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.

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.

Be prepared for some changes in road safety enforcement on Newfoundland and Labrador roads, as the government is making some changes.

As the law currently stands, if the police stop a driver, he or she will be charged with impaired driving if a breathalyzer test reveals a blood alcohol level greater than 0.08. But if the government gets its way and new changes are adopted, such drivers found to have a blood alcohol level between 0.05 and 0.08 will lose their driving privileges for seven days instead of the current 24 hour suspension. In addition, the  penalty for repeat offenders will also increase up to a maximum of six months.

The aim of the government is to protect public safety. They note that other provinces have made similar changes, to positive effect. And they’re not just targeting those who might have had an extra beer before heading out on the road. The new law would also outlaw the practice of texting while driving, as well.

And it’s not just impaired driving that has officials concerned. In Labrador, highway construction crews have been complaining that drivers are blowing through the eight construction zones on the almost 250-km drive between Wabush and Churchill Falls much too fast. In addition, there have been numerous complaints of vehicles passing in no-passing zones, and not obeying the flag persons.

Because of this, police stepped up enforcement in the area and they are aggressively ticketing motorists along the dangerous stretch of road. The province recently doubled fines for speeding in a construction zone, too, so such tickets can set you back as much as $1,500.

Put simply, if you’re not being careful out there, it’s going to cost you.

In a sign that 2010 could be the year government officials get very serious when it comes to fining companies for workplace violations, the Ontario Court of Justice handed out two enormous fines in two days as a result of accidents that led to worker deaths.

One January 19, Sherritt International Corporation, operating as Canada Talc, pleaded guilty and was fined $285,000 for an Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) violation for an August 20, 2008 accident in which a young worker was killed.

That incident occurred at the Canada Talc mine in Madoc. The worker in question had been operating equipment to fill bins with muck flowing down from other areas of the mine. (“Muck” is a mixture of broken rock, sediment and water.) As the bins filled, they were supposed to be sent up to the surface of the mine to be emptied. But sometime during the night, another worker on the surface of the mine heard strange sounds coming from the muck-loading area, and a mine shaft camera revealed an overflow of muck. The second worker failed to reach the young worker by phone, a third worker went to investigate, and found an overflow of muck going down past the young worker’s control station and discovered that he had essentially been drowned by the flood of muck into his work station.

An investigation by the Ministry of Labour found that the young worker’s control station was located directly in front of the tunnel from which muck was flowing, and that extra water had been added to the muck to make it flow faster, all of which combined to put the worker in serious danger. To make things even worse, the worker had not yet completed task-specific training, he was working alone and the mine’s written procedures did not adequately address how to control a run of muck.

Sherritt International pleaded guilty to failing to take the reasonable precaution of developing and implementing safety procedures and devices to protect the worker from a run of muck. The $285,000 fine in this case was imposed by Justice of the Peace Jack Chiang, and the court also added the required 25% victim fine surcharge, as required by the Provincial Offences Act.

One day later, on January 20, Lafarge Canada Inc., a manufacturer of construction material, pleaded guilty to a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) that caused the death of a worker, and the court fined that company $350,000.

The incident that led to that fine occurred on August 27, 2008 at the company’s cement plant in Ernestown. Workers were using a special rig to install a new lining of bricks to the inside of a kiln. The rig consisted of a work platform mounted on four legs with an overhead arch to hold up bricks. As the workers moved the rig along the sloping kiln floor, they had to adjust its legs to keep the work platform level. As they adjusted the rig at one point, its platform lurched forward, causing the workers on the platform to fall. The rig’s arch, which weighed more than 400 kilograms, also fell and landed on one of the workers, crushing him to death.

That Ministry of Labour investigation found that a manufacturer’s warning sign had essentially been ignored. The sign on the rig specifically prohibited workers from being on the rig as it was being moved. In addition, they found that the company had no written policy or clearly planned procedures for moving and adjusting the rig on the kiln’s sloping floor.

Lafarge Canada Inc. pleaded guilty to failing to take the reasonable precaution of ensuring no worker was on the platform of the rig as it was being moved or adjusted. The $350,000 fine was imposed by Justice of the Peace John Doran and did not include the required 25% surcharge.

Including the 25% surcharge, the total fines for these two companies came to nearly $800,000 and both incidents could have been avoided by simply putting in common sense safety measures and training workers properly.

Have you examined your safety systems lately?