OHS Canada March 2012

C A N A D A’ S O C C U PAT I O N A L H E A LT H & S A F E T Y M A G A Z I N E M A R C H 2012

C A N A D A

Workers felled by hazardous atmosphere

Low Down

Psychological health gets a lift

Centre stage

Spotlight on show business safety

Space Out Work partitions tumbling down

Hear, Hear Silencing damaging noise

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Features

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Death by Design

MARCH 2012 Vol u m e 2 8 , N u m b e r 2

Design flaws, lack of vigilance and language barriers converge to set the stage for the deaths of three workers at a mushroom operation in British Columbia.

By Jason Contant

p s y c h ological health

36

Change of Mind Canada will soon have access to a voluntary standard designed to go beyond mental health issues to fostering psychological wellness on the job.

By Angela Stelmakowich

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m o v i e s & theatre

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Stage Fright In the make-believe world of stage and screen, hazards are real. Precautions are a must to keep actors and performers safe and sound when the show must go on.

By William M. Glenn

departments 54

Ac c i d e nt Pre vention

Sound and Safe

36

Listen up. Protecting hearing from the noisy assault of today’s workplaces demands a mix of controls ranging from isolation to protective gear.

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H e a lt h Watch

Falling Partitions: Plus or Minus As cubicle walls come down, reviewing workplace etiquette and implementing noise-masking measures can help bolster both productivity and morale.

By ann ruppenstein

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Sa f e t y Gear

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Heat in a Flash Not all flame-resistant garments are created equal. Hazards related to arc flash, flash fires and static electricity all demand individual responses.

in this issue

By Jason Contant

E ditoria l

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Oc c u pational Hyg iene The Buzz on Bites and Stings

letters

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OH &S UPDATE

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Workers whose jobs take them outdoors must guard against stings and bites, some of which can trigger reactions requiring immediate medical care.

Time Bandit

British Columbia offers new work-alone option; Alberta firm fined in death; mould closes Ontario school; lead exposures down in Quebec; New Brunswick mulls demerit system; felled tree claims Nova Scotia worker; Prince Edward Island city fined for chlorine gas leak; and more.

Dispatch e s

WCB privacy tightened; tensions high from eye spy; shifts hike heart risk; and more.

Partner s i n P r ev e n t i o n 2 0 1 2 Profess i o n a l d i r e c t ory product s h owc as e Ad I ndex

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By Samuel Dunsiger

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W o r k e rs’ Com pensation

WCBs Receive Low Grades A recent study gives workers’ compensation boards an overall thumbs down and emphasizes the need to become more small-business friendly.

By Jason Contant & Jean Lian

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Op i n i o n

68

Ti m e Out

70

Business Moves on Inactivity Bless you; hasta la vista siesta; crusty Frosty; croc rock; and more.

45 66 67 69

Accidents hurt – safety doesn’t.

– author unknown

www.ohscanada.com

MARCH 2012

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C A N A D A’ S O C C U PAT I O N A L H E A LT H & S A F E T Y M A G A Z I N E

EDITORIAL

C A N A D A

Vol. 28, No. 2 MARCH 2012

Time Bandit W

hile time may heal, inherent in that promised comfort is the need to forget. Unfortunately, memory loss imposed by the passage of days, months or years is not necessarily conducive to serving the greater good.

Remembrance may, in fact, have the most value when it comes to occupational health and safety. Absent lasting recall, events that rightly should be brought to the fore risk being relegated to the recesses of the mind.

Recent months have offered some oh&s rulings that, despite the significance of precipitating events, could be viewed as no more than “something” that happened in the past, with little hope of positively influencing what happens in the future.

Consider the fines for two companies following a natural gas explosion in Toronto that claimed the lives of seven people, some of whom worked in a plaza, almost nine years ago. After a backhoe contacted an unmarked line at a construction site, gas escaped into the basement of the building and was subsequently ignited.

The fines were substantial — Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc. received matching penalties of $350,000 for breaching Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Technical Safety Standards Authority Act (TSSAA), while Precision Utility Limited was ordered to pay $200,000. The fines made a splash when announced in mid-December, but the resulting ripples quickly calmed.

Surely, the decision was too long in coming. It is well and good to employ all available means that the courts allow, inevitably producing delays, but at some point, these drawn-out battles need to end.

One of the accused, Warren Bitulithic Ltd., pleaded guilty to a breach of the TSSAA back in 2006 — the $225,000 fine looking not so very different than the recent penalties — but handed down three, not almost nine, years after the fact.

Consider these other recent decisions: • Thirty-three charges against three companies following a fatal stage collapse at the Big Valley Jamboree festival in Alberta three years ago have been stayed. It was thought that there was no reasonable likelihood of securing a conviction.

• Saskatchewan’s chief coroner determined an inquest into a natural gas explosion four years ago — which claimed two and seriously injured several others — will not be held. It is believed the review would not add anything that has not previously been disclosed or considered as part of another coroner’s final report.

• A $250,000 penalty was levied against an Alberta transport company more than five years after a worker was fatally crushed between a tree and reversing vehicle.

The positive? The lion’s share of the penalty — that is, $249,000 — is pegged for establishing a health and safety management system at the Métis settlement where the incident occurred. The negative? Five years later.

• There will be no trial into the 2009 deaths of two Jamaican workers who were exposed to a hazardous atmosphere in a vat at an Ontario orchard. A plea bargain, confirmed one day before a trial was set to begin, ended with charges against the orchard operators being stayed and a $22,500 fine for a supervisor.

With the last, not only was the fine inexplicably small, the possibility of shining a light on the circumstances leading to the deaths was snuffed out.

These and other decisions demonstrate the need for some sort of public airing in the wake of final outcomes around work-related deaths that are reached so many years later. If not a prosecution, then an inquest; if not an inquest, then at least a report that helps acknowledge and breathe life into something as vitally important as preventing the same thing from happening again.

Without more timely action, the memory fades at a time when remembering — and changing — becomes the only positive legacy. Doing otherwise leaves one to ask: Was it a matter of all or nothing — or all for nothing?

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada Angela Stelmakowich

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ohs canada

EDITOR ANGELA STELMAKOWIch

astelmakowich@ohscanada.com Associate EDITOR JEAN LIAN

jlian@ohscanada.com editorial assistant greg burchell

gburchell@ohscanada.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS Hazardous substances WILLIAM M. GLENN Safety gear jason contant ART DIRECTOR anne miron PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER MARKETING SPECIALIST Circulation Manager

PHYLLIS WRIGHT Cathy Li DIMITRY EPELBAUM Barbara Adelt

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER SHEILA HEMSLEY

shemsley@ohscanada.com PUBLISHER peter boxer pboxer@ohscanada.com

PRESIDENT, BUSINESS INFORMATION GROUP BRUCE CREIGHTON

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

DAVID IRETON, Safety Professional, Brampton, Ont. ALLAN JOHNSON, Director of Construction, Hospitality, Oil and Gas, Workers’ Compensation Board of B.C., Vancouver, B.C. Jane Lemke, Program Manager, OHN Certification Program, Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ont. DON MITCHELL, Safety Consultant, Mississauga, Ont. MICHELE PARENT, National Manager, Risk Management and Health and Wellness, Standard Life, Montreal, Que. TERRY RYAN, Workers’ Compensation and Safety Consultant, TRC Group Inc., Mississauga, Ont. DON SAYERS, Principal Consultant, Don Sayers & Associates, Hanwell, N.B. DAVID SHANE, National Director, Health and Safety, Canada Post Corporation, Ottawa, Ont. HENRY SKJERVEN, President, The Skjerven Cattle Company Ltd., Wynyard, Sask.

PETER STRAHLENDORF, Assistant Professor, School of Environmental Health, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto, Ont. JONATHAN TYSON, Association of Canadian Ergonomists/Association canadienne d’ergonomie, North Bay, Ont. OHS CANADA is the magazine for people who make decisions about health and safety in the workplace. It is designed to keep workers, managers and safety professionals informed on oh&s issues, up to date on new developments and in touch with current thinking in the oh&s community.

WEBSITE: http://www.ohscanada.com INFORMATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS contained in this publication have been compiled from sources believed to be reliable and to be representative of the best current opinion on the subject. No warranty, guarantee, nor representation is made

by Business Information Group as to the absolute correctness or sufficiency of any representation contained in this publication.

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Date of issue: MARCH 2012

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LETTERS

Recent issues of ohs canada and our website, www.ohscanada.com, have provided readers with plenty to chew on.

Measure Meant This issue of ohs canada (and recently the website) has a news item on the decision by a poultry processing plant to appeal an oh&s order related to air quality.

If you are exposed to a chemical in the workplace, then it is a requirement that the chemical should be measured. In Europe, there is a maximum exposure level of 0.5 milligrams per cubic metre (mg/m3) for trichloramine (nitrogen trichloride) for an eight-hour day. That level may be reduced to 0.3 mg/m3.

Exposure to high levels of trichloramine will remove the mucous lining from the lungs, predisposing a person to infection and allergic reactions.

The gas should be monitored and controlled for the protection of both staff and the public.

Howard Dryden (Online)

rights fight The website carried a canadian occupational health & safety news story about migrant workers who are suing their former employer and the federal government for rights violations.

• I have watched an exposé about the infringement of these workers’ rights in the past and it is appalling to know this is allowed to happen in Canada.

Jennifer Myrie (Online)

• D oesn’t the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply only for Canadian citizens?… Migrant workers are needed because many Canadian labourers do not want to do that type of menial work… We may be too comfortable in our luxury!

Robert Cormier (Online)

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talking and walking The website had an article in January from The Canadian Press about a worker killed by displaced material at a mine.

In 2012, we continue to turn a blind eye to oh&s, we continue to experience on-the-job injuries, we continue to lose precious lives through work accidents.

What is most sad is that “we all” excuse our oversights for not being aware of that one thing that led to the injury or death and we continue to make remarks publicly about “learning a lesson from this” or “learn from our mistakes.”

This is not about the positions of management or individuals, but about careless enforcement. Let’s do better!

Bill Hallett (Online)

shut down The website offered a

canadian occu-

pational health & safety news

story in December about a decision by Saskatoon Health Region to close its central laundry after a review identified deficiencies.

A bolt gave way for an as-yet, unverified reason: maintenance practice, age, defective, overloaded? The history of the facility indicates a similar incident happened in the past, and makes no mention of measures employed to prevent recurrence. The corrective action initiated as a result of a single bolt, has been to close an entire facility… this all while the oh&s investigation is still under way.

Patrick (Online)

chilling move The website carried a story by The Canadian Press in December about charges against a volunteer fire service.

It must be nice to look at things after the fact with all the facts, background and knowing the outcome.

We, as fire department officers, have to make life or death split-second decisions on little or limited information.

We have to rely on our training and experience to make these decisions…

Hopefully, it’s not one of your family members we can’t save because your bureaucracy has tied our hands.

Ontario Volunteer Fire Department Officer (Online)

lack of sleep In December, a

canadian occupational

health & safety news

article on the website explored a train derailment that has thrust operator fatigue into the spotlight.

The sleep issue is one that the railroads aren’t sincere in solving. I have worked as a conductor for 33-plus years.

In the United States, the Federal Railroad Administration changed the rules and, in some ways, made things worse.

In the old days when there were more people on a train, there was always an extra person to watch your back. There are reasonable solutions to this problem, but it will cost the railroads more money that they do not want to spend.

It’s about money and common sense.

CTE (Online)

bad judgement The website had a story by The Canadian Press in January about the jail sentence for a 19-year-old who spat in the face of a Toronto Transit Commission supervisor.

Interesting that the TTC only pursues charges when a supervisor is assaulted.

Cindy (Online) Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Would you like to share a comment?

Send an email to astelmakowich@ ohscanada.com. Letters may be edited for style, grammar and length.

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OH&S UPDATE

Female Mountie launches harassment complaint FEDERAL — Just months after a harassment complaint by a

former spokesperson for the RCMP made national headlines, another female member has publicly alleged sexual misconduct and failure of the force to act on her concerns.

Karen Katz, a member of the RCMP’s protective services section at E Division, filed a complaint in the Supreme Court of British Columbia on January 3. It is alleged the harassment began after Katz and Constable Baldev Singh Bamra were assigned to the same watch. Bamra, who at times was designated acting corporal, was in a position of authority over Katz, the only female member on the watch.

Her statement of claim contends that Bamra began “a campaign of consistent complaining” about Katz to others, prompting her request for a transfer in 2006. But not long after the transfer, Bamra was moved to the same watch, with the two frequently working together.

The claim further alleges Bamra embarked on an escalating “pattern of erratic physical conduct” toward Katz, including slamming his chest against her while wearing his bullet-proof vest, “bear-hugging” her and during one night shift in 2007, pinning her against a desk and rubbing his crotch against her knee until she managed to free herself.

Katz reported the matter first to her psychologist and then to her supervisor. The RCMP did not investigate or discipline the constable, the statement of claim contends.

Katz went on medical leave in February of 2009, during which time she received treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. She is reported to have “suffered permanent and irreparable harm, including extreme embarrassment, loss of

fatigue cited in derailment FEDERAL — A federal investigation ex-

ploring the circumstances surrounding a 21-car train derailment in Ontario last year has thrust the issue of operator fatigue back into the spotlight.

On October 1, 2010, the cars of a Canadian National (CN) freight train derailed near Falding, Ontario. Although the derailed cars included eight loaded tank cars containing non-odourized liquefied petroleum gas and seven containing fuel oil, no product was released and there were no injuries, notes the December 7 report by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) near Ottawa.

Investigators determined that the locomotive engineer was insufficiently rested to be engaged in safety-critical tasks.

On the night before the derailment, the

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reputation, extreme stress resulting in disabling psychological injury, personal expense and financial loss.”

The alleged failure of the RCMP to provide Katz with a reasonably safe workplace represents a breach of its duty of care which “caused or contributed to a recognizable psychiatric illness or psychological harm,” the claim notes.

Rob Creasser, spokesperson for the Mounted Police Professional Association of Canada, says from Kamloops, British Columbia that he regards morale within the force as being at an all-time low. “It doesn’t make it a fun time to come to work when you’re always hearing about these types of issues in the paper,” Creasser says, adding that he expects more allegations to surface “now that the gates are kind of open.”

Formerly a Mountie for 28 years, he argues sexual harassment within the force is rampant, whether in the form of bullying or lack of promotional opportunities. Calling it an “Old Boys network,” he contends that the “culture has to change.”

Creasser suggests that objective can be achieved through legislative amendments, restoring public trust and building more internal accountability by establishing an independent system of labour relations that is not tied to management.

David Eby, executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association in Vancouver, says these cases can create a sense of lack of accountability within the force, “which is not a safe feeling for female employees in the workplace.”

It is only through actions where officers see there is accountability and consequences for inappropriate behaviour that “will make people feel safer again,” Eby argues.

— By Jean Lian

worker had less than two hours of sleep before being called in to work at about 4:45 am. He began his shift at 6:25 am.

Under federal work-rest requirements, companies expect that employees who accept an assignment when called in — typically with two hours notice — will arrive on time and be fit to perform duties safely for as long as 12 hours. But if an employee does not accept the work, the TSB notes, they could face discipline.

“The locomotive engineer recognized he was tired when accepting the assignment, but knew that refusing an assignment when called could result in loss of wages due to a missed trip and/or potential company discipline,” the TSB report points out. When this is the case, “there is an increased risk that a fatigued employee will accept work, compromising safe train operation.”

The engineer’s fatigued state was

“compounded by the challenge of operating an unfamiliar train during an unplanned braking event in undulating territory with a number of curves.”

The rail industry had been working toward implementing new fatigue management guidelines, but at the time, it was still up to the employee to determine whether or not he was fit to work.

In February of 2011, revisions to the federal Work/Rest Rules for Railway Operating Employees were approved, requiring companies to implement fatigue management plans that take into account factors such as train size, complexity, traffic density, traffic patterns, run length and geography.

CN’s fatigue management plan, addressing issues such as alertness strategies and work scheduling, is “being enhanced with additional features as part of the recent amendments,” the TSB adds.

inquest into mountie’s death FEDERAL — The Yukon’s chief coroner has determined that exploring the circumstances surrounding the drowning death of an RCMP officer in the summer of 2010 is in the public’s interest.

Upon review, Sharon Hanley says she believes a public airing of the facts may help to identify how to prevent similar occurrences. The four- to five-day inquest is scheduled to begin May 14.

Constable Michael Potvin drowned on the evening of July 13, 2010 while he and a fellow officer were operating an aluminum boat on the Stewart River.

The vessel began taking on water and capsized not far from shore, notes a statement from the Yukon RCMP. Police say the co-worker stayed with the overturned vessel and was helped to shore by witnesses who had launched a boat to assist the officers. Potvin tried to swim to shore, but disappeared below the water and failed to resurface.

Despite an exhaustive search by the RCMP, local agencies and private citi-

zens, Potvin’s body was not recovered until July 30, after being located 50 kilometres downstream.

David Gilbert, director of organizational strategy for the RCMP’s M Division, says that “changes have taken place or are under way at both a divisional and a national level.” These moves include the following: • RCMP national policy and equipment standards were reviewed, with M Division continuing its efforts to develop and implement a comprehensive Water Transport Program that focuses on equipment, vessels and training; • division and Transport Canada representatives worked together to inspect vessels and ensure compliance; and, • the division has implemented a new skills assessment program that employs checks to ensure operators are proficient and familiar with the vessels that they will be operating in their detachment areas.

Beyond that, six new boats have been purchased to replace aging vessels in some locations, helping to meet the twin goals of enhancing on-water capac-

ity and compliance, Gilbert says. Equipment like self-inflating personal flotation devices, water and ice rescue disks, life jackets and thermal, eye and hearing protection has also been acquired.

Taken together, “these changes are expected to increase the safety of our employees by supporting awareness of and compliance with safety requirements and practices, and by providing suitable equipment,” Gilbert says.

Hanley reports she has not reviewed changes made by the RCMP, but expects these to be part of inquest discussions.

If an inquest produces any recommendations, these will be passed on to the “appropriate groups and individuals, including the public, agencies, institutions and ministries of various levels of government,” notes information from the Yukon coroner’s service.

certification system debated WHITEHORSE — The Yukon government has opted to take more time before making safety certification mandatory for all

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MARCH 2012

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construction contracts in the territory.

Any firm bidding on government construction projects valued at $100,000 or more must have a Certificate of Recognition (COR), which signifies compliance with standards set by the Canadian Federation of Construction Safety Associations. Affected jobs include road, sewer and water main construction, transmission line tunnelling, landscaping, excavation, demolition, trenching, blasting, plumbing, electrical work and welding, notes information from the Yukon’s Department of Highways and Public Works, based in Whitehorse.

When the program took effect three years ago, COR certification was necessary for jobs of more than $500,000.

That amount was lowered to the current level in 2011, with the initial three-phase plan calling for all companies bidding on government contracts to be COR-certified by January, 2012.

Pointing out that the Yukon has some very small contractors in outlying communities, public works minister Mike Johnson says that he wonders if it is good value to require them to be certified.

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“COR certification is not a good model for office workers and some of the other industries we have in the territory, so we need to take a look at that and who we would be capturing if we go down to zero. And is zero the next number, or should it be something in between?”

The Yukon is trying to make the process of obtaining COR certification easier for all companies. Johnson points to the Small Employer Certificate of Recognition, a more streamlined certification for businesses with fewer than 10 workers during peak times, and the Owner Operator Certificate of Proficiency.

“We’ve had good support from our workers’ compensation board (WCB), where they are offering premium rebates back to companies who are getting certified,” the minister adds.

Ann-Marie Stockley, COR program administrator for Northern Safety Network Yukon (NSNY) in Whitehorse, says the program is like a company’s proof of insurance, but for safety.

To obtain certification, an organization must have a full-time employee complete four health, safety and leadership

training courses and, starting in 2012, ensure a majority of full-time supervisors do a leadership safety course. As well, a company’s health and safety program must be audited by NSNY and a score of at least 80 per cent achieved.

new Working-alone option RICHMOND — WorkSafeBC’s Board of Directors has approved a third option to help protect lone workers in late-night retail premises more than six years after a young worker in British Columbia was fatally injured in a gas-and-dash.

The December 8 approval means the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation has been amended to include more engineering and administrative controls.

Current requirements — introduced in 2008 but not yet in force because of implementation issues — listed hiring additional staff or erecting barriers as ways in which employers could protect those who work alone anytime between 11 pm and 6 am. The third option is to incorporate video surveillance for lone workers.

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If an employer chooses the third option, notes a statement from Richmond, British Columbia-based WorkSafeBC, all following controls must be in place: • a time-lock safe that cannot be opened during late-night hours; • cash and lottery tickets not reasonably required during late-night hours be stored in that safe; • good visibility both into and out of the premises;

• limited access to inside the premises; • video surveillance monitoring; and, • signs noting the presence of a safe that cannot be opened during latenight hours, limited accessible cash and tickets, and video surveillance.

In addition, employers will also be required to have a qualified and independent person conduct security audits to confirm that all necessary controls have been implemented, and that workers as-

signed under the third option be at least 19 years of age and provided personal emergency transmitters monitored by the employer, a security company or another person designated by the employer.

All three options will be enforceable as of April 15, WorkSafeBC reports.

“We did this because it became apparent that not all late-night retail operations were able to hire two workers or erect a barrier,” says Donna Freeman, director of media relations for the board.

“We conducted an extensive analysis of the issues and conducted a barrier pilot which was independently assessed and concluded that there were significant issues associated with constructing a barrier, including construction/ventilation/ permitting issues, customer service issues, cost and worker discomfort.”

Grant De Patie, an attendant at a gas station in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, was dragged to his death in 2005 while gas thieves sped off in their vehicle.

The worker’s father, Doug De Patie, says video surveillance will do nothing to prevent robberies. “I have the last three minutes of Grant’s life on camera. It did Grant no good and it will do the next people no good,” De Patie argues. “All you do is become a witness to their death.”

Jim Sinclair, president of the British Columbia Federation of Labour in Vancouver, has called on WorkSafeBC to reverse its decision.

Avalanches turn fun deadly REVELSTOKE — Having thousands of tonnes of snow charge down a mountain, mowing down everything in its path, is an ever-present threat to people who use mountains for fun.

But what about those who use mountains for work? Forestry workers, miners, park rangers and rescue crews may also face snow’s unbridled fury.

Avalanches claim an average of 14 Canadians every year. In late December, RCMP confirmed a man had died while heli-skiing in the Selkirk Mountain range in British Columbia. A certified guide and 11 skiers had been skiing when the avalanche, categorized as size 2.5 on a five-point scale, partially buried three skiers and completely buried a fourth.

While those who work in the mountain ranges on Canada’s West Coast may be most at risk from avalanches, any terrain with steep inclines and snowfalls can produce potentially deadly slides.

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“There are avalanche fatalities recorded in most provinces in Canada, even though not all provinces have mountains,” says Ian Tomm, executive director of the Canadian Avalanche Association (CAA) in Revelstoke, British Columbia.

The rule of thumb for avalanche risk is more than 30 centimetres of snowfall, greater than 30 degrees of slope and wind speeds exceeding 30 kilometres per hour, Tomm reports.

In British Columbia, before any work is done during wintertime, an avalanche risk assessment must be done. If any risk is identified, a written avalanche safety plan must be submitted to WorkSafeBC. “We recognize in a lot of cases you can’t eliminate the risk, but what our regulations expect is, as an employer, if your workers are in danger, you’re going to mitigate those risks to the lowest level possible,” says Bruce Clarke, a regional prevention manager for the board.

For WorkSafeBC staff, those who go into the back country must complete an eight-day training course on avalanches and always work in pairs.

Following an avalanche, there is an increased risk of another slide unless most of the snow shelf has come down.

If rescuer safety cannot be guaranteed, Tomm says there have been numerous cases where search and rescue “efforts have been suspended and avalanche experts have been brought in to do more in-depth analysis and explosive control.”

Canada’s last work-related avalanche fatality occurred in January, 2006 when an employee of Island Lake Lodge in Fernie, British Columbia was checking a weather station and was buried in a size 3.5 avalanche — typically 1,000 tonnes and running about a kilometre.

WorkSafeBC accepted 11 avalancherelated claims from 2006 to 2010. One fatality and four injuries involved workers in the outdoor sport tour industry.

$365,500 fine in welder death NISKU — An oilfield equipment company

received $365,500 in penalties three years after a worker was electrocuted at a work site in Nisku, Alberta.

In December, Dreco Energy Services Ltd., a subsidiary of National Oilwell Varco, was levied the fine after pleading guilty to failing to ensure equipment was operated in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications.

The total penalty includes a $10,500

At approximately 11 pm on October 17, 2008, a worker found the welder unresponsive and slumped over in an aerial platform. They had been working on a track used for a travelling crane.

An investigation by AHS officers determined that the moving platform hit and then severed the insulating coating of a welding current conductor cable, energizing the platform and electrocuting the equipment operator.

fine (inclusive of victim fine surcharge), $240,000 payable to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology for the development of an aerial platform course and creation of a trades apprenticeship endowment in honour of the deceased, and $115,000 payable to Norquest College to develop a safety course on intercultural communications for on-site workers, notes information from Edmonton-based Alberta Human Services (AHS).

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worker sustains head injury FORT MCMURRAY — A penalty totalling

$75,000 was issued against an Alberta company in January, almost four years after a worker was seriously injured at a work site in the provincial community of Fort McMurray.

K-Tec Industries (2005) Inc. received the penalty after entering a guilty plea to failing to ensure that no worker performs work on equipment until it has come to a complete stop, contrary to Alberta’s oh&s requirements.

The fine follows an incident in February of 2008, notes information from the AHS. A worker suffered serious head injuries when a drilling line was inadvertently rotated while work was being done on the equipment.

co exposure reveals breaches SASKATOON — An investigation report

into a deadly carbon monoxide (CO) leak at a long-term care home in Hum-

boldt, Saskatchewan has identified a number of health and safety deficiencies.

The Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) has been cited for six breaches of provincial requirements following the leak that claimed three in the early morning of December 26, 2010. The report, issued last December by the Regina-based Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety, points to a boiler failure.

Among others, the identified contraventions revolve around the employer’s alleged failures to properly maintain the boilers and mechanical ventilation system, to ensure ventilation openings are kept free of obstructions, and to ensure CO and other contaminants were exhausted away from the workplace.

As well, workers were not given adequate supervision, but were expected to continue working even after the presence of CO had been confirmed.

Some workers were given disposable particulate respirators, which do not offer adequate protection, and shift workers and other employees arriving at work on the day of the incident were not informed of the CO, the report adds.

Nilesh Kavia, the vice-president of finance and administration for the SHR, says in a statement that many of the issues identified in the report were addressed in the months after the incident.

Work is under way to replace the boilers and ventilation system at St. Mary’s Villa and CO detectors have been installed at all facilities operated by the region, the statement notes. As well, an external agency has inspected boilers and ventilation systems in all rural facilities.

Kavia says maintenance staff at the Humboldt facility will receive training directly from the manufacturer on how to use and maintain new equipment.

Revisions to the SHR’s “code brown” (hazardous material) procedures have now been completed. Consultations with staff from the provincial labour ministry and other related agencies are under way to ensure revisions are acceptable.

Changes are also being considered for “code green” (evacuation) processes.

By March of 2012, all rural facilities are scheduled to have completed a CO exercise. “We cannot forget the tragedy of that day in December, 2010, but we

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Maximum fine could increase five-fold REGINA — A new bill proposes increasing the maximum fine under Saskatchewan’s Occupational Health and Safety Act to $1.5 million for those who are found or plead guilty to work-related incidents involving serious injury or death.

If given the green light, Bill 23 would also double penalties (other than the maximum) that now range from $2,000 to $300,000, says Glennis Bihun, executive director of the OH&S Division within Saskatchewan’s workplace safety ministry. The bill passed second reading in the legislative assembly on December 14 and was expected to move on to third reading during the upcoming spring session.

“The need for change that improves the safety performance of Saskatchewan workplaces is demonstrated by the fact that Saskatchewan continues to have the second highest workplace injury rate in the country,” Bihun says.

Most of the proposed changes are based on recommendations by members of the Occupational Health and Safety Council following their review of the OH&S Act, Bihun says.

Other suggestions flow from a review of best practices.

Among the proposed changes are the following: • The director of the OH&S Division should have the authority to require an employer or contractor to establish an additional or new oh&s committee. The obligation would depend on specific criteria, including injury frequency in the workplace and nature of work performed.

• Provincial officers should have an “enhanced” ability to require that oh&s records be produced, to inspect and acquire copies of any such records and to require anyone that a provincial officer “has reasonable cause to believe” possesses information relevant to a fatality, serious injury or harassment to attend an interview.

• A “prime contractor” — say, an employer, contractor or owner — would have extra responsibilities at certain sites with two or more employers or self-employed persons.

Bihun says that draft amendments “clarify the employer’s duty to ensure employees are sufficiently trained and supervised and that the activity of one employer’s workers do not negatively affect the health and safety of other workers or self-employed persons at the same place of employment.”

Amendments were tabled days after provincial auditor Bonnie Lysyk released her report on government ministries.

In it, Lysyk concluded that while the labour ministry had effective processes to address non-compliance with the OH&S Act, not all available enforcement options (such as stopwork orders) were being used or being used consistently.

In addition, the committee report notes penalties for noncompliance are less severe than for the neighbouring provinces of Alberta and Manitoba. “Officers told us that some employers think it is cheaper to pay fines than to comply.”

— By Jason Contant

www.ohscanada.com

MARCH 2012

15

also want to take our learnings and ensure nothing like this ever happens in the future,” says Bonnie Blakley, vice-president, people strategies for the SHR.

POULTRY FIRM APPEALS ORDER WINNIPEG — Union reps for workers at

a Winnipeg poultry processing plant say the company is playing chicken with Manitoba Labour and Immigration by appealing an order to clean up its act.

In November, Granny’s Poultry was issued an improvement order related to indoor air quality, says Rob Hilliard, director of workplace safety and health for Local 832 of United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW). Hilliard reports plant air was and is causing employees to become ill and further claims the company failed to comply with another directive issued last October.

An email notes the province can only confirm an order regarding air quality at the plant has been issued and appealed by the employer. “Accordingly, the province is not able to comment further while

the matter is in appeal.”

Pointing to the appeal, company CEO Craig Evans also declined comment.

Hilliard says that for the past three years, workers (primarily in the plant’s turkey evisceration area) have been complaining of coughing, sneezing, irritated eyes and trouble sleeping after working long shifts. “It smelled like chlorine, it coincided with the use of increased chlorine, so chlorine became the suspect.”

However, air testing by the company found that the levels of chlorine were well below the threshold limit value (TLV).

The 50 to 60 workers in the area continued to complain, Hilliard reports, prompting the company to provide respirators. “About 75 per cent of the people in this area have been using respirators for about three years,” he adds.

An occupational hygienist commissioned by UFCW reported that similar health complaints were common in the United States until about 20 years ago, Hilliard says. In 1993, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) conducted an investigation into a Missouri poultry plant and concluded

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that although levels of chlorine in the air were well below the TLV, all employee symptoms pointed to chlorine. NIOSH recommended, among other things, that ventilation be improved.

Hilliard says there is also the issue of trichloramine, the result of ammonia and chlorine mixed together, in the air.

“These workers, for over three years, have been experiencing poor air quality in their workplace that is causing irritants to their breathing passages to the point of sometimes missing work,” he says.

mine requirements updated WINNIPEG — Manitoba is looking to en-

hance the safety of mine workers with the adoption of new requirements under the Operations of Mines Regulation.

Effective April 1, the regulation will include the following provisions: • stronger limitations on tethering workers to remote-controlled equipment; • stricter safety procedures when water or other potentially dangerous substances are used near molten material;

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• specific instructions for inspecting and maintaining raise climbers; • the location of refuge stations; • more stringent obligations around ventilating vehicle emissions from mobile equipment underground; and, • updated standards for roll-over and falling-object protection on vehicles.

MOULD SHUTS DOWN SCHOOL PIKANGIKUM — Health problems be-

lieved to be linked to mould exposure have closed the doors of a First Nations school in a remote area northwest of Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Kyle Peters, education director of Eenchokay Birchstick School in Pikangikum, Ontario, reports the school officially shut down January 9, but approximately 120 of the 800 students had continued to attend some classes.

“Many teachers have been forced to leave the community as chronic problems with mould and other respiratory irritants in their living quarters have reached a crisis point,” Nishnawbe Aski Nation

Deputy Grand Chief Terry Waboose says in a statement. In all, 25 of the 31 teachers had left by early January.

An air quality assessment by an independent consultant has confirmed the presence of mould in seven residences, posing “a serious threat to the health of the educators,” Waboose says.

Peters reports that air quality issues surfaced in November. A report by contractors, who were called in to conduct air quality assessments in early December, confirmed high mould spore counts in the teachers’ residences.

One teacher, who had had a cold and cough for about two months, was advised by the community doctor to stop living in the residence. “It turns out her house was actually the lowest in mould spore count,” Peters says.

Assessments were being done by a contracting team in mid-January, he says.

The most common symptoms associated with exposure to mould include runny nose, eye irritation, skin rash, cough, congestion and aggravation of asthma, notes an information sheet from Ontario’s Ministry of Labour (MOL) in Toronto.

coverage rules soon in effect TORONTO — Workers’ comp coverage

for most Ontario construction workers will become mandatory in 2013, but the Toronto-based Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) is getting a head start with pre-registration and education.

Registration can be done online or over the phone, while the year-long education effort is meant to ensure those affected know about the requirements and the impact they will have.

The changes will bring independent operators, sole proprietors, some partners in partnerships and some executive officers in construction under the WSIB umbrella and will require anyone hiring a subcontractor for construction work to obtain a certificate from the subcontractor showing registration with the board.

The only exempt parties are home renovators hired by a homeowner and one executive officer who does not perform construction work.

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gas explosion claimed seven lives TORONTO — High fines have been handed down to two

companies in connection with one of Toronto’s deadliest fires, which killed seven people, injured four and reduced a two-storey shopping plaza to rubble and ash almost nine years ago.

In April of 2003, a backhoe operated by Warren Bitulithic Ltd. ruptured an underground natural gas pipeline. Gas leaked into the plaza’s basement and was ignited, killing seven people in the plaza and an adjoining residence.

A worker with Precision Utility Ltd., the company contracted by Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc. to locate and mark gas lines in the excavation zone, had missed one two-centimetrediameter line leading into the plaza’s basement.

In December, Enbridge Gas Distribution received a fine of $350,000 under Ontario’s OH&S Act for failing to ensure gas services in and near the excavation area were accurately located and marked. The company received a matching penalty for failing to provide as accurate information as possible regarding pipeline location, contrary to the Technical Standards and Safety Act, 2000 (TSSA).

For its part, Precision Utility was handed a $200,000 fine after pleading guilty to failing to adequately supervise a worker during the locate process, Ontario’s MOL reports.

A ministry probe found the Precision Utility worker did not use all available records while in the field and did not act on

visual clues indicating the presence of natural gas.

In September of 2006, Warren Bitulithic entered a guilty plea under the TSSA to interfering with or damaging a natural gas pipeline and was fined $225,000.

“This incident should never have occurred and would not have occurred had the safety rules been followed,” Kathy Milsom, president and CEO of the Technical Standards & Safety Authority in Toronto, notes in a statement. “Today’s fines will never fully compensate for the deaths, injuries and property damage that occurred, but will hopefully deter violators from acting carelessly,” Milsom adds.

“This is roughly $150,000 per life,” says Sid Ryan, president of the Toronto-based Ontario Federation of Labour.

“Clearly, negligence took place,” Ryan charges.

Jim Douglas is president of the Ontario Regional Common Ground Alliance (ORCGA) in St. Catharines, Ontario.

Over the last seven years, Douglas says damage to underground infrastructure is down 40 per cent and dig projects found without locates has fallen from 50 to 30 per cent.

“The problem with getting locates is it’s a very fragmented system still,” he argues. “Sometimes you have to call seven, eight, nine numbers depending on your jurisdiction.”

ORCGA backs mandatory membership in Ontario One Call, a one-stop system for locates of underground utilities.

— By Greg Burchell

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and the nature of the industry is that people working in construction need to have WSIB coverage and full coverage under the OH&S Act, full stop,” says David Frame, director of government relations at the Ontario General Contractors Association (OGCA) in Mississauga, Ontario.

All OGCA members are already registered, Frame reports, but adds they will still be affected if they hire subcontractors.

“The biggest change for them will be to make sure everybody on their work site is registered and is paying. That’s largely a communication issue and we want to make sure the WSIB is going to be going out to the full industry to make sure they understand these new responsibilities and comply,” he adds.

Although OGCA members support the legislation and believe it can help to enhance work-related safety, there is still some hesitation around the whole issue of implementation.

The WSIB has not demonstrated how it will move to individual coverage from a system where companies pay their premiums as a percentage of payroll, Frame suggests. “This, more and more, is going to require the WSIB to identify or find ways to identify who the people are that they’re covering.”

Some promise in lead numbers MONTREAL — A seven-year study of occupational exposure to

lead among Quebec workers suggests that exposure control has improved over the years.

The study released by the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé

en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST), based in Montreal, was done between 2001 and 2008 and involved 6,717 workers employed at about 500 companies.

“Despite its limitations, the analysis of the results revealed that the number of workers with at least one very high bloodlead level decreased steadily over the years, reflecting better control of exposure time,” the IRSST reports.

That said, findings indicate 1,943 test results for lead in air exceeded the new provincial standard of 0.05 milligrams per cubic metre. “These results show a reduction in the number of high blood-lead concentrations, though prevention efforts must continue because in many companies, including those recently visited by occupational health workers, lead levels found in the blood of exposed workers were still too high,” Claude Ostiguy, the study’s principal researcher, adds in the statement.

new brunswick eyes demerit system SAINT JOHN — New Brunswick’s WorkSafeNB is exploring the adoption of a demerit system that would give it the authority to levy fines against companies that break the rules without having to resort to the courts.

Still in the early stages of planning, Saint John-based WorkSafeNB has asked stakeholders, through an online survey, to provide input on a proposed system that would see employers issued extra assessments for violating specific sections of New Brunswick’s OH&S Act and associated regulations.

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“The legal process can be lengthy, costly and historically fines have been low. From 2006 to 2010, the average fine issued to employers for OH&S Act violations was $3,200 — much lower than the $250,000 maximum under legislation,” WorkSafeNB chairperson Sharon Tucker says in a statement.

The demerit system would put one more tool in WorkSafeNB’s toolbox for dealing with violators, says Andy Rauska, director of divisional support at the board, as well as bring New Brunswick more in line with other provinces and territories across the country. “It’s talking to things like blatancy, it’s talking to issues such as the catastrophic results of not being in compliance in certain activities. For example, not wearing fall protection on a roof. Is that a stop-work order, or is that a possibility for a financial fine?” Rauska asks.

“What’s going to make the change for that employer — to ensure that gets ingrained so the next time someone goes up on a roof, they wear their fall protection?” he adds.

One current shortfall, a WorkSafeNB backgrounder notes, is that although compliance and stop-work orders can be issued, “once the inciting event has been corrected, the order is lifted with no repercussions for subsequent violations.”

This is not the first time WorkSafeNB has dipped its toe in the demerit pool. Approved in June, 2005 and started the next January, the board began applying demerits when employers violated one of the zero-tolerance areas — fall arrest, trenching or lockout — or for anyone who breached provincial requirements twice or more in a year.

While the system was in effect, 11 employers were issued demerits totalling almost $84,000.

However, the system was suspended three years ago after the Appeals Tribunal ruled the legislation used as a foundation to create the demerit system policy was not sufficient.

Other jurisdictions across the country have similar enforcement methods, WorkSafeNB reports, including the following: • In the Yukon, if a violation is not remedied after a warning, an immediate $250 fine is issued and then doubled every week of non-compliance.

• Nova Scotia introduced penalties in 2010 for employers and employees who violate the OH&S Act, with fines ranging from $100 to $500.

• After a failed inspection, Ontario employers have six months to make changes before extra premiums are issued.

• In Manitoba, if shortcomings are not corrected following a warning and re-inspection, penalties of as much as $5,000 can be imposed.

• In British Columbia, depending on the severity of the risk, fines can range from $1,000 to $75,000, with the discretion to adjust by 30 per cent.

taxi rule changes considered SAINT JOHN — Officials for the City of Saint John are contem-

plating changing rules to get old cabs off the streets and make roads safer for workers, passengers and other drivers.

In a recent council meeting, members of the municipality’s taxi bylaw review committee brought forward recommendations on how to improve service for the approximately 300 cabs in the city. Suggestions included metered fares rather than the current system where drivers set fares based on zones, a seven-year limit on vehicle age and mandatory driver training.

Amy Poffenroth, Saint John’s deputy commissioner of build-

www.ohscanada.com

MARCH 2012

21

ings and inspection services and chair of the review committee, estimates about 75 per cent of cabs operating in the city are more than eight years old, with a “good number” older than 10 years.

Cabbies now only need a valid driver’s licence and to pass a background check, but city officials would like to add training on points of interest and geography, safety instruction on things like proper installation of child seats, English proficiency, customer service skills and by-law orientation, says Poffenroth.

Taxi drivers and operators had asked for a cap on the number of cabs, but the city is unable to legislate that type of limit, Poffenroth reports.

WORKER CRUSHED BY FELLED TREE GREEN OAKS — A 54-year-old worker in

Nova Scotia suffered fatal crushing injuries to the chest when a recently felled tree kicked back.

At about 11 am on January 17, police were called to a forested area in Green Oaks, Nova Scotia, approximately 90 kilometres north of Halifax, where brush was being cleared. A skid steer operator, who had been working nearby, found the worker unresponsive in the proximity of the tree he had cut down, reports Corporal Addie MacCallum, a spokesperson for the Colchester RCMP. The deceased worker was working for

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a farmer to clean up the property, says Brian Taylor, a spokesperson for Nova Scotia’s Department of Labour and Advanced Education in Halifax.

It appears that the machine operator “didn’t have eyes on [the deceased] 100 per cent and couldn’t hear anything properly until the motor was shut off,” McCallum says. When that was done, the operator “could hear the chain saw running, but just idling. Then he went over to find the deceased.”

commission launches review MT. PEARL — Newfoundland and Lab-

rador’s Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission (WHSCC) has launched a statutory review that has set its sights on modernization.

“This is a significant opportunity to review the commission’s operations, and ensure they are continuing to implement the provincial government’s 2006 action plan,” Paul Davis, the provincial minister responsible for the WHSCC, suggests in a statement. “The process will examine compensation and health care service, overall client service, the prevention of injuries and fatalities, and the financial sustainability of this essential worker injury fund,” Davis says.

The review of the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Act, which is required every five years, kicked off

on January 16 with the appointment of a committee made up of WHSCC, employer and worker representatives.

The review is expected to take several months, with committee members possibly considering town hall meetings, focus groups and online sessions, says a spokesperson for Service NL. He reports the review’s first phase will consist of a detailed examination of the act and that during the second phase, consultations will focus on six main areas: the claim benefit ceiling, labour market re-entry, medical management, occupational disease, financial sustainability and the role of stakeholders in prevention.

The Newfoundland & Labrador Employers’ Council (NLEC) has called for changing the legislative structure of the provincial workers’ compensation system. “If we’re willing to keep the current workers’ compensation system level of benefits for injured workers, then what we need is the most aggressive system on costs to ensure that every dollar that is put into that system is being utilized in the most efficient and prudent manner,” says Richard Alexander, executive director of the NLEC in Mt. Pearl, Newfoundland.

The NLEC cites stats from the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada that show employer premiums in Newfoundland and Labrador were 36 per cent higher than the Canadian average in 2010. “The current system has proven that it is incapable, under its cur-

Chlorine gas release prompts quick fine SUMMERSIDE — The City of Summerside on Prince Edward

Island has been fined $15,550 in connection with a dangerous gas release at a recreational facility last May. On December 20, the city received the fine after pleading guilty to failing to ensure proper instruction and training for the health and safety of workers, notes a statement from the province’s WCB. Three other charges — alleging the failures to take appropriate precautions to protect the health and safety of people at or near the workplace, to ensure tasks were done in a way that did not expose workers to oh&s hazards, and to ensure an employee was wearing personal protective respiratory equipment — were stayed.

The WCB will use the bulk of the money for initiatives meant to prevent similar incidents, says Bill Reid, oh&s director for the board. “We are currently assessing how to best employ these funds to protect Island workplaces, and this will likely involve education and prevention initiatives on the safe use of chemicals,” Reid expects.

The fine was levied seven months after 20 people were exposed to chlorine gas at Credit Union Place.

At 8:45 am on May 4, 2011, a worker was filling containers of chlorine and hydrochloric acid in a pool filtration room when he inadvertently poured acid into the chlorine barrel. The resulting gas release necessitated an evacuation, with about 20 people, including the maintenance worker and other staff, sent to hospital with respiratory symptoms.

Reid reports that WCB officials recommended charges because the board investigation showed the City of Summerside, as employer, did not take reasonable precautions

to protect workers. “The incident was very serious and could have had fatal results,” he says.

The probe determined the containers were not sufficiently labelled, safe work procedures for chemical mixing in the filter room were not in place, and adequate training and equipment for safe chemical use had not been provided.

Several changes to municipal safety procedures have been adopted since the incident, says Gordon MacFarlane, the city’s director of human resources and legal affairs.

All barrels in the filtration room have been fitted with larger labels and colour-coded to clearly indicate the intended refill chemical, MacFarlane says, explaining that previously the barrels looked similar. There has also been enhanced training around the use of respiratory equipment and the refilling task has been made a two-person job.

“Since the incident, we’ve taken the opportunity to do a comprehensive review of our occupational health and safety policy,” MacFarlane reports. “Once we revamped our policy, we had an independent auditor come in and review the policy and give any recommendations.”

The moves are in line with orders issued following the incident. Reid says a stop-work order cited the need to address dangers associated with work being done with chemicals in the filter room and to conduct an assessment of the city’s oh&s program to identify and address any deficiencies.

“The employer took immediate steps to build and strengthen its safety procedures, which has already resulted in significant changes,” Reid adds.

— By Jason Contant

rent legislative structure, to provide benefits to workers while not disadvantaging employers,” Alexander contends.

tions on the precautions to be taken to protect the health and safety of workers under his supervision.

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

detailed coverage of Canadian oh&s and workers’ compensation issues. For more information, please call (416) 442-2122 or toll-free (800) 668-2374.

CHARGES CITE FIRM, SUPERVISOR

Many of the preceding items are based on stories from our sister publication, Canadian Occupational Health & Safety News, a weekly newsletter that provides

Didn’t see it here? Why not check out www.ohscanada.com for more web-exclusive news?

ST. JOHN’S — A company in Newfoundland and Labrador and one of its supervisors face charges in connection with an incident in which a worker lost three fingers on one hand in December, 2009.

The worker was cleaning a machine at Country Ribbon Inc.’s processing plant in St. John’s at the time of the incident, reports Service NL in St. John’s.

Three charges under Newfoundland and Labrador’s OH&S Act and regulations cite the failure, as an employer, to ensure the following: workers and supervisors were made familiar with work hazards; a piece of equipment is used in accordance with safe work practices; and hazards were effectively controlled prior to doing maintenance on equipment.

For his part, Service NL reports that the supervisor faces one count of failing to provide proper written or oral instruc-

So, what’s on your mind?

Ever wonder what other oh&s types are thinking about? Find out by making our website poll at www.ohscanada.com a regular stop.

Should sex workers be covered under occupational health and safety legislation?

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DISPATCHES

Slipping into beds helps send discomfort goodnight

By Riva Gold

W

hether for pain relief or to make workdays a little more comfortable, it seems that more people are turning to footbeds or insoles for use on the job.

“Most people work eight to 10 hours a day, which is a long time to be in one pair of shoes,” says Matthew Rowlands, assistant general manager of Swenco Limited in Waterloo, Ontario, and a member of a footwear technical committee for the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), based in Mississauga, Ontario. That being the case, “having the correct footbed is very important,” Rowlands suggests.

The cushioning and support provided by footbeds absorb shock, reducing foot fatigue, and for some, relieving pain in the legs, knees and back.

“If you have just a mild condition and want something with a little extra support and shock absorption, a footbed is a really good way to start,” says Ian McLean, D.Ch., president of the Canadian Federation of Podiatric Medicine in Toronto.

The key is for the footbed to offer firmness and arch support, but still fit the foot as closely as possible, Dr. McLean advises.

Still, footbeds are not forever; they should be replaced as soon as they stop providing the initial level of comfort, typically within a few months of when they are first used or when a user’s weight changes.

Some companies offer a degree of customization, taking an in-store mould of a customer’s feet. “Our custom footbeds are not corrective, but they can help prevent things like shin splints and sports injuries,” says Mary Grace Eala, director of training at Footbalance Systems Inc., which has its headquarters in Helsinki.

For corrective purposes though, footbeds are no substitute for prescription orthotics. “A custom device gives you more support and control than others, but this is limited, not true biomechanical support,” explains Joseph Stern, D.P.M., president of the Canadian Podiatric Medical Association, based in Sherwood Park, Alberta.

The key is how a device fits to the foot, Dr. Stern reports, noting that a proper fitting requires a medical expert and laboratory technology. “If you can take it home that day, that’s not a custom device,” he says.

An ill-fitting device can cause irritations, cuts or blistering; for people with diabetes or poor circulation, these responses can even lead to ulcers, Dr. Stern adds.

While footbeds may offer many workers relief, in some cases adding them to safety footwear could put that gear on

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the wrong side of CSA standards. Footwear must pass tests, including an impact resistance test with the insole intact.

“When the consumer removes the footbed that came with the safety footwear and inserts an aftermarket footbed or custom orthotic, the footwear will have never been tested,” says Bert Spiller, director of product development at Timberland PRO, headquartered in Stratham, New Hampshire.

“Because insoles can be made of different materials and have different densities, changing the insole means a shoe or boot is no longer CSA-certified,” Spiller cautions.

Riva Gold is a writer in Toronto.

Warning system upgrade proposed for select planes

By Greg Burchell

P

roposed requirements would afford pilots of older planes an added layer of security, bringing Canada’s protections in line with some international standards.

Transport Canada, with the support of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, announced plans late last year to require that a terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS) be installed on any plane able to carry six or more passengers.

The systems use sensors outside the plane, an aircraft’s altimeter, GPS mapping and variables like the speed and angle of descent, and flap and landing gear position to determine if a plane is going to collide with terrain, water or obstacles, says Bill Boucher, vice-president of flight operations for the Air Transport Association of Canada (ATAC) in Ottawa.

“If you’re in a mountainous area with your [landing] gear up and are descending, it will warn you” with lights, sounds and verbal cues, Boucher reports.

Slightly less than 2,500 planes registered in Canada would need some form of TAWS installed, notes Maryse Durette, a media relations representative at Transport Canada in Ottawa, pointing out that most airplanes covered by the Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARs) are already in compliance.

“The greater impact would be on older airplane operators,” Boucher says.

“The regulation allows that the best practices are followed by all operators.”

The proposed requirements would replace ground proximity warning systems under CARs. As such, systems would need a better altitude accuracy function than older detection systems, which provided readings that could be off by as much as 150 metres, notes a backgrounder from Transport Canada.

TAWS — which cannot be switched off by a pilot — must be installed within two years of the regulations being passed and operators will have five years to ensure aircraft is equipped with the enhanced altitude accuracy function.

Transport Canada reports the changes will bring Canada’s requirements in line with the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States and the European Aviation Safety Agency, as well as in compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization standards. It is estimated the move will save about $215 million over 10 years by preventing injuries, fatalities and material damages, the department adds.

Jeff Tillapaugh, the operations manager for Pacific Coast Airlines in Richmond, British Columbia, says he expects that eight of the company’s 13 planes will need to be retrofitted with TAWS. “We go into some places where it’s a small runway at the bottom of a big valley, so having tools to give us better situational awareness is great,” Tillapaugh reports.

But some operators, such as Central Mountain Air in Smithers, British Columbia, are finding that the ground ‘ proximity warning systems they have installed are unlikely to pass muster.

“Three are already equipped with a degree of TAWS, but different from what’s been mandated in the new proposal,” says company vice-president Lindsay Clougher. The cost of installing the systems in all 16 planes could run from about half a million to several million dollars, Clougher estimates.

There could be case-by-case exemptions for some types of aircraft that are not flying in high-risk areas, Boucher says.

“We don’t have traffic lights at every street corner; we have stop signs at certain areas. As the traffic expands and your risk increases, then the measures become more warranted.”

Transport Canada will consider any stakeholder comments received on the proposed amendments, which were published in Part 1 of the Canada Gazette on December 3.

Greg Burchell is editorial assistant of

ohs canada.

Avoid on-the-job blunders, bungles and gaffes

By Angela Stelmakowich

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ail clipping on the job? Walking around the office barefoot? Or succumbing to sleep, only to have a co-worker snap a picture and forward it to the boss?

These actions were enough to make it on staffing firm Robert Half International’s list of wackiest workplace blunders, notes a November statement from the company.

Not wacky enough? What about the etiquette faux pas of the person who steals lunches from the lounge, the colleague who purposely sneezes in the boss’s coffee cup, the employee who returns from lunch a tad tipsy, the worker heard screaming at a customer or the judgement-impaired staffer, still yapping away, who takes a cellphone into the bathroom?

The list is based on responses from more than 430 office workers who took part in a survey developed by Robert Half and conducted by an independent research firm.

“There are varying levels of etiquette offences — but those that happen repeatedly show a lack of professionalism and

common courtesy,” Kathryn Bolt, the company’s Canadian president, advises in a statement. “Taking the time to make amends if you’ve inadvertently offended someone demonstrates your willingness to learn from the mistake, and can help keep your professional reputation intact,” Bolt points out.

At the very least, keep both language and jokes PGrated; do not air grievances publicly; when irritated by co-workers, take a moment to breathe, helping to avoid raising your voice or firing off a rude email; and put those tweezers away.

Tweezers?

“It’s called personal care for a reason,” notes a statement from Robert Half. “Confine your grooming activities to your home, or at least the restroom. The goal is to win over — not gross out — your fellow employees.”

Angela Stelmakowich is editor of

ohs canada.

Stalled privacy protections in need of restart: report

By Jean Lian

T

he Halifax-based Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia (WCB) is poised to revamp its privacy processes in the wake of a provincial review calling for tighter controls, transparent policies and enhanced compliance.

The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Review Office, also in Halifax, launched the review last year in response to media reports of breaches involving claimant information. Upon requesting individual files that contain sensitive health information, at least two claimants received a WCB file that was not their own, calling into question the effectiveness of existing safeguards.

The WCB gained the dubious distinction of becoming the first public body in Nova Scotia to undergo a systemic privacy review by the privacy review officer, now Dulcie McCallum. “I have recommended that the WCB work towards creating an institutional goal where privacy is given priority, where one privacy breach is one too many,” McCallum said in releasing the privacy office’s report on November 18.

Chief among the 21 recommendations to improve privacy culture at the WCB are the following: • establish a Privacy Breach Advisory Committee to oversee implementation of best practices to safeguard claimants’ privacy and to issue quarterly reports of lessons learned; • rewrite breach classifications for greater clarity and place classifications in priority order; • use multiple identifiers (beyond claim number) to mitigate the risk of error; • scale back the amount of personal information disclosed

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in the WCB’s day-to-day operations; • develop and publicize a privacy complaint policy; and, • inform any worker whose privacy has been breached and, further, that he or she can file a complaint with the WCB. In a statement, Leo McKenna, the board’s chief financial officer and vice-president of corporate services, characterizes the provincial review as a “valuable learning process for the WCB.” All board employees must complete annual privacy training that focuses on containing breaches, remedying them and learning from them, the statement adds.

The WCB processes almost 1.75 million transactions involving personally identifying information each year, notes the privacy report. In all, 155 privacy breaches were reported over a 32-month period reviewed.

Sharon Polsky, the national chair of the Canadian Association of Professional Access and Privacy Administrators, finds the numbers anything but reassuring. “It works out to almost five breaches a month.

That is huge for one organization,” Polsky says from her office in Calgary.

The reality is privacy violations are likely “no different for organizations across the private sector, in every industry, every sector,” she notes. Beyond WCBs are organizations like banks, insurance companies and health care providers that may also serve as guardians of personal information.

Last year, the privacy of 277 patients of the Cape Breton District Health Authority was breached. The authority reported a research team exploring the effectiveness of a new drug looked at medical records containing patient names, addresses and laboratory results before physicians involved in the study had obtained consent. The project was halted, the information obtained by researchers returned to the health authority and the patients notified.

Canada does not have “the most strenuous” laws on privacy protection, Polsky suggests, meaning it may be that organizations are finding it easier to ask forgiveness than to seek permission. She emphasizes that that makes adoption of measures such as encrypting personal information, personal responsibility, professionalism and integrity of organizations all the more important.

“There’s a huge need for greater awareness not only within the organization, but the general public, about privacy legislation, individual rights and responsibilities,” she adds.

There is also the distinct possibility that misdirected files can deliver a hit to worker health and safety because confusion over claimant identification opens the door to misdiagnosis or ordering the wrong treatment. “It’s an opportunity for so many problems to happen,” Polsky cautions. “The thing is, once [information is] in the computer, human nature says it must be correct.”

Privacy office officials will revisit the WCB’s progress on implementing recommendations within the next year. “Just as we believe one workplace injury is too many, we also believe one privacy breach is too many, and we will continue to strive towards achieving this goal,” echoes McKenna.

Jean Lian is associate editor of

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Eye in the sky sets work relations on edge

By Greg Burchell

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uilding trust between unions and employers is much like the long and often delicate process of constructing a spider’s web: the product of painstaking hours of effort, even at its strongest, can be reduced to ruin by a single gust of wind.

Coast Mountain Bus Company, based in Surrey, British Columbia, recently learned this lesson the hard way. Last fall, news broke that 11 existing camera assemblies used to monitor inside vehicles had been altered to include hidden lenses pointed directly at the drivers’ seats.

Stan Sierpina, vice-president of customer service at Coast Mountain, says that the extra cameras were installed after 61 driver’s seats were damaged between February and June of 2011, resulting in repair costs of more than $24,000.

The surveillance cameras were installed in June and remained in use through August, Sierpina reports. The probe was cancelled when nothing was found, he says, adding that though the cameras had not been removed, they were no longer recording.

Don MacLeod, president of Local 111 of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union, suggests the temporary probe could have lasting effects. “It quite quickly unravelled all the years that we’ve worked together to try and build a mutual respect for each other,” MacLeod says.

Doug Thornton, president of Thornton Consulting Ltd., a workplace trust consultancy in British Columbia, says the union could have been part of a proactive investigation had Coast Mountain officials told CAW leaders before installing the cameras. What an organization should do, Thornton recommends, is to say to employees, “You guys also have a part in this, creating respect for workplaces and healthy organizations for your membership.”

The union and employees could have helped identify a solution that worked for both parties, says Dennis Reina, president of the Stowe, Vermont-based Reina Trust Institute, and co-author of Rebuilding Trust in the Workplace. “Reframing the experience is absolutely critical for each party to take responsibility here. What was going on to cause management to do what they did, and for the union to react the way they did? Take a look at the big picture, not in the way of blame, but in the way of shifting to problem solving.”

Sierpina confirms that Coast Mountain sent out a letter of apology to all employees, acknowledging that the right processes were not followed. “We dropped the ball and we tapped into that system with these surveillance cameras. We never should have done that,” he says.

Sierpina adds, however, that he believes the recent incident is only a temporary setback in relations and both parties will be able to move on.

Can age signal when rock stars hit rock bottom?

By Angela Stelmakowich

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ame is fleeting, but for renowned musicians, is there more chance that age 27 brings a permanent end to all that fame — and everything else?

That was a question researchers hoped to answer as part of a retrospective cohort study of famous musicians and their untimely demises. But their study, published in the December 20 edition of the British Medical Journal, cites fame, not age, as a more reliable factor increasing the risk of death.

To test the “27 club” hypothesis, researchers from both the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI) at Queensland University of Technology in Australia and the University of Freiburg in Germany compared the death rate of famous musicians with that of the general population in the United Kingdom. Survival analysis was used to search for a peak in risk at age 27 among musicians ranging from rockers to crooners, death metal stars and even Muppet handlers.

Membership in the 27 club is rich with success and excess: Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse, although perhaps the most famous trio — Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison — were not captured because none of them had a number one U.K. album.

The study population included 1,046 musicians, 86 per cent of these male, who as solo artists or band members had a number one album on the U.K. charts between 1956 and 2007 (for musicians with multiple number one albums, the earliest one was used). Over the decades-long study period, accounting for 21,750 musician years, 71, or seven per cent, of the musicians died.

Adrian Barnett, lead researcher and an associate professor at IHBI, notes that while fame may increase the risk of death for musicians, this is probably the result of their rock ’n roll lifestyles — and this risk was not limited to age 27. Among the 522 musicians at risk, there were three deaths (and a few near-misses) at age 27, producing a rate of 0.57 deaths per 100 musician years. The rate at ages 25 and 32 were similar, measuring 0.56 and 0.54, respectively.

“Our analysis found no peak in the risk of death for musicians at age 27, despite using a flexible spline model that would have allowed even a small bump in risk to appear,” the study states. The so-called smoothed death rate shows a peak at age 32 and the risk increased greatly after age 60.

Although the club may be a myth, “the risk of death for famous musicians throughout their 20s and 30s was two to three times higher than the general U.K. population,” researchers note. Below are a few possible explanations: • musicians often become famous in their early 20s, and risk-taking peaks four to five years later; • joining the club has become attractive to musicians who

want to be more famous, whether consciously or subconsciously, causing risky behaviour to peak at this age; and, • the famous club is an example of confirmation bias, where people focus on results that support their hypothesis and ignore those that refute it.

Interestingly, researchers point out, there were no deaths at any age between 1985 and 1987. “We speculate that this could be due to better treatments for heroin overdose, or the change in the music scene from the hard rock 1970s to the pop-dominated 1980s,” the study notes.

Doctors under fire for showing patients support

By Jason Contant

A

public inquiry is needed to explore allegations that physicians who advocate for patients are facing internal and external intimidation, argue representatives for the Alberta Medical Association (AMA) in Edmonton.

In a November 14 letter to members, AMA president Dr. Linda Slocombe writes that concerns have been raised by “a significant number of members who related instances of intimidation experienced in the course of advocating for patients — and the severe personal and professional impact these events carried.”

A number of physicians “have described life- and careerchanging outcomes that they attribute to their advocacy efforts,” including feeling ostracized by peers and having service contracts altered or cancelled, Dr. Slocombe says. “Some have elected to leave the province to seek work elsewhere.”

Just days before the letter was sent, members of the AMA and the Ottawa-based Canadian Medical Association (CMA) met with a Health Quality Council of Alberta review panel to make a joint submission on physician intimidation. Beyond calling for an inquiry, the two groups issued nine recommendations, including the following: • e stablish transparent policies on how complaints over administrative matters are addressed; • e xplore statutory provisions to discourage intimidation against doctors; and, • p rovide clarity and accountability within the system so that physicians know where and to whom they can turn when advocating for patients.

“The system evolved into one where even constructive criticism was feared and ignored and disengagement of physicians became the norm,” the submission says.

Both the AMA and CMA acknowledge that Alberta Health Services (AHS) has made some important advances, such as “putting significant resources toward development of physician leadership skills within their administrative structure.” This includes reorganizing the accountability structure to allow for a greater amount of local

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decision-making and providing avenues for more physician engagement, the groups add.

Kerry Williamson, a senior media relations advisor for AHS in Edmonton, says the department sees patient advocacy as a “vital role in their jobs.” Officials are also examining the possibility of starting a hotline to support advocacy efforts and physicians who feel intimidated, Williamson adds.

Last March, the provincial department issued its own open letter. “The AHS Code of Conduct does not restrict a physician or other practitioner to speak out — quite the opposite.

In essence, we are required to bring our concerns forward; we are not merely given permission to do so.”

Jason Contant is editor of safety news.

canadian occupational health

&

Getting to the heart of shift work health risks

By Greg Burchell

T

he schedules of shift workers may be exacting a higher toll than merely throwing a wrench in sleep patterns.

A study presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress in Vancouver last fall cautions female shift workers that they could face an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Led by Joan Tranmer, Ph.D., associate professor of nursing at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, the research team looked at the experience of female volunteer study participants, which included both shift and non-shift workers at two local hospitals.

Dr. Tranmer and her team found that 20 per cent of the female staff doing shift work had at least three risk indicators for heart disease.

“Was I surprised? No, I was concerned. I think it reaffirmed what individuals were reporting anecdotally; that women working in the hospital may not be as healthy as they should be,” she says.

Seventeen per cent of the 227 women making up the study population had metabolic syndrome, which is defined as when an individual experiences any three or more of the following conditions: elevated waist circumference, blood glucose levels or cholesterol; high hypertension; or low levels of good cholesterol.

Metabolic syndrome becomes more common with age or with increased time spent working shifts. Eight per cent of the women who had worked shifts for less than six years had the syndrome compared with 74 per cent of those with 15-plus years doing shift work.

Dr. Tranmer says working at night disrupts the body’s circadian rhythm and the lack of sunlight causes internal imbalances; a poor sleep schedule often leads to reduced activity and poor eating patterns; and stress can increase because of the difficulty of maintaining good work-life balance.

The study’s next step is to determine how shift workers

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who are not at risk of heart disease have managed to stay healthy, Dr. Tranmer says. Armed with that understanding, she suggests measures can be developed to help both current and future workers.

Shift work does not look to be going away anytime soon, being an important part of many jobs and a vital element of some, especially in hospitals, Dr. Tranmer says.

Statistics Canada reports that in 2005, more than three million workers aged 19 to 64 worked full-time shift work.

Ruling sets stage for better whistleblower protection

By Angela Stelmakowich

O

ntario nurses are applauding a recent whistleblower decision that they contend will have lasting beneficial influence on how allegations of abuse at nursing homes are investigated and reported.

A fine of $15,000 (the maximum is $25,000) was levied against the Corporation of the City of Cornwall last fall after it pleaded guilty to retaliating against an employee for making a disclosure to a provincial inspector, representing a breach of the Homes for the Aged and Rest Homes Act, reports David Jensen, media relations co-ordinator for Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in Toronto.

The penalty was issued almost four years after Diane Shay, a health and safety officer with the City of Cornwall, learned of abuse taking place at a home, notes a statement from the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) in Toronto. Shay reported the concern to her employer and later followed up to ensure that the home had met its obligation to inform the provincial health ministry.

After doing so, the RNAO charges that she became the victim of harassment and retaliation from her supervisor. Shay was terminated, but later reinstated following a civil suit, the association reports.

The penalty puts the onus on home operators to ensure allegations are thoroughly investigated and reported, the RNAO statement notes. “It enables us to speak out and protect residents without fear of retaliation,” adds Doris Grinspun, executive director of the association.

The ruling gives whistleblowing employees in Ontario “real protection from retaliation and abuse of power by wrongfully minded managers,” argues Fay Brunning, counsel for Shay. “Reinstatement is now a possibility.”

Longer term, RNAO president David McNeil suggests the message has been sent to home operators that there should be zero tolerance for abuse. “This is an issue that needs to be brought out into the open and with a greater focus on prevention,” McNeil says.

In late November, citing concerns over persistent allegations of abuse in seniors’ homes, Tory health critic Elizabeth Witmer called on the governing provincial Liberals to immediately “strike a non-partisan investigation into the serious allegations of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at these homes. Confidence in the long-term care system must be restored as quickly as possible.”

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hazardous gases

By Jason contant On the morning of September 5, 2008, a plumber was called to A-1 Mushroom Substratum Ltd. in Langley, British Columbia for the second time in as many days. There, he found an intake pipe at the bottom of a pump shed completely blocked and informed a supervisor at the mushroom composting facility that a company with expertise in sewer pump-out would be needed.

Instead, two workers, under the direction of the supervisor, tried to clear a blockage at a butterfly valve in the pipe. Within seconds of prying open a flange, one worker dropped face down into water at the bottom of the shed, believed to have been felled by a sudden release of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) gas in the oxygen-deficient environment. He would die.

In the minutes that followed, two would-be rescuers at the multiple-employer mushroom growing and processing operation would meet similar fates. Another two workers — the lucky ones — would suffer near fatal, irreversible brain damage.

In its investigation report, released in late November, WorkSafeBC would point to a litany of failures in the design, construction and operation of the facility. Calling the investigation probably “the most complex in WorkSafeBC’s history,” a board statement notes “it took months to access key areas of the work site; many more months to fully understand the industrial process involved and the chronology of events and decisions over a five-year period that played a role in the incident.”

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Image: Thinkstock

Puzzling possibilities That September day, two workers were attempting to clear a blocked pipe inside a recessed pump shed while their supervisor watched from the structure’s entrance, about three metres above. Standing in about 40 centimetres of process water and sludge that had accumulated at the bottom of the shed, the workers removed eight corroded bolts from the valve’s flanges and loosely installed four new bolts to keep the valve in place.

At about 5 pm, one of the workers pried the top flange from the valve using one screwdriver and used another to free straw, sludge and other material stuck in the valve. “A small amount of liquid started to flow out,” notes the investigation report by WorkSafeBC, based in Richmond, British Columbia.

As the worker removed the straw, he complained to the supervisor that there was a strange smell, prompting the supervisor to tell the workers to exit the shed.

The worker at the valve took a step and then collapsed face-first into the water and sludge. The supervisor climbed down and helped the second worker prop the unresponsive employee into a sitting position against the shed wall. The supervisor then called the property owner to obtain emergency assistance.

When paramedics arrived at about 5:20 pm, they found the supervisor outside the shed disoriented and in respiratory distress. “The ambulance crew noticed the foul smell, suspected a hazardous atmosphere, and decided to pull back from the shed area,” WorkSafeBC reports, preventing other workers who had arrived with a ladder from entering the shed.

In all, five workers from the three businesses that make up the processing facility — A-1 Mushroom Substratum, H.V. Truong Ltd., a mushroom-growing business, and Farmers’ Fresh Mushrooms Inc., a packing and marketing firm — were removed from the shed. Ut Van Tran, 35, Chi Wai Chan, 55, and Han Duc Pham, 47, died; Tchen Phan remains in a wheelchair, and Michael Phan is in a coma.

The WorkSafeBC report points to numerous deficiencies: complete absence of an oh&s system at the site; failure to correct anaerobic (without oxygen) conditions that had developed in the process water tank that pumped water through the pipes, leading to a build-up of H2S in the intake pipe; lack of engineering controls to prevent solids from entering the pipes; lack of regulatory compliance; and flaws in the design, construction and operation of the facility dating back to 2004.

“We recognize that the families have had to wait a long time to know more about what happened to their loved ones, and we hope this investigation provides them with some understanding of what led to this tragedy,” Jeff Dolan, director of investigations for WorkSafeBC, says in a release.

In August of 2010, 29 occupational health and safety charges were laid against A-1 Mushroom Substratum, H.V. Truong and four individuals. The following May, the two companies and three individuals pleaded guilty to 10 counts revolving around the general failures to ensure worker health and safety; provide workers with information, instruction, training and supervision; and ensure confined space hazards were eliminated or minimized and associated work was performed in a safe manner.

Sentencing last November ended with fines of $200,000 for A-1 Mushroom Substratum (which has since gone bankrupt), $120,000 for H.V. Truong and $15,000, $10,000 and $5,000 for the three individuals.

Raj Chouhan, labour critic for the New Democratic Party in British Columbia, was among a choir of voices demanding tougher sentences.

Characterizing the final penalties as slaps on the wrist, Chouhan reports

that “the families were really hoping something would come out of this that would help other families and other workers.”

In a bid to explain the circumstances that allowed the deadly events to unfold, one need consider the process for composting mushrooms at the facility. In a 3-D animation mock-up, WorkSafeBC notes that the pipe system was built to supply both fresh and process water from separate large tanks within a walled containment area. The water mix is then pumped through a series of pipes; first into the composting barns and then sprayed onto composting piles that contain straw, chicken manure and agricultural gypsum.

Operational problems and reduced compost production, however, caused the process water tank and containment area to fill with process water, straw and sludge. To protect the pumps and pipes from freezing in winter, the shed was constructed against the containment wall in 2007.

Also relevant is the design and construction of the process water recycling system, which drew process water from the bottom of the tank into the intake pipe. The WorkSafeBC report notes that this contributed to blockages forming and anaerobic conditions developing in the pipe system.

“Because straw and sludge had settled to the bottom of the tank, it was inevitable that these materials would enter the pipe and impede the flow of water, or form blockages,” the report concludes.

Add the reduced demand for process water — the Township of Langley had shut down one composting barn in late 2007 for breach of by-laws — and this meant water entering the system stayed longer and flowed through the pipes less frequently, increasing the chances of process water growing stagnant and supporting anaerobic activity.

“Exacerbating the problem was the absence of a means of promoting the circulation and uniform mixing of any oxygenated water entering the [process] water tank with the stagnant water, sludge and solids that had accumulated at the bottom of the tank,” the report explains.

PIECE BY PIECE Les Mackoff, who served as defence counsel for the accused, says that the property owners “worked with these folks everyday and they feel horrible that this happened.”

Prior to the deadly incident, the owners had hired experts and sought engineering advice on how to install biofilters

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to help minimize the potential for smell, Mackoff reports. However, he points out, “the construction was flawed. There was a serious breakdown of the facility.”

Neil McManus, a certified industrial hygienist at NorthWest Occupational Health & Safety in Vancouver, says his view is that engineers control occupational safety because “their designs create the conditions of work that affect other people.”

In his experience, McManus says that most composting operations have submersible and removable pumps. Without these, people have to go down inside the “chamber to service the pump or stuff that blocks it,” he adds.

David Nguyen, an agricultural health and safety specialist with the Farm and Ranch Safety and Health Association (FARSHA) in Langley, British Columbia, says the incident “was a pretty big eye-opener for that particular industry, everyone in agriculture.” Nguyen reports that he has visited the workplace and, since the incident, has been working with employers to improve work-related health and safety.

Engineering problems were an issue, he says, but adds he believes other things — such as precautions revolving around confined space risk assessment, hazard identification and exposure control — could have helped prevent the incident.

Prevention may also have been advanced by reading the signs. About two months before that deadly day, on July 15, 2008, the British Columbia Farm Industry Review Board received a complaint from township councillor Charlie Fox and his wife regarding odour and wastewater discharges from the composting operation.

The township had commenced legal action to shut down the facility for a second time. In fact, a court hearing on the second complaint was set for three days after the accident.

“The tragedy happened in exactly the spot we know the odour was emanating from because it was basically an uncovered cesspool,” Fox contends. “In my opinion,” he says, “it was this sludge that came out afterwards and sat in these massive open settling ponds that was the problem.”

McManus reports that less than a year after the Langley incident, he visited another mushroom farm in British Columbia where he saw the same “mechanism in action” and found “astoundingly high levels” of H2S at a pump station.

“We had to get out of there immediately,” he recalls. “There was zero odour until something changed. My nose is telling me there was H2S here and I looked around and could not see any change to account for what happened. It was the pump.

We could see froth at the bottom,” McManus says.

He speculates “the froth floating above the liquid can trap at least one atmosphere of gas pressure,” some of which may be H2S. “This is a highly constrained system, highly unstable. So if you have H2S molecules trapped in bubbles in that thickened up fluid and some sheer force applies to it and loosens up the fluid, there’s a way for the bubbles to get out,” he says. “The culprit is gone rapidly… When the investigators go looking for what caused the deaths, they can’t find anything.”

PICTURE IMPERFECT The WorkSafeBC report notes that when the township’s fire captain measured the air inside the shed at about 5:30 pm, H2S levels were at 36 parts per million (ppm) with 15 per cent oxygen — too high and too low, respectively. Just 22 minutes later, gas levels had dropped to 6 ppm, with a normal oxygen level of 20.9 per cent.

The concentrations contrast sharply with WorkSafeBC counts from January 29, 2009 — five months later — when the valve was removed and air inside the intake pipe below the valve measured. “H2S was present at levels exceeding 500 ppm (the maximum reading on the monitor), indicating that anaerobic conditions in the pipe could result in levels of H2S high enough to cause unconsciousness and rapid death,” the investigation report states.

Why did one worker inside the shed become unresponsive within seconds of the H2S release and later die, while the other survived?

“When you look at occupational hygiene, not everybody is affected the same way by the same substance,” explains Shelley Gray, an occupational hygienist with Nova Scotia’s Department of Labour and Advanced Education in Halifax.

“There are a lot of smokers out there. Not all of them develop lung cancer,” Gray notes by way of example.

Factors that could influence response to exposure include ventilation, proximity to the point of release and rate of respiration, she says. “One [worker] could have been doing more work and actively taking in more of the environment than the other person beside them,” she notes.

Gray reports that all gases will displace oxygen, but the concentrations have to be very high to do so. “To displace one per cent of oxygen, you would have to have really high, high

concentrations,” she says, although another possibility may be an oxygen scavenger, “which actually binds the oxygen and takes it out of the atmosphere.”

At 15 per cent oxygen, “you’re not going to have a serious impact on people’s survivability,” McManus says. “That’s why in all likelihood it was the H2S that did it,” he speculates.

The deaths spurred repeated calls for a coroner’s inquest by the provincial New Democrats and the British Columbia Federation of Labour (BCFL) in Vancouver. Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe answered that call in December.

“After reviewing all the information available in the case, including the WorkSafeBC report, [Lapointe] concluded that there is benefit to holding an inquest to examine some of the broader circumstances of the incident in an attempt to prevent future deaths from happening in similar circumstances,” notes a statement from the Vancouver-based BC Coroners Service. During the inquest, scheduled to begin May 7, presiding coroner Norm Liebel and a jury will hear evidence from numerous witnesses.

The NDP’s Raj Chouhan says he is hopeful there will be recommendations “that would help us to prevent these kinds of tragedies in the future.”

BCFL president Jim Sinclair also welcomes the provincial inquest, noting in a statement that it “gives hope of a legacy of greater safety on British Columbia farms.”

IMAGE FORMING Before the incident, “no one appears to have focused on the potential development of anaerobic conditions in the pipes forming part of the process water recycling system, even where other parts of that system are kept aerobic,” states the WorkSafeBC report.

“While there is industry and regulatory recognition of the production of gases as a by-product of these operations, the focus in industry literature is more on environmental protec-

Exposure Effects WorkSafeBC’s bulletin, “Hydrogen Sulphide in Industry,” notes that workers are exposed to unsafe levels of H2S every year.

Called sour gas, sewer gas, stink damp and hydrosulphuric acid, H2S in high enough concentrations can kill in seconds.

Concentration Observations/Health Effects Parts per million Less than 1 Most people smell “rotten egg” odour.

3 to 5 Odour is strong.

20 to 150 Nose and throat feel dry and irritated; eyes itch or water. Prolonged exposure may cause coughing, hoarseness, shortness of breath and runny nose.

150 to 200 Sense of smell is blocked.

200 to 250 Major nose, throat and lung irritation occurs, along with headache, nausea, vomiting and dizziness. Prolonged exposure can cause fluid build-up in the lungs (pulmonary edema), which can be fatal.

300 to 500 Symptoms as above, but more severe. Death can occur within one to four hours.

Above 500 Immediate loss of consciousness. Death is rapid, sometimes immediate.

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Lack of Air

In its guidance document, “Selection, Use and Care of Respirators,” the Canadian Standards Association’s Z94.4-02 standard outlines the effects of oxygen deficiency. Below are some examples: of Oxygen in Air % Effects

20.9 No symptoms.

16 Increased heart and breathing rates, some impairment in thinking and co-ordination.

14 Fatigue, emotional upset, impaired judgement and faulty co-ordination.

12 Very poor judgement and co-ordination, nausea, vomiting and impaired respiration.

Less than 10 Nausea and vomiting, loss of all movement, unconsciousness, convulsions and death.

tion and odour abatement rather than the potential hazards arising from the production of these gases,” the report adds.

Scott Fraser, director of programs at FARSHA, agrees the level of awareness of hazards in mushroom composting operations was limited before the accident. “When it first happened, I don’t think anyone knew what was really going on or the amount of hydrogen sulphide that could come off this stuff,” Fraser says.

Since the incident, written information has been distributed to similar operations and exposure controls plans for mushroom composting have been put in place, he reports.

Nguyen says workers at the Langley facility spoke Vietnamese, which he speaks as a second language. “The folks that are employed in [agriculture] tend to be first-generation immigrants, so English is not always their first language.”

This could give rise to confusion over a provincial safety requirement or directive, he says. “If there’s situations like that out there, make sure they do understand and understand in their own language,” Nguyen adds.

FARSHA supplies some information in Vietnamese, Punjabi and Spanish, among other languages.

The WorkSafeBC report notes a language barrier likely contributed to poor communication between the plumber and A-1 Mushroom Substratum’s operations manager, both of whom spoke only English, and among the property owner, supervisor and workers, who spoke Vietnamese and/or Cantonese, but little or no English.

“The pump shed was never identified as a confined space and no plan was in place for workers to enter the shed and work safely,” notes the report. “None of the workers who attempted rescue had any knowledge of confined spaces or the hazardous atmosphere that they would encounter.”

To make matters worse, the “most significant features of a confined space that applied to the pump shed were that the shed was enclosed and that it had

restricted means for entry and exit that could complicate evacuation and rescue in an emergency,” WorkSafeBC notes.

For example, although the shed could be accessed through a door at the top of the structure, to get to the bottom, workers either had to climb down the framework or walk on the pump motors and framework to access a short aluminum ladder resting against the framework.

“The restricted means of entry and exit also meant that workers could not quickly escape the hazardous atmosphere in the shed,” the report states. It is likely oxygen deficiency would not only have affected the workers’ judgement and coordination, but also their “ability to rescue themselves and exit the shed.”

Nguyen says his understanding is that WorkSafeBC has stepped up enforcement at farms and mushroom processing facilities in the province.

Megan Johnston, a communications officer at WorkSafeBC, says that board officials anticipate participating in the inquest and declined further comment until that time.

As councillor Charlie Fox sees it, there did not seem to be a co-ordinated plan among various agencies with jurisdiction over the facility — including WorkSafeBC, the township and British Columbia’s agriculture and environment ministries — to provide oversight at the workplace. “I’m not saying any one agency is responsible, but this is one example of bureaucracy falling through the cracks,” Fox contends.

The WorkSafeBC report notes that neighbours and the Township of Langley logged four complaints about the facility — such as workers without personal protective equipment and chemicals to which they might be exposed — before the incident. A prevention officer discussed the matter with the township inspector, but decided not to conduct a site visit, notes the WorkSafeBC report.

Board officers responded to complaints in 2007. However, the officers “did not return to the facility after that time in response to a specific complaint and missed an opportunity to inspect the facility to determine compliance with occupational health and safety legislation,” the report adds.

Hindsight may be 20/20. But starting May 7, the hope is that airing all available facts offers a clear view of how to ensure that safer working conditions exist at other mushroom composting operations across the land.

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Jason Contant is editor of health & safety news.

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psychological health

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By angela stelmakowich Sometimes, it seems easy to pinpoint the reasons for ill mental health on the job: the endless parade of tasks that wear down resilience and ratchet up stress; a bullying co-worker’s unrelenting barbs honed to draw psychological blood; a supervisor’s untenable demands that bring paralyzing dread to the start of each new workday.

Sometimes, of course, identification is not so easy.

Standard manoeuvres However easy or difficult identification may be, the results are often the same: bad for the individual, bad for the team and bad for the organization. It is this across-the-board effect that may hold the most sway and offer the greatest promise for workplace improvement in the future.

The hope is that organizations and everyone within them can move beyond putting out fires — trying to douse mental health issues that have already ignited and removed workers from good health and productivity — to fostering psychological wellness. While that objective may not be as easy to achieve as putting pen to paper, hefty costs, solid action and good will can serve as fuel for advancing efforts forward.

Ample advice and guidance around mental illness, wellbeing and psychological health already exist, but the hurdle to date seems to have been how to put it all together. Enter the proposed National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace, an initiative headed by the Ottawa-based Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) in collaboration with the Bureau de normalisation du Québec and the Canadian Standards Association.

Expected to be released this year, the voluntary standard will provide employers with a methodology to achieve measurable improvements in psychological health and safety for working Canadians, notes a statement from the MHCC. “It’s estimated that between 10 and 25 per cent of workplaces in Canada are effectively mentally injurious,” commission chair Michael Kirby said last June in announcing the proposed standard. With 70 per cent of those with a mental illness in the workplace, “this affects a great many people.”

The standard will work towards a better environment for everyone, says Mary Ann Baynton, owner of Mary Ann Baynton & Associates and co-chair of the proposed standard’s technical committee. “It’s about making the workplace

a healthier place to be which, of course, will have a protective factor for people with mental illness,” Baynton adds.

The standard will provide systematic supports to help Canadian employers develop and continuously improve work environments to ensure they are psychologically safe and healthy, says Karla Thorpe, director of leadership and human resources research at The Conference Board of Canada in Ottawa. It is, however, not “meant to be an instantaneous fix.”

Dr. Ian Arnold, chair of the MHCC’s Workforce Advisory Committee, would agree. “Implementation of the standard is not intended to be an all-or-nothing exercise, but a journey in which the organization can move forward at its own pace.” attitude adjustment Many experts say workplace conditions are becoming more supportive of individuals with mental health issues — although plenty of work remains. “There is increasing recognition about both prevalence and impact of mental health issues in the workplace, and also employers increasingly recognizing they do have obligations,” says Dr. Joti Samra, R. Psych., an organizational and media consultant in Vancouver. Still, there are other organizations that do not believe they “have to do anything in this area.”

Baynton attributes the general support, in part, to availability of information which is “making it easier for employers to be able to act in a way that both respects the need for the business to be a business and also can help an employee who may be struggling with a mental issue to either remain productive or to find good help to recover.”

Perhaps progress is most apparent in the form of increased general awareness and general empathy, says Barbara Veder, director of regional clinical services for Shepell·fgi, based in Toronto. And it may be the message, “this could happen to all of us; this could happen to any of us,” that helps to normalize

mental health issues, Veder suggests.

Many people who experience these issues “are misunderstood, shunned and underutilized,” Thorpe says in a statement. “In a world where shortages of critical skills are top of mind for many organizations, employers cannot afford to allow this situation to continue.”

With the standard, it is hoped turnover, grievances, absenteeism and presenteeism will go down while engagement of workers and productivity will go up, Baynton says. “Return-to-work rates should be faster as people want to come back to work, and more successful as they’re able to integrate back in a way that is healthier.”

Dr. Samra says every important indices — retention, recruitment, productivity, days off and hard costs in terms of disability — fare better for organizations that address these issues. “So, it actually pays; it positively impacts the bottom line.”

The cost of doing nothing is far too high for individuals and organizations alike — with hard numbers and harsh realities demonstrating the business case for taking action. “The economic burden of mental disorders in Canada has been estimated at $51 billion per year, with almost $20 billion of that coming from workplace losses,” MHCC president and CEO Louise Bradley says. In 2009-2010, 78 per cent of short-term disability and 67 per cent of long-term disability claims in Canada were for mental health issues, the conference board adds.

Thorpe recommends that employers look at unplanned absences of less than five days. Most mental health-related absenteeism costs “are associated with these short absences and are not often taken into consideration,” she points out.

Awareness, empathy and corporate values do not necessarily produce immediate bottom-line results, says Veder.

But, ultimately, awareness “really should be a cost reducer because more people will get what they need quicker.” out of the blue But can a standards process that has worked for safety be applied to health — indeed, something as varied and individual as mental health? “We’ll have to get these things un-

derstood as equals,” Veder says of mental and physical health.

First, a few hurdles need to be cleared, including the sticky issue of stigma. Acceptance certainly plays a role in progress, whether originating from self or others.

“Although Canadian employers have taken steps to remove stigmas associated with mental health issues, misinformation, fear and prejudice remain far too prevalent in workplaces,” notes the conference board. In its survey of workers and front-line managers, 54 per cent of respondents said they feared disclosing having had a mental health issue to their manager, union representative or a colleague because it would jeopardize their chance for promotion.

Almost half said they would be comfortable talking to a co-worker about that worker’s mental health issues, but the percentage dropped to 28 per cent when talking about themselves.

“Trust must be built so that employees do not fear any negative repercussions,” Thorpe says. “Once that trust is built, an employer can offer more directed and targeted support or resources,” she adds.

“The manager doesn’t need to know specifically what’s wrong with someone; they just need to know,” Veder says.

Baynton points to the language of well-being. “We can just say, ‘You don’t seem to be yourself. You seem to be having a bit of a struggle right now. Is there something I can do?”

Productive use of disability management and return-towork programs will help to support individuals in need, Veder suggests. “Because you have a mental health diagnosis doesn’t mean you have to go on disability,” she emphasizes. “People go on leave when their symptoms are not wellmanaged or when the demands and stresses of the environment are outside of what they can effectively manage.”

In many cases, support enables the person to stay at

Making Contact In this brave new world, the hope is that technology can steel resolve and nudge those in need to come forward.

With 33 per cent of mobile users in Canada owning a smartphone, more Canadians are using their devices in every aspect of their daily lives, notes a statement from Morneau Shepell Ltd. in Toronto.

Over the latter part of 2011, the organization released a new version of an employee assistance plan (EAP) tool for iPad and Android devices (similar tools exist for BlackBerrys and iPhones) that provides instant online access to expert articles on health and wellness, videos and secure confidential e-counselling; video counselling that allows for live, face-to-face conversations via a webcam, telephone

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(or microphone) and Internet connection with professionals like psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers; and an online stress management program that offers email reminders, an area to record thoughts and evaluate thinking patterns, stress-busting games and activities, and real-time status indicators showing goal progress.

Innovative technology provides organizations with a level playing field of care for all their employees, says Rita Fridella, senior vice-president of operations and chief clinician for Shepell·fgi. “Our goal is to make EAP support as accessible as possible, and so we are using technology to adapt to how Canadians are currently accessing information and seeking help and advice,” Fridella adds.

Emotional Impact work, be productive and continue to derive support from their workplace colleagues, says Dr. Arnold. “Positive results always reinforce themselves.”

Sometimes, however, barriers are associated with the actual workplace. “Bad workplace practices, poor understanding, a lack of desire to accommodate and straight-out discrimination may still exist in some workplaces,” he says.

“When we’re not sure why someone is behaving in a certain way,” says Baynton, “our fear can prevent us from reaching out. Our fear can prevent us from working with that person in a productive way.”

Dr. Samra agrees, noting that fear and apprehension over how to do something or what to say can result in employers not doing anything at all. “And that’s often worse.” volunteers wanted “Ideally, you want the individual who is struggling to come forward. But we know sometimes that doesn’t happen,” Veder says. This is where the new standard may help.

“The standard speaks loudly about the need for employee engagement in its processes and, as everyone becomes more familiar with the standard and its overall thrust, stigma will be reduced leading to improved reporting,” Dr. Arnold says.

However, even without an individual disclosing a mental health issue, Thorpe recommends that employers do a number of things: • focus on education and communication to reduce stigma, fear and discrimination attached to mental health issues; • review work culture, including how work is organized, how much control people have over their own work and how their work is rewarded or recognized; • have senior leaders take action to promote mentally healthy workplaces by, among other steps, discussing the importance of mental health openly and publicly, and investing in resources to support employee mental health; and, • recognize the importance of front-line managers in supporting the mental well-being of employees by providing training and a defined set of processes and practices.

Kirby said he regards the voluntary nature of the proposed standard to be critical, but so too is the fact that it be measurable and that results can be tracked over time.

While regulatory language may spell out minimum requirements, Baynton says the “standard aims to be best practice, an ideal, the gold standard — not the very minimum that you should do.”

Many provinces seem to have their own expectations and have moved forward with legislative demands. Legal requirements range from Quebec’s leading work to incorporate psychological harass-

Are you emotionally intelligent? That is, do you have the ability to deal with other people’s emotions and reactions in the workplace, to understand and manage your own reactions and to communicate effectively throughout it all?

Winnipeg-based Great-West Life Centre for Mental Health in the Workplace recently announced the availability of Managing Emotions, a personal assessment tool to help employers answer those very questions.

The online training program includes video scenarios, interactive learning opportunities, evidence-based assessment of emotional intelligence in the workplace, and practical exercises to improve results, the company reports.

Below are tips for dealing with a distressed worker: • start with the person’s strengths by acknowledging his or her unique skills; • be clear about concerns and expectations; • collaborate on goals by brainstorming solutions and setting timeframes; and, • complete follow-up by evaluating a person’s progress and offering clarity if performance issues persist.

ment into the prevention equation a decade ago to Ontario’s move to combat workplace violence through implementation of Bill 168 in 2010, and British Columbia’s recent draft changes to its Workers Compensation Act to broaden compensation coverage for mental stress arising in the workplace.

And although not law, a recent decision by Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal could expand the scope of traumatic mental stress compensability with its determination that it is not necessary to demonstrate a threat to physical welfare.

“The legal regulatory framework is now starting to recognize the importance of mental health and the importance of ensuring that employees are treated properly and in a mentally healthy workplace,” Kirby said.

Right now, standards are a beginning, Veder suggests, likening them to “a gentle launch to help manage current liabilities and help better prepare for the transferring to increased regulation.”

The standard “isn’t meant to be a big system put on top of other systems. It’s meant to be embedded in existing systems, tweaking your HR policies, tweaking your occupational health and safety approaches,” says Baynton.

It is not about checking off every box, but rather, determining “how do we interact with each other on a regular basis to get our work done in a healthy way?” she says.

The standard creates structure and accountability, Dr. Samra suggests. “It lets organizations know what they need to do.”

The idea is to foster a culture in which a worker or co-worker can report any concern in an open and transparent way, Veder notes. “When we get to that place as a work culture, then we’re acting in a preventative way.”

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Angela Stelmakowich is editor of ohs canada.

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movies & theatre

By William M. Glenn The scene is burned in the collective Canadian psyche.

February 12, 2010: the opening ceremony of the XXI Olympic Winter Games. Sixty thousand people crammed into Vancouver’s BC Place, millions more watching on televisions around the world, all catch their collective breath as the massive arms for the Olympic cauldron emerge from the stadium floor and begin to rise slowly into the air. That is, three of the four arms: the last is trapped below a malfunctioning sliding door.

The theme music is looping over and over again. And Wayne Gretzky is standing there, a bemused expression on his face, with a flaming torch held high, but nothing to light.

While the organizers are having a meltdown, the on-air commentators scramble to fill the dead air. At the same time, below the floor and behind the scenes, an army of unseen technicians are calmly and deliberately running through emergency checklists, shutting down the gas to the trapped arm, disabling the flame bar and ensuring what is now a tripod will function safely.

Eventually, the go-ahead is given, the flame lit, and the Games declared officially open.

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IMAGE: THINKSTOCK

Show time “I was so proud,” says Janet Sellery, health and safety manager for the Opening, Closing and Victory Ceremonies at the Vancouver Olympics. “Nobody got hurt. The stadium didn’t burst into flames. They figured out the problem on the fly and took the proper action. This is where all the planning and preparation comes together.”

The ability of the crew to successfully re-jig the cauldronlighting ceremony was the result of an exhaustive process that began months earlier.

The British Columbia Safety Authority, based in New Westminster, had demanded documented procedures for every aspect of the sequence. Its inspectors had critiqued the rehearsals and interviewed the people behind the scenes and beneath the floor. There were crew members whose only job throughout the entire ceremony was to stand by emergency stop buttons in case something went wrong.

“Risk assessment is such a versatile and powerful tool, especially for the unique challenges we face in arts and entertainment,” Sellery suggests. There were pyrotechnics exploding, performers flying about and automated stage elements circling while thousands of volunteers danced and athletes paraded across the stage.

That meant a separate risk assessment had to be prepared for each and every aspect of the show by the more than 40 subcontractors who were working on the ceremony. Submission of a written risk assessment was a contractor’s only ticket onto the site.

Set the stage “We have put a lot of effort into updating safety guidelines and working collaboratively to address new issues as they arise,” Warren Ross, national director of industrial relations for the Canadian Media Production Association, says from Toronto.

To Ross’s mind, there is no substantive difference between applying occupational health and safety laws in entertainment and in traditional smokestack industries. “The rules are the rules for everyone,” notes Ross, whose organization represents the interests of almost 400 media companies that produce and distribute English-language television programs, feature films and new media content.

“While some of the challenges that arise on a case-by-case basis vary, the basics of workplace safety are equally important in all industries,” he says. Where things may differ is the co-operative approach taken by parties on both sides of the historic labour-management divide. Collaboration among

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production companies, unions, guilds and associations serves to help everybody, Ross suggests.

He co-chairs the tripartite Health and Safety Advisory Committee for the Film and Television Industry. Committee members are responsible for updating and revising the “Safety Guidelines for the Film and Television Industry in Ontario,” meant to help employers, supervisors and working professionals meet their obligations under the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act and associated regulations.

The fifth and most recent edition of the guide, published in 2009, has 17 new guidelines on topics as varied as stunt planning, camera cars and boom vehicles, hot air balloons, mobile elevating equipment, indigenous pests, catering and post-production facilities.

Similar sets of safety guidelines and rules have been developed by Quebec’s Commission de la santé at de la sécurité du travail and British Columbia’s Actsafe. And in Ontario, a working group of large and small theatre companies, service organizations and professional associations have prepared the “Safety Guidelines for the Live Performance Industry in Ontario,” the third edition of which became available in 2005.

These documents are said to be as important to the inspectors who enforce provincial oh&s requirements as they are to the producers, technicians and performers who put on the shows. Although not enforceable, per se, the guidelines can be used to set the due diligence bar.

“While the producers are ultimately responsible for ensuring a safe workplace,” Ross points out, “the actors and technicians have a duty to raise concerns when problems arise, while the unions and the guilds have a key role to play in training and education.”

David Sparrow, vice-president of member services for the Toronto branch of ACTRA, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, agrees. “As actors, we have more time between takes to be on the lookout for safety issues,” says Sparrow, whose association represents more than 22,000 professional performers working in TV, film, radio and digital media across the country.

“When they see something that raises a safety concern, we encourage our members to bring it to the attention of the crew or an assistant director,” says Sparrow, who served as an emergency care assistant before launching his acting career. by the script An ACTRA member’s negotiated rights to work safely are set out in the National Commercial Agreement (NCA) and the Independent Production Agreement (IPA) that have been negotiated by the union and producers over the last 60 years.

They detail the obligations of producers and performers, fees, insurance requirements and arbitration procedures.

There are also safety-related clauses like risk performances, accident reporting and work conditions (such as overtime, meals, rest periods, air quality, and heat and cold stress).

“The IPA and NAC contracts clarify a number of important safety concerns right down to the minutia of not sharing make-up brushes between performers,” Sparrow says. “When people complain about the amount of detail in these contracts, I always explain that it’s not called ‘show hobby,’ but ‘show business’.”

When famed Canadian actor Shirley Douglas was on the set of the television series, “Wind at My Back,” she was asked if she wanted to see where the child actors were being tutored between takes. Douglas was led to a large metal Quonset hut where, right inside the door, five or six children were sitting at desks and working on lessons.

The production’s paint workshop occupied the back end of the hut, where members of a crew, wearing masks, were busy preparing paints. Douglas immediately pointed out the obvious toxic exposure problems. The lessons were moved.

“You would have hoped the tutor or a crew member would have said something, but nothing happened until Shirley Douglas complained,” Sparrow says. “The contract is thick because you never thought you would have to add, ‘Don’t educate children in a paint shed,’ but unfortunately you do.”

Danger, safely The more fantastic the show — one that relies on complex pyrotechnics and wirework, for instance — the greater the need for co-ordination between various technical departments and the performers working on stage or screen.

“Safety is a moment-by-moment concern,” says fight director David McCormick, based in Vancouver. “We are creating the illusion of danger and violence for the audience. But we don’t want to do anything that is truly dangerous.”

A certified instructor and executive member of Fight Directors Canada (FDC) — and an instructor in Bartitsu, the Victorian gentleman’s art of self-defence through swordplay — McCormick has been performing and choreographing staged violence for more than 10 years. The fight director should be involved in a stage production from the beginning, he emphasizes, to both choreograph the action and to reflect the director’s creative vision.

While pre-production consultation is important, he says his main focus is working with the actors, “resolving problems with any physical limitations, building their individual skill levels, endurance and speed, and showing them how to work safely with the other actors on stage.”

It is best to “always start out slow so everyone feels comfortable and safe with the moves, and then build speed until it becomes more realistic and exciting,” McCormick says. “If anything goes wrong, we slow things down and start again.”

It is not just the actions of actors, but also the “weapons” they wield, that command respect. “Just because a sword is blunt or made of plastic doesn’t mean it isn’t potentially dangerous,” McCormick argues.

An FDC certification course provides a minimum of 60 hours of training in sword, staff and unarmed combat. Once training is complete, producers usually designate a cast member or an assistant director as the “fight captain” to oversee pre-performance rehearsals and to watch for any problems.

Good reviews Actor Ted Atherton says that in his 20 years on stage and screen, he has been impressed by both the on-set professionalism and the commitment to health and safety. “The producers I’ve worked with have always insisted on bringing in trained professionals — whether it’s a fight director or a firearms expert or an animal handler — to minimize the risks

for the rest of us,” Atherton says.

A veteran of dozens of stage, television and movie roles, he notes that a trained stunt double can relieve an actor of a lot of the risk. On one episode of “Sue Thomas: FBEye,” his character was supposed to chase down a suspect and subdue him with a flying tackle.

“I didn’t think it was too dangerous, but the producers couldn’t risk me bruising a rib or breaking my wrist. So they brought in a stunt guy who had done the move about a thousand times before,” Atherton says. “He was a foot shorter than me and they had to dye his hair yellow, but when you see the finished shot, you can’t tell it’s not me.”

While shooting another series, Atherton’s character was trapped alone under a fallen tree and the script called for him to be menaced by a cougar. “They brought in an animal handler and a trained cougar that had been hand-reared since it was a kitten,” he reports, “but things didn’t seem right.”

The assistant director called a halt and sat down with Atherton and the handler to beef up safety procedures. The cougar was reattached to a shorter wire and the scene reshot.

“As soon as the camera started rolling again, the cougar snarled and rushed forward. I don’t know if it was going for me or trying to reach its handler standing behind me, but — SPROINNNNG — the wire stopped the animal just feet short of my face,” he recalls. “When you feel you are in danger, you have to take responsibility and say so. Working together we got the shot and we got it safely.”

Safe Sets While there are guidelines and rules in place that demand producer vigilance, the “Practicing Safe Sets” program from the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists states that “it is up to everyone to ensure the set is a safe working environment.” The program summarizes some specific areas of concern for actors on film sets and offers suggestions on how they can protect themselves.

• Slips and falls — Incidents caused by tripping, slipping and falling account for the majority of work-related injuries, so watch out for wet spots and loose cables and be careful on stairs and when crossing roads.

• Vehicle safety — Drivers are advised not to overestimate their driving skills. If a person has never ridden a motorcycle or driven a boat, the set is not the place to learn.

• Animals — If a performer is in a scene with an animal, talk to the trainer. Do not approach an animal without the trainer’s permission and supervision. Learn about the animal before someone yells, “Action!”

• Stunts and special skills — A stunt is a performance considered to be dangerous if not carried out by someone with special training, or if beyond a performer’s general experience. Never misrepresent ability to perform special skills, say, roller blading or horseback riding.

• Equipment injuries — Be aware of when and where firearms, explosives, pyrotechnics, open flame, helicopters, wind machines and the like will be used on set. If in the shot, ask to attend the on-set safety meeting.

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Getting mobile “The biggest challenge in instilling a safety culture is the mobility of the workers,” suggests Dawn Brennan, general manager of Actsafe, an independent, not-for-profit safety organization funded by British Columbia’s motion picture and performing arts industries. Theatre jobs generally last from three to six weeks, while a contract for a major movie is not much longer than three months.

As would be the case in any workplace, the employer, supervisor and worker on a stage or screen project each has his or her own oh&s rights and responsibilities. “The challenge is educating them in those duties,” says Brennan.

In addition to offering a wide range of training courses, Actsafe maintains an online database of trained workers. Employers may request a free access code to confirm if workers carry current certifications, enabling them to comply with WorkSafeBC requirements.

There are fundamental differences in the safety needs of large movie companies and small performing arts organizations. “It’s a question of scale and culture,” Brennan says.

“Motion pictures are generally multi-million-dollar projects while, at least in B.C., most performing arts organizations are much smaller and operate in the non-profit mode.”

As well, on stage, the same moves are done again and again, night after night; on a film or television set, it is always something new.

Hazards on movies can be big. “They deliberately set people on fire, crash cars, jump off buildings,” Brennan says. “However, you can pull off any creative project safely as long as you invest the necessary time into pre-production planning.”

That makes training key. Actsafe, which has a mandate to deliver health and safety training and resources to both the stage and screen sectors, is one of a dozen industry safety groups collaborating on accident prevention with WorkSafeBC. Since 1989, the group has developed a series of videos, bulletins, pocket guides and even comic books on everything from working with infants to handling venomous snakes.

“If we are to get the message out, these materials have to be both innovative and accessible,” Brennan argues. “We tried producing big manuals, but nobody read them.”

Beyond the written word, Actsafe offers a series of training sessions on technical subjects such as propane awareness, firearm safety, fall protection, and working on aerial platforms and counterbalanced forklifts.

Culture growth “The growth of the health and safety culture has been the biggest change in our business,” suggests Peter DaPrato, an international representative with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), which has as members motion picture technicians, artists and allied crafts people across the United States and Canada.

“Both local and foreign producers tend to look to the unions and the guilds to take the lead on health and safety,” DaPrato says. “When screen producers come up here to mount a production, they assume the local people they hire know the safety rules.”

That is why, for the past seven years, IATSE has been certifying its members for both independent and U.S. film pro-

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ducers. And while certification is not mandatory, it certainly improves the chances of getting a good job.

The union maintains a database of all the training courses that its members have completed and the valid tickets they hold. “When a production needs a certified power technician who also holds a ‘condor ticket’ for crane lifts and aerial work platforms, we can send the right person for the job,” DaPrato says.

Beyond that, IATSE’s Workers Health and Safety Centrecertified trainers conduct oh&s courses, including all-terrain forklift operation, fall arrest, Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System and various hazard modules (such as asbestos, dust and fibres, confined spaces and personal protective equipment) to the whole film community.

Efforts to date have paid off. “When I look at the data on serious occupational injuries among our members, the numbers are so low they are almost off the radar,” says DaPrato.

Most are slips, falls and repetitive strains, he reports, adding that he can recall only two fatalities in the last 30 years.

Sellery started her career in the performing arts as a stage manager at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Her “ah-ha” moment occurred back in 1995 when an actor fell about three metres from a balcony and suffered critical injuries.

“It was a lifechanging experience,” she says.

“Before the accident, I had never even attended a health and safety orientation.”

Today, her consulting firm, Sellery Health + Safety, offers clients in performing arts advice on how to assemble a comprehensive safety program, conducts training and undertakes specialized research into production-related issues.

The three Rs of safety in the performing arts are respect, respond and require, Sellery says.

“You have to respect the creativity and diversity of the art. And you have to respond when people have a question or raise a concern,” she emphasizes. “But, ultimately, you have to require that everybody meets the legislated standards, that they wear their personal protective equipment and that they follow all the safety practices and procedures,” she adds.

“We have something very special to protect,” Sellery opines.

“And the quality of life for people who work in the arts is of prime importance.”

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

William M. Glenn is associate editor of hazardous substances.

PRELIMINARy GuIDE

CANADA’s

LARGEsT Health & Safety Event

www.PartnersinPreventionConference.com

InTeRnATIOnAL CenTRe |

6900 AIRPORT ROAd, MISSISSAuGA, OnTARIO

MAy 1 -2 , 2012

Professional Development Courses PDC 101 – Sunday & Monday, April 29-30 8:00 am to 5:00 pm 2-Day Course $650 + HST (price includes breakfast, lunch & breaks) Attendees will receive copy of textbook, Disability Management: Theory, Strategy and Industry Practice

Disability Management Dianne Dyck, RN, BN, MSc, COHN-S, COHN(C), CRSP Author of Disability Management: Theory, Strategy and Industry Practice

PDC 102 – Sunday, April 29 8:30 am to 4:30 pm 1-Day Course $300 + HST (price includes breakfast, lunch & breaks) Conducting Office Ergonomics Assessments Brenda Mallat, BHK, Ergonomics Specialist Workplace Safety & Prevention Services

PDC 103 – Sunday, April 29 8:30 am to 4:30 pm 1-Day Course $400 + HST (price includes breakfast, lunch & breaks) From Subject Matter Expert to Instructor – Essentials for Creating Learning Josie Di Vincenzo, M.Ad.Ed., CTDP, ACPC Instructional Designer, Facilitator & Coach

PDC 201 – Monday, April 30 8:30 am to 12:00 pm Half-Day Course $200 + HST

PDC 301 – Wednesday, April 25 8:30 am to 4:30 pm 1-Day Course $295 + HST Course Location: The Centre for Health & Safety Innovation (CHSI) 5110 Creekbank Road, Mississauga, Ontario

Workplace Electrical Safety Standard: Understanding CSA Z462-08 PDC 302 – Thursday, May 3 8:30 am to 4:30 pm 1-Day Course $400 + HST Course Location: The Centre for Health & Safety Innovation (CHSI) 5110 Creekbank Road, Mississauga, Ontario

Welding Health & Safety Brian Chmay Canadian Welding Bureau

PDC 303 – Thursday, May 3 8:30 am to 4:30 pm 1-Day Course $350 + HST Course Location: The Centre for Health & Safety Innovation (CHSI) 5110 Creekbank Road, Mississauga, Ontario

Adjustment of TLVs to Accommodate Specific Conditions in the Workplace John D. Elias, MPH, CIH, ROH, CRSP Elias Occupational Hygiene Consulting

Business and Professional Ethics BernardEnnis,P.Eng.,Director,Policy&ProfessionalAffairsProfessional Engineers Ontario

PDC 304 – Thursday, May 3 8:30 am to 4:30 pm 1-Day Course $400

PDC 202 – Monday, April 30 8:30 am to 4:30 pm 1-Day Course $568.50 + HST (price includes breakfast, lunch & breaks) Inspecting & Maintaining Steel Storage Racks Chuck Leon, Material Handling Specialist Workplace Safety & Prevention Services

+ HST

Course Location: The Centre for Health & Safety Innovation (CHSI) 5110 Creekbank Road, Mississauga, Ontario

Managing Complex Return to Work Nancy Gowan, B.H.Sc. (O.T.), O.T.Reg. (Ont.) President, Gowan Consulting

Thanks to our sponsors Platinum

GOLD

BRONZE

Program is preliminary only.

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Keynote Speakers T U E S D AY M a y 1 – 8 : 0 0 a m Living Leadership John Furlong

Chief Executive Officer, Vancouver 2010 Olympics Organizing Committee

John Furlong is the leader behind the team that organized and staged the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. From the very beginning of the project, John envisioned that the Games could be a true nation builder, helping to improve the fabric of Canadian society by touching the hearts and souls of every Canadian. John guided the growth of the organization, overseeing a staff of 55,000 during his ten-year tenure, to ultimately host 2,600 participants from 82 nations.

John Furlong believes in values-based leadership. “VANOC had five core values: team, trust, excellence, sustainability and creativity. If you are asking people to do things that they don’t believe they can do, they have to trust you, care deeply and be truly connected to a meaningful vision.”

Listen to John as he speaks about teams (diverse opinions need to be heard), how hiring people with the right character and teaching them new skills can pay off, how to empower people to do the right thing every time, and overcoming the fear of change.

You’ll be inspired to build your own resilient and supportive people-led team culture where curiosity flourishes and egos can be left at the door.

W E D N E S D AY M a y 2 – 8 : 0 0 a m Taking Crazy Back: A New Roadmap for Mental Health in the Workplace Tod Maffin

Digital Technology & Marketing Guru

Tod was the founder and CEO of a multi-million-dollar technology firm, and his workload and always-on personality finally caught up with him and he was crippled by a devastating depression and addiction — all the while struggling to appear to be productive to employers and colleagues, and happy and healthy to his friends and family.

In this provocative keynote speech, Tod reveals how this always-connected landscape has seduced all of us into endless multi-tasking and infinite email — all the while pretending that this increasing workload is the best thing for “productivity.”

In fact, this hyper-connected economy may be both destroying the productivity of workplaces and eroding the mental health of companies’ most valuable asset — their people.

Tod will outline his own bold strategy for bringing the mental health discussion out of the shadows in a way that will challenge you for years to come.

W E D N E S D AY M a y 1 – 1 2 : 1 5 p m Inspiring Workplace: The Way Work OUGHT to Be! Michael Kerr

Motivational Speaker, Business Trainer and Humour in the Workplace Expert

Michael Kerr, Speaking Hall of Fame member, is an award-winning, Certified Speaking Professional and the author of six books. He is known as one of North America’s leading authorities on how to create less stressful, more productive, more creative and more inspiring workplaces.

You will laugh as you learn: choosing your workplace attitude before it chooses you; why inspiring workplaces value their values; why (and how) inspiring workplaces put humour to work; inspiring creative thinking in the workplace; inspiring communication in the workplace — how we say things matters; inspiring employees — the top motivating influences in any workplace; the importance of celebrating, recognizing and rewarding; and guiding lights for creating healthier, more inspiring workplaces.

It’s Tool Time at Partners in Prevention with Mag Ruffman!

Join Mag the “ToolGirl” in the trade show. Learn about tool safety at work and at home and get caught up on the latest tools available.

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Sessions & Workshops T uesday 1 0 : 0 0 a m – 1 2 : 0 0 p m View from the Top: Provocative Conversations With Today’s Leaders Featured Panelists Amanda Lang Senior Business Correspondent CBC News, Panel Moderator

Michelle DiEmanuele Dean Johnson President & CEO Credit Valley Hospital

Bill Smith

President & CEO Senior Vice President Sodexo Canada Limited Siemens Canada

Stewart Hardacre

President & CEO Habitat for Humanity Canada

Join us for a provocative discussion featuring a panel of noted CEOs re­cognized for their organizations’ com­mit­ment to health and safety. What is the difference between a CEO who “gets it” and one who doesn’t? Just how much does the CEO influence the culture of an organization? How should the CEO be engaged in health and safety and the organization’s culture? What are the challenges and consequences of complacency? How does the CEO motivate staff to be engaged? What do CEOs believe is driving costs — regulations, premiums or compliance costs? What is the CEO view of standards and training? You’ll have to attend this session to hear the discussion and the answers.

T U E S D AY 1 0 : 0 0 a m – 1 1 : 0 0 a m Lessons Learned: Key Steps to Improve Your OHS Program Ryan Conlin Partner, Stringer LLP Yvonne O’Reilly CRSP, O’Reilly Health & Safety Consulting MSD Forum: Panel Discussion Health & Safety Ontario System Partners Sounding the Alarm on Electrical Workplace Incidents Doug Crawford Chief Public Safety Officer

Hear From and Ask the OHS Lawyer Jeremy Warning Partner, Heenan Blaikie LLP Mental Health Issues in the Workplace: When Something Goes Wrong Nancy Gowan Gowan Consulting MSD Forum – CSA Z1004: Workplace Ergonomics Canadian Standards Association

Electrical Safety Authority

The Duty to Ensure Worker Fitness Dan Demers Operations Manager, CanAmm Occupational Testing

Flammable and Combustible Liquids Melinda Hurd P. Eng, Associate, Leber/Rubes Inc.

Complacency: The Silent Killer Larry Wilson Vice President, Electrolab

Is it Still Safe to Climb the Ladder?

The Myths and Stereotypes Concerning Older Workers Elaine Austin Program Director

Our Employee Safety Meetings Stink!

Judy Trent and Dale Lisinki Dival Safety

Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters

Noise Control and Hearing Conservation Bev Borst RN, BScN, MA, Technical Service Specialist

3M Occupational Health & Environmental Safety

T U E S D AY 1 0 : 0 0 a m – 1 2 : 3 0 p m Electrical Safety Management Principles Mike Doherty Consultant, Infrastructure Health & Safety Association Andy Kerr Safety Manager, Horizon Utilities T U E S D AY 1 1 : 3 0 a m – 1 2 : 3 0 p m Legally Speaking: Program is preliminary only.

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PSRs: When Do You Really Need Them?

Michael Wilson B.E.Sc., P.Eng., CRSP, Technical Consultant

Workplace Safety & Prevention Services

T U E S D AY 2 : 0 0 p m – 3 : 0 0 p m Improving Health and Safety in Ontario George Gritziotis

Chief Prevention Officer/Associate Deputy Minister Ontario Ministry of Labour

In the largest revamp of Ontario’s worker safety system in 30 years, significant changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act and Workplace Safety and Insurance Act were passed in June 2011. One of the recommendations was the appointment of a Chief Prevention Officer. George Gritziotis was appointed in August 2011.

Hear about the importance of prevention and having an integrated strategy for the province and get an update on the work of the Prevention Office.

How to REALLY Understand and Resolve Disruptive Behaviour, Conflicts and Harassment at Work Frema Engel Leadership Consultant and Coach Obtaining Senior Management Buy-In Frank O’Rourke BSc., MBA, CRSP

National Director, Health and Safety, Weston Foods (Canada) Inc.

Orienting New Workers: Approaches for Successful Onboarding Derek Suzack Manager, Health and Safety, Casino Rama Ambrish Thakkar Tim Hortons Restaurant Owner Ken Jorgenson Operations Manager, MPS Property Services Kim Grant Manager, Innovation & Knowledge Solutions Workplace Safety & Prevention Services, Moderator

WiFi and Associated Dangers: Hype vs. Fact Dr. Magda Havas Associate Professor

Environmental & Resource Studies, Trent University

Occupational Cancer: Current Knowledge, Gaps and the Role of Research Dr. Paul Demers Occupational Cancer Research Centre

MDS Forum – Ergonomics in Facility Design: A Hospital Emergency Department Redesign Case Study Jeff Pajot Field Consultant

Incident Investigation Jerry Traer CRSP, Program/Training Specialist

Workplace Safety North

Forensic Engineering: Investigating Accidents – From Black Boxes to Broken Bones Craig Wilkinson P.Eng., Principal, Senior Engineer MEA Forensic Engineers & Scientists Fall Arrest Enzo Garritano Manager, Technical Services

Infrastructure Health & Safety Association

Safe 4 the Right Reasons Dale Lesinski Vice President, Sales and Training, Dival Safety Job Hazard Analysis & Risk Assessment: Key Parts of Your Health & Safety Program Monica Szabo Regional Director

Public Services Health & Safety Association Katherine Dykstra City of Waterloo Janet Sellery City of Stratford

W E D N E S D AY 9 : 3 0 a m – 1 0 : 3 0 a m Working Together for a Sustainable Future Hon. Steve Mahoney Chair of the Board Workplace Safety and Insurance Board

Public Services Health & Safety Association

Implementing a Participatory Approach to MSD Prevention Derek Morgan Field Consultant

Public Services Health & Safety Association Rosilee Peto Director, Clinical and Environmental Supports Alexandra Hospital

T U E S D AY 3 : 3 0 p m – 5 : 0 0 p m MOL Priorities for 2012 Sophie Dennis Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations Division Ontario Ministry of Labour

Safety & Security at the London 2012 Olympic Games: Leading the Plan for Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium Brian Cassidy Senior Manager, Health, Safety & Environment

Managing Contractors Miao Qi and Ron Rentola Esso Imperial Oil Slips, Trips and Falls: Forensic Investigations of Workplace Accidents Craig Wilkinson P.Eng., Principal, Senior Engineer

MEA Forensic Engineers & Scientists

Managing Risk Assessment Jeremy Shorthouse

National Environmental Health and Safety Manager, Vincor Marc Girard Arcelor-Mittal Dofasco Rose Neilson Health & Safety Specialist Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board

CTV News

Team Power Play: Create and Sustain High Performance Teams Karen Donaldson Principal, Karen Donaldson Inc.

MDS Forum – Cost Effective Ergonomics: From the Case Files Tanya Muller BSc., CCPE, Ergonomist

Work-Related Asthma: A Case Study of Disease in the Workplace Dr. Mike Pysklywec

Workplace Safety & Prevention Services

Occupational Hygiene Clinics for Ontario Workers

Marnie Downey Ergonomist, ERGO Inc.

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Ergonomic Hazard Identification & Action Plans: Implementation Lessons Learned!

Dave Mitchell Consultant, Workplace Safety & Prevention Services Nasir Saeed Prevention Manager, Agropur Division Natrel Supervisor’s Forum: Roles and Responsibilities Bob Deline Health and Safety Manager, Niagara Parks Commission W E D N E S D AY 9 : 3 0 a m – 1 2 : 0 0 p m Ministry of Labour Mock Trial Cheryl A. Edwards Partner, Heenan Blaikie LLP

Jeremy Warning

Partner, Heenan Blaikie LLP

Tom Schneider

Crown Counsel, Ontario Ministry of Labour

Donald Dudar

Justice of the Peace

Have you ever wondered what could happen if you had a serious injury or fatality at your workplace and the Ministry of Labour laid charges? What would it take to defend yourself and your company’s actions? This is your opportunity to see it first hand. A judge, Crown prosecutor, defence lawyers and supporting cast will actually stage a full trial. Come and see what due diligence really is and what it means in the courtroom.

Fleet Safety Marc Girard Consultant/Trainer

Infrastructure Health & Safety Association

Addressing Responsive Behaviours Shelly Hurry Consultant, Public Sector Health & Safety Association Shiftwork: The New Carcinogen Dr. Paul Demers Occupational Cancer Research Centre

Supervisor’s Forum: Due Diligence, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly David Powers CRSP, Director, Health, Safety and Environment Oxford Frozen Foods Limited

New Canadian Standard on Psychologically Safe Workplaces Elizabeth Rankin Canadian Standards Association Increased Enforcement, Hazard Prevention & Risk Management in the Federal Sector: Building Proper Prevention Programs Cheryl A. Edwards Partner, Heenan Blaikie LLP David Gardner Senior OH&S Consultant, Pinchin Environmental Training For Success: How to Develop Effective Health and Safety Training Programs Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Integrating Safety Performance Indicators Into the Safety Management System Christopher Janicak Ph.D., CSP, CEA, ARM Lon Ferguson Ed.D., CSP, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

W E D N E S D AY 1 1 : 0 0 a m – 1 2 : 0 0 p m Safety Leadership: The Final Hurdle Towards Zero Corrie Pitzer CEO, Safemap Conflicts and Harassment: Leadership Lessons from the Trenches Frema Engel Leadership Consultant and Coach A Good Plan Today is Better Than A Perfect Plan Tomorrow Scott Hood CET, B.A.Sc., CRSP, Manager, Technical Services

Workplace Safety & Prevention Services

OHS Compliance With a Remote Workforce Glenn Baker Manager, Maintenance & Service State Water Corporation, Australia

Program is preliminary only.

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Evolution of Health and Safety Leadership: What’s Next?

Yvonne Thompson CAL, CHRP, CHSC Supervisor’s Forum: Leader as Coach – Meaningful Conversations for Building Collaborative Relationships Josie Di Vincenzo President, JDV Training and Development

Mechanical Materials Handling and Ergonomics – Hands-On Learning Today’s lift trucks are designed to adapt to changing environmental and ergonomic demands, while still maintaining their critical role in many workplaces. Partners in Prevention is offering twice daily handson sessions on the trade show floor where ergonomists and lift truck specialists will demonstrate equipment and common work practices, and show you how injuries happen.

Bring your questions and workplace issues and talk to the ergonomic experts about possible solutions.

12 tion 20 , ON n e v e r auga rs in P Mississ 653 Partne e r t n e Booth # tional C Interna - May 2, 2012 May 1

exhibitor previews 3M

3M

3M Ergonomics specializes in office ergonomic accessories to meet your individual needs while ensuring they are easy-to-use.

Our goal is to help create the work environment you need so that you can enjoy the comfort you deserve.

3M Occupational Health and Environmental Safety offers a wide array of personal safety solutions for visibility, respiratory, head, hearing, eye, face and fall protection.

At 3M, understanding your business is an essential part of helping provide you with needed safety solutions. We will bring our industry-diverse expertise to help you solve your safety challenges, and will help you design a solution that will give you the power to protect your world.

www.3m.ca/ergo

www.3MisHealthandSafety.ca

air systems International

Safety Essentials – Explosion – Proof Contractor Ventilation Kit

With CSA C/US safety approval for outdoor electrical use and rugged polyethylene housing, Explosion-Proof Contractor Ventilation Fans are ideal for the most strenuous work sites and hazardous conditions. Lightweight and economical in cost, the explosionproof CVF Product Line offers a fan for every job – big or small.

Contact Air Systems International 1-800-866-8100 or visit www.airsystems.com

Bradley

BRADLEY’S NEW halo eye/face wash provides industry’s greatest relief from contaminants Bradley’s new HALO eye/face wash provides the most effective emergency relief available. HALO technology covers 85 percent of the user’s face, which equals 20 percent better total protection than any other eye/face wash on the market. Plus an exclusive selfdraining feature removes standing

water from the sprayhead.

800-BRADLEY www.bradleycorp.com/HALO/

Visit us at Booth # 748,749

Visit us at Booth # 748,749

Visit us at Booth # 824

CheckMate

ELECTROLAB

Industrial Scientific Levitt-Safety

Do you have employees that work alone?

ProTELEC is a proactive, automated communication service designed to check on people working alone to ensure their safety. ProTELEC’s emergency response team responds to any unanswered calls or alarms.

CheckMate does not require the purchase of hardware or software. CheckMate provides an audit trail and helps to meet workplace safety legislation for employees working alone.

ProTELEC CheckMate Sales Inquiries and for more Information 1-866-475-0784 info@protelecalarms.com

Visit us at Booth # 500

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For over 30 years, we have worked with business and industry across Canada to help create a skilled and safe workforce. Our blended learning solutions include print, DVD and elearning with over 1400 titles available online. We are also the producer of SAFESTART, a personal safety skills program, which has been used by over 1.5 million people in 40 countries.

For more information: www.electrolab.ca www.safestart.com or call 800-267-7482

Visit us at Booths: #604 ELECTROLAB | #605 SAFESTART

iNet ®, Industrial Scientific’s Gas Detection as a Service solution, helps companies keep their workers safer by providing visibility into gas detector alarms, exposure and usage. This software-based service solves common challenges faced in gas detection programs related to maintaining reliable equipment, and ensuring proper usage of instruments in the field. iNet subscribers do not buy their gas detectors. They, instead, subscribe to Gas Detection as a Service for a monthly fee.

Visit us at Booth # 812

Born of the determined and entrepreneurial spirit of our founder, Victor Levitt, Levitt-Safety has grown over the past 75 years to become the largest specialist supplier of safety equipment and services in Canada. We have earned this position by partnering with our customers to solve their unique safety, fire, and environmental challenges with quality products supported by excellent service from motivated and know– ledgeable people.

For more information visit www.levitt-safety.com or call toll free at 888.453.8488.

www.dontbuygasdetectors.com

Visit us at Booth # 635

Visit us at Booth # 834

Marigold® INDUSTRIAL

MASTERLOCK

MSA

OLFA

MSA V-Gard Winter Liners

The new OLFA SK-10 concealed blade safety knife with tape slitter is designed to reduce workplace bodily & product injuries. Smartly engineered, the cutter features a unique blade adjustment design that allows for 4x’s more cuts per blade, vs. a fixed single-edge blade for higher blade productivity.

Puretough™ P Series

The Marigold® Industrial Indicator System uses a 3 colour coded system that relates to the level of protection provided by the glove: Green - minimal hazard Orange - medium hazard Red - Red - high level hazard Visit us at Partners in Prevention to see for yourself.

Love your hands, we do™.

Visit us at www.marigold-industrial.com 905-669-1202

Master Lock offers a complete line of Safety Lockout/Tagout products to complement our full range of safety padlocks.

This exclusive line of LO/TO accessories includes innovative and patent-pending cable lockout, gate valve, ball valve, circuit breaker, plug cover, and more. Available individually or in modular kits and stations, these LO/TO products are easy-to-use and effective in use.

The Master Lock Safety Series™ products and services are designed to help you successfully develop and implement the best possible LO/TO system for your facility. Our goal is for you to meet or surpass regional and/or national LO/TO requirements. While it’s important to satisfy regulations, preventing accidents and employee safety are critical.

You can rely on the Safety Series™ LO/TO products to perform to the high standards you expect from Master Lock, the leader in LO/TO.

MSA introduces a new addition to the V-Gard Accessory System: VGard Winter Liners. There are 11 new products, offering the same high-quality “under the helmet” as the iconic V-Gard Helmet does on top! V-Gard Winter Liners offer under-the-helmet warmth, flame retardancy, water repellency and style. Liners are available in several high-quality offerings, with optional quilted earflaps to accommodate hearing protection without compromising protection.

Visit us at www.olfa.com or call 1-800-962-OLFA (6532).

Visit www.msanet.com

Visit us at Booth # 643

Visit us at Booth # 950

Visit us at Booth # 613

Visit us at Booth # 955

Ranpro Inc.

tenaquip

UNB

YOW Why You Need This Training Wherever you work, whether it is in a hospital, garage, laboratory, construction site or office, chances are you come into contact with chemicals while on the job.

If you look around your office, you might find paint, glue, cleaning products, batteries or oil.

All of these products can harm you if you don't exercise your "RIGHT TO KNOW".

TENAQUIP is a Canada wide leader in Occupational Health & Safety in the workplace. We offer state of the art products and services that will help protect We’ve made it our life’s work to your personnel, enhance your keep workers safe while they’re workplace and add value to your doing their work. And our job is operation! Our TENAQUIP team never done. Our customer’s needs, works hard every day to ensure and the challenges they face are that our value-added services diverse and ever changing. So we such as product training, on-site tirelessly work behind the scenes to surveys and customer seminars offer the most innovative, highest correspond to the standards and quality, personal protective wear regulations that are current in your in the market. From Dunlop Boots workplace. to arc flash garments we provide protection at work.

Ranpro Inc. Tel 519.426.1094 www.ranpro.com

Visit us at Booth # 342

For more information, visit www.tenaquip.com or call 1-800-661-2400

Visit us as booth # 405

The University of New Brunswick offers ONLINE OHS programs: OHS Online Certificate Program is designed to help practitioners from different backgrounds develop the broad base of com– petencies needed to be effective in OHS programs and systems.

CRSP Online Exam Preparation course is ideal for anyone planning to write the CRSP Exam!

OHS Online Diploma Program will be launched in September 2012. The new diploma will include advanced programming in OHS. University of New Brunswick www.unb.ca/cel/unbohs 1 888 259 4222 ohssales@unb.ca

Visit us at Booth # 335

Progress

YOW Canada Inc. provides high quality occupational health and safety training and materials to aid Canadians with safety com– pliance. Courses include: WHMIS (English & French), Transportation of Dangerous Goods (English & French), Fall Protection and more!

Visit our website for a full listing of courses and products available.

Inc. www.yowcanada.com 1.866.688.2845 info@yowcanada.com

Visit us at Booth # 1050

www.ohscanada.com

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ACCIDENT PREVENTION

noise

Sound and Safe Surround sound: There is no escaping it. So imbued with sound is work, rest and play that it has become expected, sometimes going unnoticed, at least for a time. But it is when ever-present sound turns to noise and noise to the blaring potential for harm that notice should be given, and thoughts must turn to vigilance, protection and conservation.

Now and forever: In the long term, exposure to high levels of noise can result in permanent hearing loss, notes the Washington, D.C.-based Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). In the short term, effects like ringing in the ears may go away after vacating a noisy area, but with repeated exposure, temporary can become permanent. Beyond these effects, OSHA points to physical and psychological stress, reduced productivity and interference with communication and concentration.

Sector rich: There is no shortage of industries or work duties that can create damaging noise levels. Think construction, demolition, road repair, woodworking, plastics processing, canning, bottling and textile manufacturing, notes the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the United Kingdom.

Add work tasks like hammering, forging, drilling and using pneumatic impact tools, chain saws and explosive sources, and the trail of affected workers grows even longer.

Under control: As would be the case for any type of exposure, numerous controls are available. And that is critically important since, as OSHA notes, “with the reduction of even a few decibels, the hazard to hearing is reduced, communication is improved and noise-related annoyance is reduced.”

Beyond eliminating noise, some other control options include the following: using low-noise tools and machinery; limiting the amount of time a worker spends at the noise source; increasing the distance from the noise source (in open space, OSHA reports noise is decreased by 6 dBA [decibels, A-weighted or dB(A)] for every doubling of distance between the noise source and worker); providing quiet rooms; isolating or enclosing the noise source; employing barriers, sound walls and screens; reducing machine vibration and using silencers; and ensuring machinery is well-maintained and properly lubricated.

Some direction: The HSE advises that answering “yes” to any of these questions may indicate a worker is at risk: • Is noise intrusive for most of the working day?

• Is it necessary, at least part of the day, to speak louder to have a normal conversation when two metres apart?

• Are noisy powered tools or machinery used for more than half an hour daily?

• Are there noises caused by impacts or explosive sources?

• Is hearing muffled at the end of the day?

Different tune: But noise marches to a different tune than simple multiplication. Measured on a logarithmic scale, a slight upward movement may seem insignificant, but its effect can be anything but. This can produce “a huge change in the amount of noise and the potential damage to a person’s hearing,” OSHA reports. Consider that a conversation at a metre is about 60 dB; a heavy truck at 15 metres is around 90 dB; a jackhammer at 15 metres is about 100 dB; jet takeoff at 100 metres is approximately 130 dB; and the pain threshold is at 140 dB.

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Block or surround: If noise-control measures have been implemented — but protective gear is still required — the two main types of hearing protectors are earplugs, which block the ear canal, and earmuffs, which cover the entire ear. Either of these should be worn if the noise or sound level exceeds 85 dB(A), advises the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) in Hamilton, Ontario.

Of course, both options have advantages and disadvantages. Earplugs are simple to use, less expensive and can be worn with other protective equipment, but provide less protection than some earmuffs, require more time to fit and are easily misplaced. Earmuffs are generally more durable and can be seen (helping with compliance), but are more expensive, more uncomfortable in hot conditions and may interfere with wearing either safety or prescription glasses, the CCOHS notes.

Wrong/right number: The noisereducing capability of a hearing protector is indicated by its noise-reduction rating (NRR) number. But derating is critically important to get a true count on the protection provided. The advice of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in the United States is to derate labels indicating NRRs as follows: subtract 25 per cent for earmuffs; subtract 50 per cent for formable earplugs; and subtract 70 per cent for other earplugs.

All or nothing: Wearing protective gear properly means wearing it at all times. Removing protectors in noisy work environments, even for a short period, can put hearing on the line.

The CCOHS outlines the maximum protection provided for non-continuous use of ideally fitted (100 per cent) efficient hearing protection. If used 50 per cent of the time, the maximum protection is 3 dB; 60 per cent, 4 dB; 70 per cent, 5 dB; 80 per cent, 7 dB; 90 per cent, 10 dB; 95 per cent, 13 dB; 99 per cent, 20 dB; and 99.9 per cent, 30 dB.

Natural selection: What protection factor is suitable for different levels of noise? The HSE provides a table comparing the A-weighted noise level and the single number rating (SNR) value that is provided with some hearing protection devices: 80 to 90 dB requires an SNR of 20 or less; 90 to 95 dB demands 20 to 30 SNR; 95 to 100 dB needs 25 to 35 SNR; and 100 to 105 dB requires an SNR of 30 or more.

The HSE emphasizes, however, that the aforementioned counts are not suitable if there are significant low-frequency components to the noise in question, such as would be the case in press shops, generators, boiler houses, moulding presses and punch presses. Environmental Protection UK reports that low-frequency noise (LFN) “from machinery can sometimes be reduced by the use of vibration absorbing mountings,” but the answer to eliminating LFN “lies in the design of the sources themselves.”

In concert: Protecting hearing is about more than controls and equipment; avoiding hearing loss demands a complete program. Essential elements of a hearing conservation program include noise assessment, hearing protector selection, employee training and education, audiometric testing, maintenance, inspection, record-keeping and program evaluation, the CCOHS reports.

And getting a firm grasp of the workplace situation demands that conditions be assessed. The HSE emphasizes that a proper risk assessment should identify where there may be a risk from noise and who is likely to be affected; contain a reliable estimate of employees’ exposures and compare those with exposure action values and limit values; identify the steps necessary to achieve compliance; and identify if any workers need health surveillance (which includes regular hearing checks and getting affected employees examined).

HEALTH WATCH

office layout

Falling Partitions: Plus or Minus

By Ann Ruppenstein

W

ithin a couple months of relocating to an openconcept office space last October, Michael De Monte had noticed significant changes in the social dynamics among employees.

“The sales team and the development team were so separate in the old space there wasn’t a lot of interaction, but now I think there’s a lot more helping out of each other,” reports De Monte, founder and CEO of Toronto-based ScribbleLive, a live content management system for media and news organizations. “There’s a lot going on, but it’s good energy.”

The fall of workplace partitions has emerged as a trend over the last five to 10 years, says Steven Cascone, vice-president of Mayhew, a work space design firm in Toronto.

More firms are opting to lower the divides to seating level, Cascone says. High-panelled cubicles encourage “head’sdown work,” while lower panels offer greater natural light, better indoor air quality and “more of a connection with your peers,” he reports.

“There’s a But is there any downside to upping integration? Can all this togetherness be dislot going ruptive, even stressful?

Findings published four years ago in the on, but Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management it’s good show that open-concept work environments have positives and negatives. energy.”

Vinesh Oommen, then a senior project officer at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, carried out a literature review of related research.

To the good, there was enhanced communication, cost-effectiveness and equal work space for all; to the bad, there was a loss of privacy and identity, low productivity, over-stimulation and low job satisfaction.

The study also cited various health issues, including stress, fatigue, increased blood pressure, musculoskeletal problems, more eye, nose and throat irritations and a greater chance of contracting flu from co-workers seated too closely together.

Mark Van Summern, a principal at the design firm of Perkins Eastman, based in New York City, says that for many clients, the misconception is that there must be a single layout.

“Although we see trends where, for example, an IT group within an organization may be very open-plan and embracing of flex and remote worker strategies, other departments within the same company may be much more heads-down, resident worker-focused and office-intensive,” Van Summern says. “The alignment of a workplace strategy, however, be it open-plan, traditional cubicles or private offices, is specific to the drivers of that particular business and what are the best set of tools to support the work that takes place,” he adds.

Still, the visual privacy provided by cubicle walls can help

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people relax and decompress, suggests Sally Augustin, an environmental psychologist and principal for Design With Science in Chicago. “Open-concept work environments can work well when people are doing tasks that they have done so many times in the past,” Augustin says. “The activity around the workers keeps them from completely zoning out.”

Whatever the specific layout, there is always the potential for noise-related distraction. Augustin says that this is particularly an issue for cubicles with short walls because they create the impression of privacy. People “speak more loudly than they would if they remembered other people are nearby.”

Van Summern suggests that acoustic privacy issues can be silenced by striking a balance between public, collaborative spaces and quiet rooms or enclosed spaces.

Partition panels “do have some acoustic quality, but your acoustics is the entire space,” Cascone explains. “It’s the carpet that’s on the floor, it’s the ceiling tiles that are in the ceiling, it’s also sound masking,” some of this from unexpected sources. Consider the sound of air circulating from the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system that helps muffle the noise from a co-worker talking on the phone, he says. shh… please Apart from architecture, there is always plenty of room for etiquette. This means that when walls come down, a new protocol should come up.

While it may be acceptable to conduct a conference call in a cubicle, “you don’t have those types of conversations at your work stations; you go to a secondary space like a small enclave or meeting room,” Cascone advises.

Spatial design must also be a good fit with job functions, he adds. Augustin would likely agree, noting that “organizations function most effectively when their culture is consistent with the physical form of their environment.”

Although Augustin does not share the view that existing research has demonstrated open spaces increase meaningful collaboration, she does note “the design of the work space influences worker mood, and that mood influences whether thought processes are broad or narrow, which determines things such as the amount of creative thought and the way employees interact with each other.”

Van Summern says the “rapid advance of technology and open platform communications” is driving workplace design and is supporting “a much more mobile work force where the idea of a dedicated seat is becoming much more rare.”

To De Monte, his company’s new open layout has netted noticeable work benefits, although he adds that a few tweaks were needed after moving in. “Everybody’s at the same level and in a good way,” he says.

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Ann Ruppenstein is a writer in Toronto.

SAFETY GEAR

heat/electricity

Heat in a Flash

By Jason Contant

I

n August of 2008, a student watching two electricians go about their duties learned a safety lesson that he is unlikely to soon forget.

As the workers at Abitibi Consolidated Company of Canada’s paper mill in Fort Frances, Ontario were changing the power box on a paper machine, they noticed a cable inside a cabinet that needed to be moved. One electrician, tool in hand, reached into the cabinet to remove a clamp keeping the cable in place, notes a July, 2010 statement from Ontario’s Ministry of Labour.

But the tool came in contact with a live conductor, creating an arc flash that triggered a secondary arc flash from some live conductors located overhead, the ministry reports.

The electricians suffered first-, second- and third-degree burns, while the student observing them Wirts notes sustained minor burns.

Abitibi Consolidated was ordered to that these pay $125,000 for failing to ensure a tool was not used near a live electrical installation to prevent electrical contact with a hydrocarbon live conductor, contrary to Ontario’s Ocfires typically cupational Health and Safety Act. The workers escaped fatal injuries, last less but the incident clearly illustrates the speed at which arc flash can develop. than three And the potential for harm clearly demonstrates the need to be prepared, since seconds. there is no warning time to suit up, says Chris Ransome, president of Ranpro Inc. in Simcoe, Ontario.

Arc flash explosions “occur when an electrical current short circuits through the air and ionizes to form superheated plasma,” Ransome explains. “These explosions can generate temperatures exceeding [2,760 degrees Celsius] and have been known to reach as high as [19,425 C] in thousandths of a second,” he reports.

Michael Batson, global flame resistance (FR) business manager for Polartec in Lawrence, Massachusetts, describes arc flash as a blast that vapourizes all metal conductors in the equipment and creates plasma, which expands outward with extreme force.

“Any clothing that you’re wearing, if it is not FR, it is going to ignite,” Batson cautions. “When you are on fire, for however long it takes you to get your garments extinguished, that’s when a lot of the burning actually happens.”

matter of energy While arc flash can occur in environments like electrical utilities, refineries, drilling sites, oil and gas facilities and pipeline maintenance operations, workers can also face another high-heat hazard: flash fire, says Andrew Wirts, sales and

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marketing director for NASCO Industries in Greenwood, Indiana. Wirts notes that these hydrocarbon fires typically last less than three seconds.

The main difference between arc flash- and flash fireresistant garments is the degree of incident energy exposure they can withstand, Ransome says. Because flash fires involve a longer exposure time at a lower temperature, he points out, they require a garment with a different type of flame resistance than those certified against arc flash fires.

Whether looking to protect against arc flash or flash fire, however, the type of fibre is a key consideration when choosing a garment. Fibres such as cotton can be treated with an FR coating, Batson reports, but cautions that resistance can be washed out if not properly treated or if bleach and other chemicals are used during washing.

The other option would be inherently FR fabrics, where flame-resistant properties cannot be either worn out or lost in the wash, so to speak. Relatively new to the market, these fabrics include aramids, modacrylics, flame-resistant rayon, carbonized fibres and blends.

The last choice can combine three or four different inherently FR fibres, Batson says, noting that the resulting mix can offer flame-resistant performance, good garment durability and comfort by wicking moisture and keeping the wearer cool. This differs from FR cotton, which “will just become saturated with your perspiration and you just aren’t comfortable on a hot summer day,” he adds.

At Milliken & Company in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the company combines DuPont’s Nomex brand fibre — an aramid that will not melt, drip or burn when exposed to heat or flame — with its own CXP fabric to provide protection against fire and electric arc flash, notes a product brochure from the company. The result is a lightweight, soft and breathable product that provides improved moisture management over many other FR fabrics, the company information contends.

No means no On the opposite end of the spectrum are garments with no flame resistance and whose fibres are flammable, such as cotton or wool undergarments or “street clothes” that can ignite and cause burns in arc flash conditions, says Ransome.

Wirts recommends avoiding nylon, polyester, rayon and poly-cotton blends. “What you end up with is injuries that are sustained because of the material you are wearing.”

Batson agrees, saying any clothing that is not flame-resistant can ignite and cause more harm than the arc flash.

“Many people consider non-flame-resistant, 100 per cent cotton as an acceptable option for protection from an electric arc flash because there is not a synthetic component that can melt, drip or adhere to the skin,” Ransome reports.

But that cotton “can ignite just as easily as poly-cotton

Avoiding Static

photos: clockwise from lower left - nasco industries; ranpro inc.; newson gale inc.

Arc flashes are hardly the only hazards involving electricity; there is also static electricity.

In North America, guidelines on how to avoid ignition hazards arising from static electricity recommend bonding all potentially isolated items back to a verified ground point, notes Graham Tyers, president of Newson Gale Inc., a supplier of static earthing solutions in Jackson, New Jersey. With standard mechanical bonding devices — think clamps, cables and reels — periodic tests should be done to verify a low resistance to ground, Tyers explains.

“Ten ohms [a unit of electrical resistance] is frequently mentioned as an achievable resistance that should be used for bonding metal (conductive) objects to ground, and also one that is relatively easy to measure using commercially available test instruments like ohm-meters or multi-metres,” he reports. “If a resistance of greater than 10 ohms is encountered in all-metal bonding systems, it suggests a problem such as faulty, broken or loose connections, excessive contact resistance or a build-up of corrosion, paint or other surface contamination.”

Tyers’s company offers a specialized product that monitors the resistance to verified ground on a continuous basis.

The mobile ground verification system (MGV) is a truck-

fabric in an electric arc flash,” he says, explaining that although it will not melt and drip, cotton burns hotter than poly-cotton blends and is typically heavier, producing a longer burn that is more difficult to extinguish.

Some equipment protects Another type of clothing against arc flash and that may sometimes need to flash fire (below), other be avoided is “high heat” alu- gear offers high minized protective garments. visibility (right), It is often incorrectly as- while portable sumed that these offer pro- multi-meters can tection from electric arcs keep static at bay and flash fires because the (lower right). hazards involve the possibility of very high temperatures, Ransome says. Although aluminized fabrics can block radiant energy from an arc flash, the aluminum is considered a good electrical conductor and can actually increase the probability of an arc flash occurring, he notes.

There appears to be some disagreement, even among the experts, regarding protection offered by these FR garments.

Wirts says that just because a product is arc flash-resistant does not make it flash fire-resistant; however, “at least for the materials that exist in the market today, all those that are flash fire protective are also arc protective,” he reports.

“We have a product that is widely popular here in the [United States] for electric utility companies — it’s got good

mounted device that enhances the safety of vacuum trucks used to transfer flammable or combustible materials in hazardous areas.

The MGV system is well-suited for applications in which vacuum trucks are employed in cleaning, maintenance or spill control and when collecting waste, spills or other contaminated products for disposal, Newson Gale reports.

Typically involving low-conductivity liquid or highly resistive loose solids, high levels of static electricity can accumulate, creating the potential for a dangerous ignition spark.

There are some common mistakes when it comes to static electricity, Tyers suggests. These include forgetting to use conductive transfer hoses, using insulating (plastic) materials in hazardous areas, not equipping workers with correct static dissipative footwear, and relying too heavily on simple mechanical bonding devices that are not designed for the job at hand.

Tyers says the following steps can be taken to minimize static charge generation and accumulation: reducing pumping speeds; eliminating splash filling and excessive turbulence in tanks and vessels; and building rest periods into processes to enable static dissipation by conduction with grounded and bonded structures.

arc protection, it’s comfortable, it’s very useful and appropriate, but when you put it in a flash fire test, it fails miserably.”

Batson points out, however, that sometimes a thin fabric, such as Nomex, will offer protection against flash fire, but because it is thinner and lighter, it will not be suitable for arc flash. In an explosion, the garment could “tear and the wearer could be burned,” he says.

Label fable It is important to remember that even though a garment indicates it has flameresistant properties, users still have a responsibility to educate themselves.

“When someone sees a product that is marketed as FR, they think it is protective and they [sometimes] don’t do any homework to understand exactly what that means,” Wirts says.

“And that really can have devastating effects in the field.”

For electric arc safety, the Canadian Standards Association’s (CSA) Z462 standard, “Workplace Electrical Safety,” offers some guidance. The CSA reports the second edition of the standard, just released in January, also introduces the term “arc rated” as applied to protective equipment, which is meant to distinguish arc flash protection from the flame or flash fire resistance of equipment or clothing.

For flash fire hazards, the Canadian General Standards Board’s 155.20 standard, “Workwear for Protection Against Hydrocarbon Flash Fire,” includes a three-second burn test. A mannequin is burned to produce a predictive burn number that indicates the percentage of the body that may suffer second-degree

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burns in a flash fire.

“It has to be less than 50 per cent to pass,” Batson reports. “But would you want to buy a garment that is going to give you potentially 49 per cent body burn and there is another one available that’s only 10 per cent?”

The amount of energy it takes to create a second-degree burn 50 per cent of the time is referred to as the arc thermal protection value, measured in calories

per square centimetres (cal/cm2). Wirts says that one such unit is the amount of energy it takes to raise a gram of water by one degree Celsius.

“Most people don’t communicate the fact that that’s the 50 per cent probability. They think you are protected up to that point,” he says.

Wirts emphasizes that when a product is referred to as flame-resistant, the first question users should ask is what

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standard is being met?

For example, some products may pass only a vertical flame test — a “poor predictor of real industrial hazards,” he contends. “Products that don’t even pass a vertical flame shouldn’t be considered for any arc or flash fire application at all,” he emphasizes.

Batson suggests that indicating the garment has been tested to some standard is not terribly helpful. “How did it do in that test and how did it do versus the other tests that are important to the standard?” he asks.

Charles-Alex Beauvais, an FR division manager at Big Bill Work Wear in Magog, Quebec, says it is up to the end user to ensure a garment is certified to applicable standards by asking questions and requesting information.

“There [are] many people in this industry that are manufacturing not according to the rules and I think it’s a lack of information,” Beauvais contends.

“There are a lot of mistakes on labelling in the industry and it is confusing the market, big time,” he adds.

A reputable fabric or garment brand from an approved vendor can go a long way toward eliminating confusion.

“Some people have been known to cut corners and use non-FR thread,” Batson says as an example. “What happens if you are in a flash fire? The whole garment could come apart and then your safety is compromised,” he says, emphasizing the need for the entire garment — right down to the buttons and zippers — to be flame-resistant.

Consider this When selecting an FR garment, cost is just one of four major factors to consider, Beauvais advises, along with protection, appearance and comfort.

• The first factor involves identifying the potential work-related hazard and the industry standard that applies.

• The second factor could involve such influences as whether or not any high-visibility reflective tape needs to be applied to the garment.

• The third factor takes into account garment fit, style, breathability, moisture management and weight.

“A garment kept in storage cannot protect anyone, so once required protective qualities in the fabric are met, we focus on designing the garment to provide the utmost safety in a moving, working environment,” Ransome says.

Wirts argues that “you can’t make

something so protective or so thick and bulky to protect against the most massive of hazards if it doesn’t provide a certain amount of flexibility for a guy to do his job.” However, with all the advancements in materials over the years, Batson points out that FR garments are now often similar in weight to non-FR work clothing.

Workers may also need protection against the elements, whether that is extreme cold, heat or rain.

Nasco Industries offers what it calls “the most popular foul-weather product designed specifically for utility workers who may be exposed to electric arcs.” The product features a meshvented cape back, a hood that rolls into the collar and an access point for fall protection gear.

For its part, Ranpro has announced the availability of both flash fire and arc protective garments that can incorporate D-ring access vents for safety harnesses, as well as FR drawstring waists and enclosed sleeve cuffs to protect against flames travelling up inside the garment, Ransome says.

No doubt, FR garments have come a long way since the time of the standard button-down, cotton work shirt, Batson says. “Now there are garments with four-way stretch, knit sweatshirts, FR blue jeans, features like high-visibility colours, tapes and trims, and abrasionresistant patching.”

Over, under In many situations, workers may require more than one layer of garments, which demands extra vigilance when it comes to gear selection.

“The wrong outer layer can very much negate any of the proper clothing that you have on underneath,” Ransome says. “For example, a basic outerwear jacket layered over an arc flash protective garment would melt and fuse to the arc flash garment and could dangerously impact the secondary garment’s protective properties,” he adds.

“To ensure that all layers will work together to provide adequate protection, they should all have energy-absorbing characteristics and work with the layer directly underneath or above,” Ransome says.

“If you need to wear layers,” Batson advises, “all your layers should be FR, not just one layer.”

Ransome cautions, however, that a user must remember that one cannot

Arc Over The Canadian Standards Association’s Z462 standard, “Workplace Electrical Safety,” and the National Fire Protection Association’s 70E “Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace” both spell out hazard risk categories (HRC).

Ranging from 1 to 4, the HRCs outline minimum arc rating — or the amount of energy in calories per square centimetre (cal/cm2) — needed to create the 50 per cent probability of a second-degree burn injury. The specific categories are as follows: HRC 1 is a minimum arc rating of 4 cal/cm2; HRC 2 is 8 cal/cm2; HRC 3 is 25 cal/cm2; and HRC 4 is 40 cal/cm2.

Andrew Wirts, sales and marketing director for NASCO Industries in Greenwood, Indiana, describes one cal/cm2 this way: it is equivalent to “sticking your finger in the hottest part of a Bic lighter flame for one second.”

Wirts cites the example of a garment that has an arc rating of 10. “If you were exposed to an arc that had 10 calories of incident energy, you could expect to receive a second-degree burn half of the time,” he reports.

Consider that in some environments, a worker may be exposed to an arc rating level of more than 100 cal/cm2, he says. “It could be pretty severe.”

“add up” the protection factors offered by various pieces of FR clothing to obtain a greater level of protection.

Even though statistics show there is less than a one per cent chance that an industrial worker will be exposed to a flash fire or arc flash over their work lives, Batson reports, safety cannot be

ignored 99 per cent of the time. “FR clothing has got to be viewed as a lifesaving device, just like an air bag in a car,” he maintains.

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Jason Contant is editor of occupational health

&

canadian

safety news.

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OCCUPATIONAL HYGIENE

outdoor work

The Buzz on Bites and Stings

By Samuel Dunsiger

L

ast summer, a construction safety consultant with Safeline Management Systems Inc. was stung by a bee while working at a highrise building project in Toronto.

The consultant “noticed severe swelling around the sting, irritation and then dizziness,” reports Jason Radovski, field manager for the Toronto-based company.

The reaction is certainly not unheard of after being bitten or stung by bees, wasps, mosquitoes or ticks found buzzing about outdoors. That means these little critters can put at risk any workers whose jobs take them from inside to outside.

“This includes construction workers, farmers, park staff and wildlife staff,” says Jan Chappel, an occupational hygienist and senior technical “There specialist at the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) in Hamcan be ilton, Ontario. To the list, Karen Bartlett, an occupational hygienist and professor in the breathing School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia in Van- difficulties couver, adds forestry workers, geologists, or shock.” camp counsellors and tree planters.

Keith McMillan, national representative for the Ontario region of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers’ Union of Canada, says there have been cases where once up a telephone pole — with nowhere else to go — telecommunications technicians have opened phone wiring boxes only to discover a bee or wasp nest inside.

“There is a risk of falling from a pole or ladder when swarmed by bees or wasps,” McMillan says. When not up a telephone pole, workers also deal with mosquitoes, ticks and spiders, just to name a few, he adds.

A bite or sting may also carry the potential for West Nile Virus (WNV) and Lyme disease. The CCOHS reports the effects of WNV, carried by infected mosquitoes, usually do not surface until three to 15 days following a bite; Lyme disease, caused by a bite from a bacteria-infected tick called Borrelia burgdorferi, can take three days to a month to develop.

Symptoms of WNV may include fever, headache and body ache; for Lyme disease, Chappel notes that “most often people will experience a mild illness that is sometimes accompanied by a peculiar skin rash. In some cases, however, the bacteria can spread to the joints, heart and brain, and cause serious health problems.”

WNV and Lyme disease cases are increasing, notes an email from the Public Health Agency of Canada in Ottawa.

For Lyme disease, the provinces report about 150 cases annually (half contracted outside the country); for WNV, the agency had been informed of 102 cases (64 in Ontario and 38 in Quebec) from January through November last year.

Bartlett recommends getting schooled on the behaviour

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of certain pests. “Ticks are pretty persistent,” she advises, but points out that it can take as long as 24 hours before they latch onto skin.

Noting that ticks are “usually waiting to strike in shrubs and tall grasslands,” she says it is important to do a tick check whenever leaving those areas. “If you do find one that is attached to your skin, use tweezers to grab the tick by its head and pull it straight out,” Bartlett recommends.

First aid at the scene may suffice for a sting or bite to an invulnerable area like an ankle, but a bite anywhere can carry serious consequences for someone who is allergic, Chappel says. “Sometimes there can be breathing difficulties or shock.

If that’s the case, visit the hospital.”

Other hazards when working outdoors include Hantavirus, linked to white-footed deer mouse droppings and nests, and histoplasmosis, associated with bats, says Bartlett, which geologists, exploration workers and miners may encounter.

Assess is best The key to minimizing bite- or sting-related risks is to be aware of work surroundings, advises Bruce Clarke, regional prevention manager for the Prince George region of WorkSafeBC. “It’s important to do a risk assessment of the area and what types of risks are occurring,” Clarke adds.

When addressing any hazard, Chappel says elimination is the best option. But when outdoors, “you can’t get rid of all insects everywhere,” she says. That necessitates bringing protective gear and administrative controls into the mix.

Among other things, Safeline Management Systems staff are provided insect repellent whenever they go into the field, Radovski says. “We identify insects to watch for, including black-flies and mosquitoes,” he notes. “We also go through emergency response plans to deal with allergic reactions.”

Bartlett suggests that workers wear long sleeves and pants to “make it less likely for [insects] to get under your skin.”

And it is best to keep things clean. Radovski says workers are advised to dump any standing water that might attract mosquitoes and Chappel recommends clearing away trash.

There are still employers and employees, however, who lack knowledge about potential risks, Clarke says.

Bartlett agrees. “I think we confuse outdoor workers with recreation. We tend to forget that we’re out there for long periods of time and that there are risks. We really need to change the consciousness that outdoor workers have about potential hazards and control measures.”

Enhanced awareness will never hurt. Consider that for the Safeline Management consultant, it was clear he had been stung; what was not so immediately evident was that he had a bee allergy. Medical attention was required immediately.

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Samuel Dunsiger is a writer in Toronto.

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WORKERS’ COMPENSATION

Small business

WCBs Receive Low Grades

By Jason Contant & Jean Lian

T

he small business view of how workers’ compensation boards (WCBs) and commissions are serving members could certainly be more complimentary.

That take is clear in “A Small Business Assessment of Workers’ Compensation,” a comparative study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) that looked at compensation bodies in the 10 provinces.

The report’s conclusion? Overall, WCBs are doing a poor job of meeting small business needs.

“Workplace safety and having a good plan for covering workplace injuries is a priority for everyone, so it is critical that boards are well-run. This includes keeping paperwork manageable and costs reasonable for employers,” notes a statement from the CFIB. The federation used 35 indicators — “Small such as frequency of lost-time claims, availability of online injury reporting for and large employers, payment methods and simplicity of forms and invoices — to rate employers WCB performance in seven areas: premium cost, claims management, experience have very rating, classification and assessment, coverage, long-term fiscal sustainability and different customer service. Results were weighted based on priority level for small businessexposures es in each area — premium cost ranked the most important at 27 per cent and cus- to the WCB tomer service the lowest at eight per cent. system.”

On a scale of zero to 10, Prince Edward Island’s WCB rated highest with a 6.9, while the two boards covering the largest share of employers, Ontario and Quebec, had the lowest scores — matching 4.0s.

Scores for the remaining provinces range from 5.2 to 6.4.

agree to disagree Clearly, not all boards are going to agree with the rankings provided. For example, the Alberta WCB — which was rated in the middle of the pack — reports that results from quarterly surveys show high overall satisfaction (82 per cent in 2010) with board services.

“Small and large employers have very different exposures to the WCB system,” says board spokesperson Shawn Friedenberger. The CFIB report “provides a very specific perspective that represents about 7.1 per cent of the claims we adjudicate each year, and approximately 12.2 per cent of the employer premiums we collect to fund the workers’ compensation system in Alberta,” Friedenberger adds.

Representatives for Richmond, British Columbia-based WorkSafeBC also see discrepancies in CFIB and board feedback. In 2010, 79 per cent of employers surveyed rated ser-

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vices provided by WorkSafeBC as good or very good, says Donna Freeman, director of media relations. “The CFIB survey is three years old and, in our view, may not reflect our customer service of today,” Freeman suggests.

For its part, a spokesperson for Quebec’s Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail in Montreal criticized the methodology used in the CFIB study.

Same, but different Doug Bruce, vice-president of research for the CFIB, says he found it surprising that while both Ontario and Quebec tied for last place in the study, each did so for different reasons.

Consider that Quebec topped all customer service scores, at 9.4, while Ontario bottomed out at 1.0. Compare that to Ontario’s middle-of-the-pack rating for cost of premiums, at 6.5, and Quebec scoring 3.1, the lowest of all WCBs. Bruce says each provincial CFIB has sent the study, touted as the first of its kind, to its respective WCB to initiate talks.

“We’re hoping this provides some incentive to make an improvement to have a better system for their small clients.”

Christine Arnott, a spokesperson for the Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) in Toronto, says that “like all Canadian workers’ compensation boards, the WSIB has work to do to improve the way it delivers its programs and services.” The plan is to “invite the CFIB to meet with senior management very soon to discuss their concerns and to provide them with details on the WSIB’s strategic direction and plans for future improvement,” Arnott says.

A CFIB official in Newfoundland and Labrador has already met with a representative for the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission in St. John’s. Bruce suggests the CFIB findings will be “quite helpful” to inform members of a recently named committee charged with reviewing the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Act about the views of small- and mid-sized employers.

On the western front, WorkSafeBC and CFIB staff have discussed survey results, Freeman says, adding that work has begun on some joint projects regarding customer service.

“We take all feedback seriously and will continue to focus on improving our service to all our customers,” she says.

The challenges identified by the CFIB in terms of funding, experience rating, classification and premiums are part of a year-long review of the WSIB, Arnott says, noting that recommendations were to be released in early 2012.

Nancy Guptill, chair of PEI’s board in Charlottetown, reports being pleased that the WCB received the highest rating.

“But more importantly, we welcome the feedback from small and medium businesses,” which make up an estimated 95 per cent of employers in the Island’s economy, Guptill says.

“One benefit of serving workers and employers in Canada’s smallest province is that we have direct access to many of our stakeholders, which results in meaningful dialogue and

effective consultation processes,” she points out.

But is it a matter of apples and oranges when comparing small and large WCBs? To address the challenge of obtaining data on some relevant indicators or, in other cases, getting comparable data, the CFIB report recommends that WCBs move toward common definitions of relevant indicators, and commit to timely reporting of these indicators.

Friedenberger says the goal should always be to consider feedback “in a responsible manner in order to maintain the balance among all stakeholders.” This includes developing policies and practices that work not only for small, medium and large employers, but for workers as well, he says.

Past consultations in PEI have revealed that some employers prefer taking the electronic route when conducting business with the WCB. The board implemented several online services for employers in 2011, including allowing them to request and receive clearance letters electronically.

Manitoba’s WCB has also hopped aboard the electronic bandwagon, offering new businesses the option of registering online, says director of communications Warren Preece.

As well, the board is working on increasing e-commerce and enhancing flexibility of payments, Preece reports.

Newfoundland and Labrador can relate. Employers can now set up interest-free, equal payment plans using preauthorized debit from March through December. Premium costs can be spread over the year, something expected to benefit seasonal sectors — think construction, fishing, logging and tourism — which have variations in cash flow.

less paper, more service Among the CFIB recommendations to make workers’ compensation more small business-friendly are the following: • commit to a long-term view of rate setting to prevent premiums from fluctuating widely year to year; • reduce rates after a funded position exceeds 110 per cent; • base assessments on actual, not forecasted, payroll; and, • ensure any experience rating program accounts for smaller firms with limited claims experience.

Bruce says that reducing unnecessary paperwork, avoiding use of jargon and A small handling business queries promptly will help improve the WCB experience. “A lot business of that would come from providing training to the front-line staff of the WCB.” owner Unlike larger companies with dedicated staff to deal with workers’ compensation generally matters that can be quite complex, Bruce wears a lot says that a small business owner generally wears a lot of hats. of hats.

As such, it is imperative for front-line WCB staff to “have a good understanding of where the small business owner is coming from and to give them a quick, correct answer to their concerns,” he adds.

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Jason Contant is editor of canadian occupational health & news; Jean Lian is associate editor of ohs canada.

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2012

67

OPINION

sedentary lifestyles

Business Moves on Inactivity

By Fabien Loszach

R

einventing the way employers do business can help in the battle against physical inactivity — a growing concern that threatens to put workplaces on the losing and costly end of employee “unwellness.”

Without a drive by Canadian employers to improve the daily lifestyle habits of their workers, obesity will have a dire impact on the competitive abilities of Canadian businesses.

By establishing recreational physical activities for workers, companies can help reverse the ever-expanding influence of physical inactivity. Providing memberships to gyms or setting up sports teams in a bid to increase activity levels are obvious solutions. However, employees typically go no more than once a week, which is not frequent enough to kick start a reversal of fortune.

The key for The World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva recommends at least 30 minutes business of moderate-intensity physical activity five days a week to prevent obesity. That may leaders is be advice worth taking since, as the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) in Otto find out tawa reports, 25 per cent of adults in the country are obese. what will The key for business leaders is to find out what will motivate employees to live more motivate healthy lifestyles, through group discussions and anonymous surveys. By getting employees. a firmer grasp on employee needs, employers can create wellness initiatives that encourage high rates of participation, thereby maximizing positive impact.

As part of well-conceived health and wellness policies, some companies have found the following measures effective: promoting walking and using stairs instead of taking elevators; starting a running club; purchasing furniture that encourages upright posture; hiring instructors or trainers to host fitness classes once or twice weekly; and installing climbing walls or elliptical trainers on the premises.

Beyond these, solutions may be organizational in nature, including flexible schedules that offer employees the time and means to be more active.

up and away The WHO reports that obesity is responsible for numerous chronic diseases — think cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and certain types of cancers — and for ever-increasing health costs. “Obesity in Canada,” a report by PHAC and the Canadian Institute for Health Information, offers these numbers: “It is estimated that obesity cost the Canadian economy approximately $4.6 billion in 2008, approximately $735 million or 19 per cent more than the $3.9 billion it cost in the year 2000. This is a conservative estimate, because it includes only

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the costs associated with the eight chronic diseases most often connected to obesity. Another study based on a similar approach that takes into account 18 chronic diseases concluded that the costs are much higher, reaching up to $7.1 billion.”

Although obesity may be linked to a genetic predisposition, the role of environmental factors — namely nutrition and lifestyle choices — is, nonetheless, fundamental.

Dieticians point to bigger portion size (a typical portion of French fries at a fast food restaurant in the United States is three times larger than it was in 1955) and increased consumption of sugar, fat and salt, substances found in large quantities in snacks, processed foods and beverages.

But there is also the extremely important role of lifestyle choices relating to daily habits, means of travel and commuting, and work and family life.

Carl-Étienne Juneau, Ph.D. candidate in public health from the Université de Montréal, has shown there is now a greater percentage of overweight or obese individuals — this despite the fact that Canadians have reduced caloric intake and increased physical activity since the 1970s. In fact, the percentage rose from 49.2 to 59.1 between 1978 and 2004.

The idea has been put forward that obesity may be linked to a decline in the number of jobs that require strength or physical activity, explained by an evolution in the nature of professional work.

“We estimate that daily occupation-related energy expenditure has decreased by more than 100 calories, and this reduction in energy expenditure accounts for a significant portion of the increase in mean U.S. body weight for women and men over the last five decades,” notes the article, “Trends Over 5 Decades in U.S. Occupation-Related Physical Activity and Their Associations With Obesity.” In the early 1960s, the article notes, “almost half of private industry occupations in the U.S. required at least moderate-intensity physical activity and now less than 20 per cent demand this level of activity.”

Add to the mix that the increase in time devoted to leisure and recreation has been matched by time spent in front of the television or computer, and the widespread adoption of commute by car versus travelling by foot.

Ultimately, employers must understand the needs and motivations of their employees, and take action to get them more active in their daily lives. Otherwise, Canadian businesses will fall victim to increases in costs and decreases in productivity, resulting in a great risk of falling behind in the global business competition.

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Fabien Loszach is co-founder of The Loszach Report.

Got an opinion? Good. Feel like sharing?

Send your written thoughts to astelmakowich@ohscanada.com.

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Canadian Occupational Health & Safety News

So, what’s on your mind?

March 2012

January/February 2012

Should sex workers be covered under occupational health and safety legislation?

Should whistleblower legislation prohibit employees from using the media to publicize suspected wrongdoing?

Yes

56%

Yes:

41%

No

44%

No:

59%

Total Votes

178

Total Votes:

147

Go on — have your say.

Check out www.ohscanada.com to vote in our latest poll.

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MARCH 2012

69

TIME OUT

The nose knows: A trucker in Newfoundland and

Labrador has fingered his own nose as the culprit responsible for a collision that sent his rig into a ditch not far from Gander. The 58-year-old operator reports he was approaching a bend along the Trans-Canada Highway when a series of sneezes caused him to lose control of the vehicle, which then hit the highway shoulder and rolled into the ditch, The Canadian Press noted in December. The operator had just started his shift when the path-altering incident occurred.

Although he ended up being pinned underneath the tractortrailer, the driver sustained only cuts and bruises.

Chew on this: With Spain’s economy facing lean

times, will long lunch breaks be cut from the menu? The oldfashioned way of enjoying the mid-day meal Spanish-style may have grown out of fashion, The Associated Press reported in November. Some economists have floated the idea of putting these relaxing affairs, often stretching to two or more hours, on the chopping block. Trimming fat continues to be uppermost in the minds of some, despite worker productivity flagging under the strain of increasingly long workdays.

The argument goes that ditching lunches — the norm for some workplaces, although not so for environments such as factories, assembly lines and shopping malls — would allow employees to return home earlier, helping them to recharge, get motivated and be ready for the next workday.

Zzzz: A Conservative MP looked to be bedding down for the night during a recent session of Question Period in the House of Commons. Thanks to YouTube, anyone who cares to can watch Rob Anders succumb to sleep as a fellow MP, northern development minister John Duncan, addresses parliament. Anders puts up a valiant fight, but eventually loses the battle to sweet slumber. What topic failed to keep Anders engaged? Oh, just the steps being taken by the Tory government to improve First Nations access to safe drinking water and reliable waste water treatment facilities. By late January, the sleepy post had about 74,500 alert views.

Thick day: Feeling sick? Got an appointment? Those looking for a sturdier excuse to get out of work would be well-advised to avoid what this 45-year-old Pennsylvanian did. The man had taken off work (without employer consent) and thought a death in the family would prevent him from being fired. He went so far as to have an obituary notice of his mother’s death published in the Jeffersonian Democrat, the Toronto Star reported in December. So imagine the surprise when relatives called the newspaper — and the mother actually showed up — to make it clear that reports of her death were greatly exaggerated. He was later charged with disorderly conduct. If that excuse was not inexcusable enough, consider this: a school employee in New York City faked her daughter’s death to get time off for a vacation in Costa Rica.

The woman told school officials her daughter had died in Costa Rica, requiring her to spend about two weeks there in 2010, The Associated Press reported in January. But a school official apparently grew suspicious because the “death” cer70

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tificate provided featured different fonts and the alignment was askew. It was later confirmed to be a fake. The employee was fired from her job as a parent co-ordinator (yikes!) and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge last fall.

Hair raising: No doubt, this hairstylist was shocked

when his car “blowed up real good.” The man smelled smoke while driving down a street in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, CBC News reported in January. Pulling to the side of the road, he moved the rear seat forward to check things out when a trunk load of hair care products ignited. The products then exploded, engulfing the car in flames. There were no injuries, although the heavily damaged car definitely needs a makeover.

Chilly reception: How un-Frosty-like. A not-so-jol-

ly-happy soul in Chestertown, Maryland failed to display appropriate seasonal spirit during the recent Christmas parade.

Things got a little heated when the 52-year-old man, dressed as the usually lovable Frosty the Snowman, came upon a police dog handler and his furry partner. The officer, who was sitting at an intersection helping with traffic control, directed the man away from the crowd, the Toronto Sun reported in November. Frosty responded to the frosty reception by taking off the costume’s head and using it to hit the officer. A scuffle ensued, ending with the man being charged with assaulting two officers — and kicking at the dog. Nasty Frosty.

Firing range: A British Columbia man was appar-

ently looking to paint the town red — perhaps even blue, yellow or green. The 48-year-old man was taken into custody after it is alleged he fired several paint balls in the direction of officers responding to a complaint in the Vancouver area, The Canadian Press reported in early 2012. RCMP officers arrived on scene in response to a report that a man entered a residence in Maple Ridge, British Columbia and threatened the homeowner. Several paint balls were shot toward the Mounties when they arrived on scene, forcing them to take cover.

They soon made contact with the suspect and took him into custody. The paint ball gun and other weapons were seized.

Revved up: Was it love or hate? One would need to speak

Crocodilian to get the lowdown on what was on the mind of a saltwater crocodile at the Australian Reptile Park near Sydney, The Associated Press reported in December. Elvis the crocodile — measuring five metres long and weighing in at 500 kilograms — may have been looking to make a connection when he whisked away a lawn mower. Unfortunately, the mower was not flying solo at the time; it was being handled by a keeper tending the lawn in Elvis’s enclosure. The croc lunged out of his lagoon toward the keeper, who had to use the machine to fend off the advances. Elvis then snatched the purring device in his jaws and raised it over his head before descending into the lagoon, the mower in tow. “Love or hate” was later lost, when Elvis’s attention was diverted by a big hunk of kangaroo meat and the keeper took a fully clothed dip into the lagoon to retrieve the machine.

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