders

Overall, the provincial government plans to publish partial safety records covering 2005-2009 for roughly 125,000 employers covered by the Workers’ Compensation Board.  Nearly 12,000 businesses that carry voluntary insurance coverage, such as farms, advertising agencies and flyer distributors, won’t be included.

The new site, which should be up and running by the end of September, will include the following information:

• The number of recorded lost-time work injury and illness claims by a company;
• Each company’s lost-time claim rate, which helps measure the likelihood of an occupational injury or disease. The claim rate will then be compared with industry and provincial averages. This number will not be included for employers with fewer than 40 full-time equivalent workers.
• The number of fatalities recorded by each company;
• Whether a business holds a certificate of recognition, which acknowledges an employer has an audited safety program.

The creation of this web site comes as the province faces greater scrutiny of its efforts to protect workers. Last spring, the province received scathing criticism after an Auditor General’s investigation found Alberta Employment wasn’t sufficiently going after employers with poor safety records. That report also voiced concerns about Alberta’s safety certificate program.

Over the past decade, 1,285 Alberta workers have been killed on the job. In 2008 alone, the province had the second-highest worker fatality rate, with a 26-year high 166 workers killed on the job that year alone. Every year, more Albertans die from workplace accidents than from murder.

Nearly two years after three of their workers were killed and two received major brain injuries after being overcome by toxic fumes, the operators of a mushroom farm near Vancouver were finally charged with a series of offences under British Columbia’s labour laws last week.

A total of 29 charges under the Workers Compensation Act and Occupational Health and Safety Regulations were brought against two companies; A-1 Mushroom Substratum Ltd., H.V. Truong Ltd.; and four individuals — Ha Qua Troung, Vy Tri Trong, Van Thi Truong and Thinh Huu Doan — who are either officers or directors of those companies.  Among the charges were; failing to ensure the health and safety of workers;  failing to fix hazardous conditions; failing to ensure workers are aware of safety hazards; inadequate training; and failing to create an adequate safety plan.

The incident that led to the charges occurred on Sept. 5, 2008, when a group of workers at a mushroom farm and composting plant in Langley were overcome by toxic fumes in a shed. What happened inside that shed set off what WorkSafeBC considers to be one the most complex investigations in the agency’s history.

According to investigators, a pipe carrying a compost mixture broke and released a toxic gas. Two men were overcome by the fumes relatively quickly, and when co-workers came to their aid, several of them were also overcome. Three workers died, including one of the rescuers. One worker is still in a coma and another was left unable to speak or hear.

The New Democrats and the British Columbia Federation of Labour, among others, have called for a public inquiry into overall farmworker safety, and also called for changes to the province’s agriculture industry. The Federation claims that the company offered a single pamphlet on working in confined spaces at the work site. Unfortunately, the pamphlet was available only in English, despite the fact that the workers involved were Vietnamese-Canadians, and spoke very little English.

This particular incident isn’t the only case in recent years involving the deaths of British Columbia farmworkers. In March 2007, three farmworkers were killed when a 15-passenger van carrying 17 people flipped onto a concrete median on the Trans-Canada Highway near Abbotsford. In that case, the deaths were ruled accidental, although the coroner’s jury made18 recommendations, including ensuring farmworkers are better informed about their rights.

Be aware, Ontario workers and employers; Ontario’s Ministry of Labour (MoL) is planning another blitz, and this time, they plan to focus on Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).

This blitz, which is scheduled to run from September 1 to October 31, 2010, will concentrate on  several industries, including the construction and mining sectors.

The term “Musculoskeletal disorders” covers a wide variety of disorders, including repetitive strain injury, cumulative trauma, back strain and tendonitis. According to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, such injuries represent 43% of all lost-time claims. In 2008, there were more than 33,000 lost-time claims attributed to MSDs, resulting in a loss of more than 1.2 million days and costing the province approximately $142 million. And unlike acute, traumatic or sudden injuries, MSDs tend to be slow and cumulative.

The construction aspect of the blitz will concentrate mainly on home building, and will focus on equipment maintenance and access to excavation sites, in order to make sure there are no obstacles, and that workers are walking while they carry materials.

When it comes to the mining industry, inspectors will examine large vehicle access and whether the equipment has enough clearance to compensate for body parts. They will also check to make sure that roadways in surface mines are well maintained, to minimize the whole-body vibration jarring that workers often suffer.

On August 27, 2010, at 6:00 p.m., injured worker and Paralympics medalist Josh Dueck took to Empire Field and the Pacific National Exhibition in British Columbia to attempt to break a world record for the “most High Fives by any individual in 24 hours.” The record attempt was part of WorkSafeBC’s Raise Your Hand campaign — an annual initiative to increase young workers’ understanding of their safety rights and how to stay safe at work.

Dueck became paralyzed from the waist down in a workplace accident at the age of 23. Since then, he has become a world-champion para-alpine skier. He has won national and international competitions and recently won a silver medal at the 2010 Paralympics Winter Games. And as a member of the WorkSafeBC Paralympics Speaker program, he has shared his experiences with youth across British Columbia for the past several years.

Since 2007,  the Raise Your Hand campaign has used its website at RaiseYourHand.com, street teams that travel to high schools and universities around the province, and other means to raise awareness about workplace safety to the province’s 350,000 young workers.