OHS Canada July/August 2015

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 J ULY /AU G U S T 2015

C A N A D A

INSIDIOUS

infiltration Nanoparticles threaten heart health

HAZARDOUS MATERIALS

Speaking the same language

PARTNERS IN SAFETY

The art of prequalifying contractors

A DIFFERENT ANGLE

Redefining vulnerable workers

HEAR, HEAR

Guarding against noise-induced hearing loss

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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

FEATURES

HAZAR D OUS M ATER IALS 18

CC A A NNA AD DA A

Language of Risk

J U LY/ A U GU S T 2 0 1 5 Vo l u m e 3 1, Nu m b e r 4

Canada’s Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) is getting a facelift. How are companies handling the transition to the new WHMIS?

BY KELLY PUTTER

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C ON TR AC TOR M AN AGEM EN T

Ties that Bind

Many activities are performed by contractors. How can businesses ensure that contractors discharge their operational functions without compromising safety?

BY GLENN PRINGLE

N AN OPARTIC LES 30

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Beyond the Naked Eye

What you cannot see can hurt you, if not kill you. Nanoparticles of silicon dioxide that enter the circulatory system can lead to cardiovascular diseases.

BY DANNY KUCHARSKY

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DEPARTMENTS 38

S AF ETY GEAR

Hear, There and Everywhere

Excessive noise from workplaces can impair hearing. Identifying patterns of noise-induced hearing loss can guide preventive efforts.

BY JEFF COTTRILL

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S P EC IAL R EP ORT

The Weakest Links

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A survey by Toronto’s Institute for Work and Health offers a new way of looking at workplace vulnerability that shifts the focus from workers to work conditions.

IN THIS ISSUE

BY CARMELLE WOLFSON

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AC C ID EN T P R EV EN TION

ED IT O R IA L

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PA N O R A MA

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Handling grain is a dangerous job. Understanding the hazards that grain-processing facilities present is key to enabling workers to take appropriate safety precautions.

O H&S U P D AT E

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TIM E OUT

The Next Frontier

Northwest Territories gets oversight body on mine cleanup; corrections officer attacked in British Columbia prison; Alberta to extend safety law to farm workers; Manitoba proposes presumptive coverage for PTSD; Nova Scotia launches fishing-safety plan; and more.

Against the Grain

Riding with dummies; ruffled feathers; Operation Failure; under the covers; raining dildos; and more.

D IS PAT C HES

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S A FET Y 2 0 1 5 P R O D U C T S HO W CAS E A D IN D EX

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Protective equipment goes environmentally friendly; body present, mind absent; and more.

Safety is something that happens between your ears, not something you hold in your hands.

– JEFF COOPER

www.ohscanada.com

CONTENTS J_A 2015.indd 3

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EDITORIAL 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

The Next Frontier I

was at a walk-in clinic near Toronto when I vaguely overheard a patient asking about a doctor. The receptionist replied that the doctor in question had become a woman.

The conversation did not develop far enough for me to piece together information about the doctor, who has peaked my curiosity. But that chance encounter made me realize that the next frontier in the workplace is accommodating people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT).

In fact, that reality is already here. Apart from legislative developments that advance LGBT rights in the public sphere, those that affect workplaces include Parliament’s removal of prohibition on LGBTs to serve in the Canadian military in 1992 and the extension of many same-sex benefits, including health and relocation benefits, to federal employees in 1996 — the same year in which the Canadian Human Rights Act was amended to include sexual orientation explicitly as one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination. Most provinces and territories have also added sexual orientation to their human-rights codes.

As Canada’s human-rights laws protect people from discrimination based on factors that do not relate to personal merit or valid job requirements, employers who contravene the human-rights statutes can pay a hefty price. In 2013, a former Ottawa prison guard, who is gay, was awarded $98,000 in damages for harassment related to his sexual orientation.

But practical issues of accommodating LGBTs in workplaces remain thorny. One relates to the use of gender-specific bathrooms. In 2013, the House of Commons passed Bill C-279, which makes it illegal to discriminate against transgender people in Canada and requires courts to recognize and penalize hate crimes against trans people. This past February, Conservative Senator Don Plett introduced three amendments to the bill. One of these amendments, which exempt places like prisons, crisis centres and public washrooms and change rooms from the bill’s provisions, has drawn ire from the LGBT community. Senator Plett argued that this amendment protects public safety by prohibiting biological males who identify themselves as females to access vulnerable persons in places like ladies’ bathrooms and women’s shelters. This concern stems from a case involving a man named Christopher Hambrook, who claimed to be a transgender and gained access to a women’s shelter in Toronto, where he sexually assaulted two women in 2012.

There is no simple answer to this complex issue. According to a best-practices guide on restroom access for transgender workers by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Washington, D.C., some options that employers can consider include single-occupancy unisex facilities and multiple-occupancy, genderneutral restroom facilities with lockable single-occupant stalls.

While access to bathrooms presents a logistical challenge that needs to be further refined in both workplaces and society at large, the direction of embracing diversity in all its hues has already carved out a distinctive path. Profound changes have taken place in our lifetimes relating to gender, race and suffrage, and there is little reason why breaking down barriers should stop at LGBTs. Many companies in Canada have already embraced inclusion and diversity: TD has put in place guidelines on workplace gender transition; LGBT employees of Google Canada call themselves “Gayglers”; and the Royal Bank celebrates National Coming Out Day. Like old habits, prejudices die hard. Time offers the best hindsight. Just as many deeply entrenched prejudices widely accepted in the past would be considered faux pas today, in time, we would look back on policies and discourses that discriminate against LGBTs with disgust and wonder why it took us so long to see the light.

Jean Lian

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C A N A D A

Vol. 31, No. 4 JULY/AUGUST 2015

EDITOR JEAN LIAN jlian@ohscanada.com EDITOR

JEFF COTTRILL

CANADIAN OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY NEWS jcottrill@ohscanada.com

ART DIRECTOR

ANNE MIRON

PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER

PHYLLIS WRIGHT

PRODUCTION MANAGER

GARY WHITE

MARKETING SPECIALIST

DIMITRY EPELBAUM

CIRCULATION MANAGER

BARBARA ADELT badelt@annexnewcom.ca

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

SHEILA HEMSLEY shemsley@ohscanada.com

PUBLISHER

PRESIDENT, ANNEX-NEWCOM LP

PETER BOXER pboxer@ohscanada.com ALEX PAPANOU

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

DAVID IRETON, Safety Professional, Brampton, Ont. AL JOHNSON, Vice President, Prevention Services WorkSafeBC, Richmond, 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 Annex-Newcom LP as to the absolute correctness or sufficiency of any representation contained in this publication.

OHS CANADA is published six times per year by Annex-Newcom LP, a leading Canadian information company with interests in daily and community newspapers and business-to-business information services. The yearly issues include: JULY/AUGUST, March/April, May/June, July/August, September/October and November/ December. Application to mail at ­Periodicals Postage Rates is pending at Niagara Falls, N.Y. 14304. U.S. Postmaster, Office of Publication, send address corrections to: OHS Canada, 2424 Niagara Falls Blvd., Niagara Falls, NY 14304-0357.

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Date of issue: JULY/AUGUST 2015

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panorama

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$100,000

Fine issued to the Government of the Northwest Territories, which pleaded guilty on June 4 to failing, as an employer, to take reasonable precautions to protect its workers. The charge related to an incident at Yellowknife’s Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, where the employees had been exposed to asbestos.

2 3 4

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Eye on Demolition: Starting in July, WorkSafeBC prevention officers have increased inspections of residential demolition and renovation sites to ensure that contractors are adhering to health and safety laws when identifying and removing asbestos. Hundreds of houses are demolished and renovated every month in the province, with an increase over the summer months. Many buildings constructed before the late 1980s were made Source: WorkSafeBC of construction materials containing asbestos.

1.

Upping the base: Come October 1, Alberta’s general minimum wage will increase from $10.20 per hour to $11.20 per hour. The liquor-server minimum wage, which will be phased out in 2016, will rise from $9.20 per hour to $10.70 per hour. The province seeks to raise the minimum wage, which is currently the lowest Source: Alberta’s Ministry of Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour in the country, to $15 per hour by 2018.

Source: Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission

173

The number of workers in British Columbia who died of workplace injury or disease in 2014. Of that number, 98 fatalities were the result of occupational diseases.

Source: WorkSafeBC

2.

Stay Cool: As the summer began turning on the heat, SAFE Work Manitoba issued a statement on July 13, urging outdoor workers to take precautions against heat stress, which can range from general discomfort to more severe effects like heat stroke or heat illness. Measures to alleviate heat stress include wearing lightweight, Source: SAFE Work Manitoba light-coloured loose clothing, working in the shade and staying hydrated.

3.

Safety in Numbers: In May, Ontario announced the creation of an advisory group to provide advice on how best to implement the province’s Construction Health and Safety Action Plan, which seeks to beef up accident prevention in the construction sector. The Construction Health and Safety Advisory Group, consisting of four labour and four employer representatives, will work with parliamentary assistant Mike Colle and chief prevention officer George Gritziotis to offer guidance on the oh&s needs of the province’s construction sector.

Source: Ontario’s Ministry of Labour

4.

5. In Laymen’s Terms: WorkSafeNB has teamed up with the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety to launch an online, bilingual Guide to OHS Legislation for laypeople. The guide, launched on May 12, is a web portal that provides easy-to-understand information on more than 30 topics relating to workplace safety. Among the subjects covered are air quality, fall protection, traffic control, respiratory protection, noise, power tools and many others. Source: WorkSafeNB

360° 6

TOPPLED CRANES SMASH BUILDINGS Two cranes that were being used to restore a bridge in the central Dutch town of Alphen aan den Rijn collapsed onto buildings on August 3. The cranes, linked together on a pontoon, were lifting a vast steel ramp that formed the central bridge span when they toppled. A spokesperson for the local fire brigade said heavy machinery had been moved in to help with the rescue work.

Source: BBC News

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100

The number of police officers across Toronto who were outfitted with digital video cameras that clip onto their uniforms in May. The police force believes that body-worn devices enhance transparency and produce evidence that can be used in legal proceedings.

Source: Toronto Police Service

12

The number of workers who died in Ontario’s mines due to incidents involving motor vehicles and mobile equipment between 2000 and 2014.

Over July and August, the provincial labour ministry has been conducting an enforcement blitz at underground and surface mines, targeting traffic-control hazards.

Source: Ontario’s Ministry of Labour

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OH&S UPDATE

UNSAFE PRACTICES CITED FEDERAL — A Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) report has found that a lack of risk assessment and personal flotation devices (PFD) led to the drowning death of a fisherman near Calvert Island, British Columbia a year ago.

On June 6, 2014, a worker aboard the fishing vessel Diane Louise was setting prawn traps in the water when he fell overboard. The crew pulled him out a few minutes later and performed cardiac pulmonary resuscitation on him, but he died of his injuries.

According to the report, published on June 15 of this year, the victim became entangled in the boat’s ground line, which pulled him underwater. The investigation found that the vessel crew had not performed any risk assessments prior to the fishing trip and that none of the crew members had been wearing PFDs. The report notes that unsafe work practices may persist or develop if fishers do not conduct comprehensive risk assessments. “The safety of fishermen will be compromised until the com-

plex relationship and interdependency among safety issues is recognized and addressed by the fishing community,” the report adds.

RAIL-SAFETY ACT GETS NOD FEDERAL — Canada’s new Safe and Ac-

countable Rail Act has received Royal Assent, federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announced on June 18.

The Act consists of amendments to the Canada Transportation Act (CTA) to make federally regulated railway companies more liable for accidents involving dangerous goods through higher insurance requirements and a supplemental compensation fund to which railways must contribute $1.65 per tonne of crude oil that they transport.

According to a statement from Transport Canada (TC), the new Act also changes the Railway Safety Act (RSA) to broaden TC’s oversight powers and improve information-sharing requirements.

“I am so pleased to see these important amendments come into force,” Raitt says in the statement. “Raising standards

for rail safety and accountability is a great example of how the Government of Canada is protecting taxpayers and safeguarding the communities along our country’s rail corridors.”

Changes to the RSA went into effect immediately, while changes to the CTA will take effect on June 18, 2016.

MINISTER PROPOSES CHANGES FEDERAL — Transport Canada (TC) has announced yet another plan to make Canadian rail transportation safer. The proposed amendments to the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Regulations would enhance risk analysis and emergency response for trains carrying hazardous goods, such as crude oil.

According to a statement from TC, federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announced on June 5 that the amendments would improve reporting requirements and make data collection more complete and comprehensive. The new reporting requirements, if passed, would apply to railways carrying dangerous goods, as well as to road vehicles, airplanes, aero-

BODY OVERSEES MINE CLEANUP YELLOWKNIFE — The federal government, the government of

the Northwest Territories and four other parties have signed an Environmental Agreement to establish an independent, six-member oversight body to provide guidance on the ongoing cleanup of toxic material in a former gold mine located close to the Yellowknife community of N’dilo.

According to an announcement made by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) on June 17, this oversight body is one of the primary requirements of the 2014 Giant Mine Remediation Project Environmental Assessment. The group will be in charge of a research program to deal with the arsenic-trioxide waste in Giant Mine, which operated as a gold mine from 1948 to 1999. The mine, which has been shut down since 2004, has about 237,000 metric tonnes of arsenic trioxide contained underground at the site.

Bernard Valcourt, federal Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, signed the agreement on June 3, followed by the Northwest Territories Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Michael Miltenberger on June 9. Other signatories include Yellowknife mayor Mark Heyck, Yellowknives Dene First Nation chief Ernest Betsina, Alterna-

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tives North representative Kevin O’Reilly and North Slave Métis Alliance president William Enge. Members of the oversight body will be drawn from each of the six signing organizations, the statement says.

“We are proud to sign the Environmental Agreement and take an important step forward towards the creation of an independent oversight body for the Giant Mine remediation project,” Valcourt says in a statement.

Miltenberger says the agreement will “ensure residents have an active voice on the ongoing remediation of the Giant Mine Site, including research into to a permanent solution for dealing with the arsenic trioxide underground.” Heyck, meanwhile, calls the signing “a milestone in the history of our community’s work on the Giant Mine Remediation Project.”

Among the agreement’s objectives is to remediate Giant Mine in a way that protects both the local environment — including “the land, air, water, aquatic life and other wildlife in the area” — and residents of the area, including all First Nations people, the agreement reads. The oversight body will be headquartered in Yellowknife and is anticipated to be in operation until the close of the 2015-16 fiscal year.

— By Jeff Cottrill

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dromes and air-cargo facilities.

“Transport Canada remains committed to having the most robust requirements in place to transport dangerous goods in order to keep Canadians safe,” Raitt says in the statement.

Among the advised changes to the current regulations include updating the criteria and circumstances under which dangerous-goods-related transportation incidents are reported and introducing a new requirement for reporting lost, stolen or otherwise tampered-with dangerous goods to be more consistent with the security requirements under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act.

CHARGES LAID OVER DERAILMENT FEDERAL — Charges under the Railway

Safety Act and Fisheries Act have been laid in connection with the fatal LacMégantic derailment in July 2013.

Transport Canada announced on June 22 that an insufficient amount of handbrakes had been applied to the train before it careened down a slope

and derailed and that the brakes had not been properly tested in advance.

The release of crude oil from punctured tank cars also violated the Fisheries Act’s prohibition of depositing a deleterious substance into waters that contain fish.

“Transport Canada takes the safety of the Canadian railway system very seriously,” says TC, which did not indicate whom the charges had been laid against. The party facing the charges must appear in court in November.

WORKERS EXPOSED TO SMOKE IQALUIT — The Justice of the Peace Court of Iqaluit has ordered J&N Moving Ltd. to pay a fine of $2,000, plus a 15 per cent victim-of-crime surcharge, for failing to protect its employees from exposure to tobacco smoke in an enclosed workspace.

On February 4, an inspection by a safety officer with the Workers’ Safety & Compensation Commission (WSCC) discovered evidence of smoking in the moving company’s workplace, according to a statement issued by the Commission

on May 27.

On May 20, a J&N representative pleaded guilty to contravening Section 1(a) of the Environmental Tobacco Smoke Work Site Regulations, which pertains to controlling workers’ exposure to tobacco smoke. ”It is important that all employers provide safe work environments by prohibiting smoking in an enclosed worksite and outside the enclosed worksite within a three-metre radius of any entrance to or exit from the site,” the WSCC says in the statement.

WILDFIRE CLAIMS TREE FALLER SECHELT — A tree faller was killed while helping to fight a wildfire at the Old Sechelt Mine near Sechelt, British Columbia on July 5.

The B.C. Coroners Service (BCCS) says in a statement that the victim was felling trees at about 11:45 a.m. that day when one tree fell on top of him, killing him instantly. Officers with the RCMP’s Sunshine Coast detachment

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and the B.C. Ambulance Service were called to the scene of the incident shortly after noon. The BCCS confirmed the deceased worker was 60-year-old John Joe Phare, who had lived in Roberts Creek.

Phare was a contract worker with the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS).

“This is a tragic example of how truly dangerous it is for those battling these wildfires and should serve as a reminder of just how important it is for us all to

do our best to prevent these fires from starting in the first place,” Constable Harrison Mohr of the detachment says in a statement. “We are fortunate to have such brave men and women working to protect our homes and communities.”

Wildfire-related occupational fatalities seldom happen in British Columbia, according to Trish Knight Chernecki, WorkSafeBC’s senior manager of media and government relations. “We haven’t

had a fatality for a wildfire for — the records I have seen is, over 10 years,” she says. “So this is very rare.”

The BCWS has expressed public condolences for Phare’s death, as have the United Steelworkers, the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union and the National Union on Public and General Employees.

PROVINCE MULLS CODE CHANGES EDMONTON – Alberta’s Ministry of Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour is considering adding workplace harassment to the province’s occupational health and safety code.

This year, the provincial government is consulting with stakeholders and the public on necessary changes to the code, which is updated every five years, according to Lori Sigurdson, Alberta’s Minister of Jobs, Skills, Labour and Training.

“Some of the feedback we have received in the last round of consultation proposed an amendment requiring employers to develop policy and procedure for workplace harassment,” Sigurdson says. “We will continue the review process to inform any changes to the code we make.”

Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) president Gil McGowan says he is pleased to hear about the Ministry’s willingness to consider expanding the code to include harassment.

He adds that the AFL made some rather substantial suggestions about adding harassment policies several months ago and that other provinces have taken the lead in this aspect, most notably Ontario. “We should be doing the same,” McGowan says.

Ontario introduced workplace-harassment policies into its legislation in 2009, with the passing of Bill 168. An amendment to Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, the bill defines workplace harassment as engaging in a course of vexatious comment or conduct against a worker in a workplace that is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome. The law requires employers in the province to prepare their own harassment policies and review them at least once a year.

“Our government is committed to ensuring all workplaces are a safe and healthy place for all Alberta employees,” Sigurdson affirms. “We continually review our occupational health and

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OFFICER ATTACKED BY INMATE IN PRISON KAMLOOPS — A correctional officer was severely beaten by

an inmate at the Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre (KRCC) in Kamloops, British Columbia on June 24 — the latest in a series of violent incidents in the province’s prisons, according to the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU).

“An officer was sucker-punched in the head,” says Dean Purdy, vice-president of corrections with BCGEU’s oh&s task force. “He fell to the ground, hitting his head on the way down, and was subsequently punched several more times in the head and body while he was down. And then he was bitten in the shoulder, arm and wrist.”

This was the second reported attack on a correctional officer in a British Columbia maximum-security prison that week, Purdy adds. A female officer at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre in Maple Ridge had been splashed with fecal matter and urine while being punched in the head by an inmate.

Cindy Rose, spokesperson for B.C. Corrections, confirms that the Kamloops incident occurred, but cannot provide additional details due to mandatory privacy laws. “While he is understandably shaken, he is doing okay,” Rose says about the officer. “That type of situation is very upsetting for everyone, anytime one of our correctional officers is hurt,” she adds. “It is a very challenging job.”

Purdy charges that this was not an isolated incident, but the 67th assault on correctional officers at KRCC since 2011 and the 10th on officers at KRCC this year. He fingers overcrowding as a prime reason for excessive violence in the

safety legislation to make sure that the workplace standards are current with our province’s evolving workplaces.”

POLICEMAN ON DUTY SHOT DEAD EDMONTON — An Edmonton Police Ser-

vice (EPS) officer was killed and a second one injured while executing a warrant on June 8.

A group of officers was entering the west-end residence of 42-year-old Norman Raddatz, whom they were going to charge with criminal harassment, according to a statement from the EPS. The police’s entry into the residence triggered a shooting from inside.

Constable Daniel Woodall, 35, of the service’s hate-crimes unit was fatally wounded. Another officer, 38-year-old Sergeant Jason Harley of the Southwest Division Patrol, was sent to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries and released later that night. The EPS have credited the bullet-proof vest that Sergeant Harley was wearing for his survival.

“This is a tragic night for the Edmon-

province’s jails, pointing to a 154 per cent level of overcapacity at KRCC. “Very unstable and violent inmates who should be kept separate from the general population are being held in regular living units, putting our officers in harm’s way, subjecting them to violence in the workplace,” he argues. “The staff co-exist with the inmates in the living units.”

But a more important problem is understaffing. “We can handle the number of inmates if we have the right number of staff,” says Purdy, adding that two officers are needed in each unit.

While acknowledging that the province’s prisons have had a problem with overcrowding in recent years, Rose counters that the situation has improved. “Since 2007, we have invested almost half a billion dollars,” reports Rose, “into increasing capacity throughout the province, which, in turn, creates a safer environment for staff and inmates.”

She also cites a drop in the province-wide capacity rate from 180 per cent to 125 per cent since 2010 and claims that assaults against prison staff in the province dropped from 105 in 2012 to 70 last year. “We do everything we can to ensure a safe environment, especially for our staff,” she says. “But given the criminal histories and the unpredictable behaviour of those that are in custody, it is impossible to eliminate risk all of the time.”

Purdy says WorkSafeBC has been investigating KRCC since the most recent incident. “We are hopeful that the investigation will lead to changes that will make our job a safer place to work.”

— By Jeff Cottrill

ton Police Service and our city,” EPS Chief Rod Knecht says in a statement.

After the shooting, the residence reportedly caught fire. Later that night, officers found a body in the basement.

On June 11, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) confirmed that the body was that of Raddatz, who had committed suicide. The medical examiner’s office determined that the cause and manner of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. “It has also been confirmed that he was already deceased by the time fire engulfed the home,” the ASIRT reports in a statement.

Constable Woodall served with the EPS for eight years, after being recruited from England, according to information from the police.

GAS-AND-DASH KILLS EMPLOYEE CALGARY — A 35-year-old service-station

attendant in Calgary is dead after being hit by the vehicle of a customer who fled without paying for gas.

At about 11:00 a.m. on June 7, the

driver of a stolen 2006 Ford pickup truck pulled into a Centex Petroleum gas station in northwest Calgary to fill up the tank and drove away without paying.

According to a statement issued on June 8 by the Calgary Police Service (CPS), Centex employee Ashtiana Rashidi ran after the truck and caught up with it when it pulled into a parking lot a block away. Rashidi stood in front of the truck in an attempt to block it from fleeing, but the truck took off.

“The Ford struck her as it exited the parking lot and carried her on the hood approximately 15 metres,” a subsequent CPS statement reports. She was thrown off of the hood and run over by the Ford as it fled the scene westbound. The worker was sent to the hospital in critical condition, but she succumbed to her injuries on June 9.

The day after the incident, police tracked down the abandoned truck and located two suspects at a residential home. The alleged driver, a 20-year-old man, is expected to face charges of criminal negligence, dangerous driving and hit and run — all causing death — as

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ALBERTA WILL APPLY SAFETY LAW TO FARM WORKERS EDMONTON — The Alberta Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is considering plans to extend workplace-safety legislation to agricultural workers. The province is the only one in Canada that excludes farm employees from oh&s protection.

“We feel that it is time that farm workers no longer have an exemption from health and safety regulations,” says agriculture minister Oneil Carlier. “The same regulations that protect other workers should protect farm workers too. So we are moving forward with that.”

Carlier adds that the legal details and timing will be up to the Ministry of Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour, headed

by Lori Sigurdson. “I am still hoping sooner better than later, but I have no actual timelines.”

Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan says he and his organization are “thrilled” with the ministry’s proposition and that the Rachel Notley government is living up to its commitment to extend basic workplace health and safety protection to agricultural workers.

Carlier, whose NDP government took power in May, says he does not know why Alberta still lacks basic oh&s coverage for agriculture. “I can’t speak on previous governments,” Carlier says, “but I know previous governments had been working forward. They had consultations and discussions with stakeholders, and we are taking that a step further.”

Last fall, then-Premier Jim Prentice said he would consider bringing large-scale farms under oh&s law, but wanted to see more research on the issue before making a commitment.

McGowan says the delay was largely due to lobbying in the province’s business community, which remained opposed to oh&s coverage. “There is absolutely nothing to fear from extending these kinds of protections to agricultural workers,” McGowan says. “These kinds of basic workplace health and safety protections will not bankrupt any businesses, but they almost certainly will save lives.”

Eric Musekamp, president of the Farmworkers Union of Alberta (FUA), says he is optimistic about the direction in which the government is heading. The FUA has met with the provincial health, education, transportation and environment ministers to discuss safety protection for farming, Musekamp says. “They want to do it. They consider it to be an abomination to have these Dickensian standards in agriculture.” He adds that he has advised Carlier to adopt safety legislation similar to that of British Columbia.

Carlier acknowledges he had discussions with Musekamp on farm safety. “We are looking at various models, but we need to have something that is going to be made for Alberta and work for Alberta, both the producers and the workers.”

— By Jeff Cottrill well as theft and possession of stolen property. A 16-year-old male, identified as the passenger in the truck during the incident, faces no charges. Police believe that the same vehicle was involved in a similar gas-and-run incident at a different station on June 5, according to the initial statement.

On June 8, Centex president Alnoor Bhura expressed his condolences to Rashidi and her family. Bhura also accused the former Alberta government, headed by Jim Prentice, of having shown “very little or no leadership” on the issue of drivers who flee service stations without paying, despite past pressure from police organizations to adopt pay-before-pump laws.

“These types of thefts are deliberate and occur all too often across the province every day,” Bhura charges. “We clearly tell our employees to phone the police and not to put themselves at risk by chasing ‘gas runaways’, [but] it is understandable how an employee may react in the heat of the moment.”

The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) has also responded by calling for a pay-before-pump law. “Almost every province in Canada enacted pay-before-you-pump legislation after a similar tragedy in British Columbia a decade ago,” AFL president Gil McGowan says in a statement issued on June 11.

“This is something that should have and could have been dealt with a decade ago.”

The AFL’s executive committee has voted to confront the Rachel Notley government and recommend a four-part plan to handle gas-and-dash drivers, according to an AFL statement.

EX-CLAIMANT GUILTY OF FRAUD SASKATOON — A man who went back to work while still living

on workers’ compensation has been convicted of defrauding the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB).

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At the Saskatoon Queen’s Bench Court, the former claimant pleaded guilty to receiving more than $5,000 in income replacement from the WCB after returning to work. On June 19, he received a six-month conditional sentence and was ordered to pay the WCB back.

“The WCB has a responsibility to safeguard the workers’ compensation system,” Saskatchewan WCB says in a statement issued on June 22. “It relies on workers, employers and caregivers to accurately report injuries, employment activities, payroll and medical treatment.”

ANTHRAX DETECTED IN BISON NORTH BATTLEFORD — The Saskatchewan

government is warning the provincial agriculture industry to beware of the presence of anthrax in farm animals.

A statement from Saskatchewan Agriculture issued on July 9 confirms that anthrax was discovered in bison located northwest of North Battleford, where laboratory results have determined that the disease killed two bison. Anthrax is

also suspected as the cause of death of seven others.

Saskatchewan Agriculture cautions that animals can contract anthrax by eating forage containing spores that have the bacteria Bacillus anthracis inside them. “The carcasses of any animal suspected of having anthrax should not be moved or disturbed,” the ministry says.

“People can get infected through direct contact with sick animals or carcasses.”

People who believe that they have been exposed should contact their local health authority or physician for advice. The agency also recommends that farms that have experienced previous outbreaks should vaccinate all of their animals against anthrax and encourage others to consider vaccination if neighbouring farms have the disease.

TWO-PERSON CREW UNSAFE OTTAWA — A health and safety officer from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) ruled on July 3 that a two-worker crew for an armoured car

had been justified in refusing to work on the grounds of unsafe conditions.

The case involved two Brinks employees who had refused to work at two shopping malls in Ottawa, according to a statement from Unifor, which represents both workers through Local 4266.

One of the crew members would have had to walk through the malls alone, while the other stayed with the vehicle.

“This is a very important ruling that backs up what Unifor has been saying,” Mike Armstrong, spokesperson for Unifor, which represents about 2,000 armoured-car workers nationwide, says in a statement following the verdict. “Twoperson crews such as this increase the risk of robbery, and that puts both the crew members and the public at large at greater risk. Cost cutting cannot come at the price of risking public safety.”

Unifor cites a previous case in which two Brinks employees refused to work in Peterborough and Sudbury — a case that was also decided in favour of the workers — as well as robberies of twoperson crews that took place in Toronto and Montreal early last year.

PROVINCE PROPOSES PRESUMPTIVE COVERAGE FOR PTSD WINNIPEG — Manitoba may become the first Canadian prov-

ince to recognize post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a compensable work disease for any profession. On June 8, the provincial government introduced a bill that, if passed, would deem PTSD to be a presumptively occupational condition applicable through the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba (WCB).

“This is groundbreaking,” says Erna Braun, the province’s Minister of Labour and Immigration in Winnipeg.

“For the first time, presumptive legislation is tied directly to a diagnosis, and it includes every worker eligible under the Workers’ Compensation Board.”

The bill proposes amendments to Manitoba’s Workers Compensation Act that would presume work as the cause of PTSD. “It makes it easier, therefore, for the folks to access supports, treatments and compensation,” Braun says.

She adds that these amendments will cover all workers, regardless of occupation — as opposed to in Alberta, where presumptive PTSD legislation covers first responders only.

According to WCB communications director Warren Preece, the Board already covers PTSD, as well as psychological damage arising on the job. “What will be new, once the bill passes, is that if you have PTSD and come file a claim, it will be presumed to have happened at work. But it is what we call a rebuttable presumption,” he explains. “So we will still have to verify that you really do have PTSD, that that is what your condition is and that it did happen at work.”

Braun acknowledges that the WCB has approved PTSD claims in the past. “But we felt there was an important ele-

ment to having it presumptive, because that does provide for a much speedier action on the disease.”

According to Braun, the government has been considering legislation of this kind for several years. “First responders have spoken to us about the need to do this, to provide timely and important healthcare interventions that are needed with post-traumatic stress disorder,” she reports. “Other work groups have spoken to us as well.”

This is not the first time Manitoba has considered legislation for presumptive occupational disease. “We have updated and amended our Act over the years to address different cancers that we have come to recognize as being part of the risk that firefighters experience,” Braun says.

“Other provinces, and certainly other countries, have looked at Manitoba’s legislation and have followed suit.”

The new bill has received support from such organizations as the Manitoba Federation of Labour (MFL), the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union, the Manitoba Nurses Union and the United Firefighters of Winnipeg, according to a government statement.

“PTSD is a real threat to working people,” says MFL president Kevin Rebeck. “It comes as no surprise to me that Manitoba is the first jurisdiction to put this level of protection into legislation.”

Preece says the WCB will leave it to the government to decide on the final merits of the bill. “There will be public hearings, and then out of the end will be a final bill, and we will implement it.”

— By Jeff Cottrill

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OTTAWA — The federal government has overhauled Health Canada’s (HC) web page on the risks of asbestos, acknowledging for the first time that all forms of the mineral are carcinogenic.

The new public information, which was posted to the HC site on June 19, replaced the previous write-up dated October 14, 2012. The most significant change is that the new information does not distinguish between asbestos types that supposedly differ in danger levels. The previous information classified two types of asbestos: amphibole, acknowledged as “likely to inflict damage [in the lungs] and cause disease, including cancer”, and chrysotile, previously dismissed as “less potent” due to structural and chemical differences.

“Breathing in asbestos fibres can cause cancer and other diseases,” HC’s asbestos page currently reads, citing asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer as the main risks.

Another telling difference is that while the previous information claimed that asbestos fibres caused these diseases “when inhaled in significant quantities,” the updated information states nothing about quantity — implying that there is no threshold to the risk.

This update is the latest development in Canada regarding the public and occupational risks of asbestos. On July 3, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) sent out a statement that supported HC’s changes, but also criticized the Stephen Harper government for continuing to back the sale and import of asbestos in Canada through last year’s Bill C-31, which had revised the Hazardous Products Act. “Though Health Canada’s change in position is welcome, these changes alone are not a solution to protect workers,” CUPE states. “The real issue lies in both federal and provincial regulations, which are often weak or go unenforced, leaving workers at risk.”

The Canadian Conference of Asbestos Workers (CCAW) applauds the change, but cautions that more work needs to be done. In a statement sent out on July 7, the organization recommends that the federal government initiate a nationwide ban on asbestos and prohibit the use of the mineral in water pipes, drywall and similar products. Such bans would bring Canada up to the level of countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan.

“The harmful health effects resulting from exposure to asbestos are an immediate concern for our workers,” CCAW president Louis Dugay says in the statement. “Certainly, the public acknowledgement of the dangers associated with these products and materials [is] a welcome step forward.”

More than 50 countries have banned asbestos in all of its forms, according to the Canadian Cancer Society. Canada continued to mine chrysotile asbestos until 2012.

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WHITBY — A court has sentenced a construction partnership to pay a fine of $50,000 for an incident that occurred at a worksite in Whitby, Ontario last year.

According to a statement issued by the Ontario Ministry of Labour (MOL) on June 9, 407 East Construction General Partnership (407ECGP), which comprises the construction firms SNC-Lavalin Construction (Ontario) Inc. and Ferrovial-Agroman Canada Inc., is building a highway extension through

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FEDERATION DEMANDS CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS TORONTO — Following the death of a 22-year-old female miner east of Timmins, Ontario, the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) reached out to the province’s police and Crown attorneys, demanding more vigorous pursuit of criminal prosecutions for workplace fatalities.

In a statement dated May 26, the OFL stated that it had written to Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) detachments in Almaguin Highlands and Matheson regarding workplace deaths in those regions. On the previous day, the Federation received a response from Detective Sergeant Stacey Whaley of the former detachment, saying that the OPP would review the file of a 2013 falling death at a mill near Parry Sound, which had resulted in a $90,000 fine.

“We are finding that all over the place, these employers are pleading guilty to the lesser charges by the Ministry of Labour,” OFL president Sid Ryan says. When the police get involved, “they take a look, see that the Ministry of Labour is on the job, they investigate and see that there is no foul play, and then they leave,” he notes. “We are just seeing too many deaths, and the only way it is going to stop is when supervisors, CEOs, company owners — when all of them decide that it is not worth the risk not to invest in health and safety.”

Ryan also wrote to Staff Sergeant Dan Foy of the OPP in Matheson, regarding the death of 22-year-old Alexie Dallaire-Vincent at the Holt Mine near Black River-Matheson on May 23. Dallaire-Vincent was the victim of an underground rail-haulage accident. According to information from the OFL, this was the second work-related fatality at the Holt

Ajax, Whitby and Oshawa.

On January 21, 2014, an employee of a subcontractor with 407ECGP was driving an excavator along a road when the boom struck overhead power lines with a voltage of 13.7 kilovolts, resulting in a power outage in the area. There were no injuries in the incident, but an MOL investigation later found that the employers had not posted any signs warning workers of the power lines in the construction area.

On June 2 of this year, 407ECGP pleaded guilty to failing to carry out prescribed safety measures and procedures in the project, in contravention of Section 44(1) of Ontario Regulation 231/91.

FIRST-AID STANDARD IN THE WORKS TORONTO — CSA Group is in the pro-

cess of developing what would be Canada’s first voluntary national standard on first aid in the workplace. The standards organization is calling for participants from employer, employee, regulator, training-provider and general-interest

Mine in less than a year.

“There is nothing worse than a fatality in the workplace,” Ryan says. “When this is the second time that a worker was killed in a particular site, obviously, there is something drastically wrong with the way that mine has been operated.”

Ryan cites the Bill C-45 amendments to the Criminal Code, also known as the Westray Law, which has made employers criminally liable for negligence in occupational fatalities since 2004. He claims that about 80 workers lose their lives in workplace incidents in Ontario each year; this translates into more than 800 worker deaths since the enactment of the Westray Law. “We have only had one case, which was Metron, where the police actively got engaged and actually laid some criminal charges,” said Ryan, referring to the 2009 scaffolding collapse that prompted a $1,000,000 fine against the negligent company. “Well, we have yet to see that kind of attention being paid to any other death in the workplace.”

Apart from the OFL, United Steelworkers (USW) also called for more application of the Westray Law in a May 26 statement. “Workers continue to be killed at an alarming rate across Canada,” USW national director Ken Neumann says. “Attorneys General must step up to the plate and demand full enforcement of the law we fought for to hold corporations, their directors and executives accountable for workplace death and injury.”

Ryan stresses that a “cultural change” needs to take place in the minds of employers and frontline supervisors.

— By Jeff Cottrill

stakeholders to volunteer on the Technical Committee (TC) on Workplace First Aid to create the new consensus-based standard, CSA Group says in a statement on May 8.

“It is a really exciting project, and I think that it is very timely,” says Jeanne Bank, health and safety standards manager with CSA Group in Toronto. “What we are hearing from a lot of the regulatory bodies is that they were going to be having to update their programs anyway, so to be able to do it under our umbrella makes a lot more sense.”

The Canadian Red Cross and regulators approached CSA Group about exploring the feasibility of a national standard due to the differences that exist across jurisdictions for workplace firstaid requirements, Bank says. In October 2014, CSA Group and the Canadian Red Cross held their first stakeholder consultation to discuss the idea.

“There has been quite a positive response so far. So we are hoping to be able to establish a good technical committee that has that balance of representation,” she notes.

According to Bank, the final standard should be completed within 18 months of the first TC meeting scheduled in fall.

Once the committee has reached a consensus on the draft document, there will be a 60-day public review period. After reviewing the public’s comments, the committee will revise and vote on the standard. Provincial regulators will then decide whether to endorse or implement that standard within their jurisdictions.

BURN INJURY PROMPTS FINE BRAMPTON — A Brampton court issued

an $80,000 fine to an automotive-part producer on May 28 for an incident that left an employee with serious burns three years ago.

On June 25, 2012, the victim was repairing plastic injection molding machines backed up with melted plastic at the Brampton, Ontario plant of Magna Exteriors & Interiors Corporation. After he cracked bolts loose to remove a nozzle, the machine suddenly expelled molten plastic at the worker, who was not wear-

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ing a face shield, the Ontario Ministry of Labour reports. The material struck the worker primarily in the torso area.

According to Ontario Regulation 851, any worker exposed to possible contact with hot objects or liquid must wear sufficient protective apparel. Magna was found guilty of failing to ensure that this legal procedure was carried out.

NEW LEGISLATION PROPOSED TORONTO — The Ontario government is proposing new legislation that, if passed, would amend the province’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Act (WSIA), the Fire Prevention and Protection Act and the Public Sector Labour Relations Transition Act. According to a Ministry of Labour statement issued on May 28, the Employment and Labour Statute Law Amendment Act, 2015 would help protect workers’ rights by calculating survivor benefits based on the deceased worker’s occupation at the time of his or her diagnosis, prohibiting employers from preventing employees from reporting injuries or illnesses to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, raising the maximum corporate fine for WSIA offences from $100,000 to $500,000 and having the Ontario Labour Relations Board — rather than provincial courts — settle labour disputes, particularly for the firefighting industry.

“Our government is committed to advancing safe, fair and respectful workplace practices,” Labour Minister Kevin Flynn says in a statement. “That is why I have proposed these changes, which will, if they become law, provide increased fairness to workers.”

PROVINCE INVESTS IN RESEARCH TORONTO — The Ontario Ministry of Labour (MOL) has announced that the provincial government will fund projects relating to occupational health and safety.

According to a statement from the MOL issued on June 1, the government’s Research Opportunities Program is investing a total of $2.7 million this year into research projects that aim to reduce job-related injuries, deaths and illnesses in Ontario. Thirteen projects have been chosen to receive grants.

“Reducing workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities is our top priority,” On-

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tario Labour Minister Kevin Flynn says.

“These projects will provide evidence that will help us focus our planning and spread best practices, so we can continue to reduce injuries and save lives in workplaces across Ontario.”

The investment is part of the government’s ongoing four-part plan to improve the province’s economy and infrastructure, the MOL statement notes. Prior to allocating funding to respective oh&s projects, applications go through a fivestep process that includes evaluation by a separate group of researchers.

WINDOW WASHER INJURED NIAGARA FALLS — A 26-year-old male subcontractor suffered serious injuries in a workplace accident at the Hilton Hotel overlooking Niagara Falls on June 2.

The Niagara Regional Police Service (NRPS) reports that its communications unit received a 9-1-1 call that day regarding a window washer who had been injured around the 53rd floor of the hotel’s North Tower. The NRPS casino-patrol unit attended the man on the rooftop of the tower, as did Niagara Emergency Medical Services, the Niagara Falls Fire Service and the Niagara Parks Police HighAngle Rescue Team.

The NRPS did not specify how the worker had become injured. The Ministry of Labour is investigating the incident.

OFFICERS WOUNDED ON DUTY LINCOLN — Two Niagara Regional Police Service (NRPS) officers sustained injuries in an unspecified incident that took place during a house fire in Vineland, a community in the town of Lincoln.

A media release from the NRPS stated that the officers, who were based at the service’s Grimsby location, has visited a residential home in the community at about 8:35 p.m. on July 5. The officers were injured in what the NRPS have called an “interaction” with a person at the residence, but the police have not specified the nature of the interaction.

One of the officers received medical treatment locally, while the other was transported to a hospital outside of the area by air ambulance. A fire occurred at the residence during the incident, and two deceased bodies have been found there, according to the statement. The NRPS is investigating the incident.

FARM WORKER HURT IN ACCIDENT NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE — A 72-year-old

man recovered in the hospital after suffering life-threatening injuries during a vehicle accident at a farm.

On the afternoon of June 20, the farm worker was driving a John Deere Gator utility vehicle at Seaway Farms in Niagara-on-the-Lake, when he hit the rear of a parked 1974 Ford truck, the Niagara Regional Police Service (NRPS) reports.

Local police and emergency medical services arrived at the scene at about 3:45 p.m., and an ambulance brought the victim to the Niagara Health Sciences hospital in St. Catharines. He was later transferred to the Hamilton Health Sciences general site, and his condition “improved,” says an NRPS statement.

MINERS IN QUEBEC RESCUED PREISSAC — Nine workers were rescued from a gold mine in Preissac, Quebec, after a section of the mine collapsed due to seismic activity in an unstable area.

The collapse occurred on May 26 at level 104 of the Westwood Mine, run

by IAMGOLD Corporation, Westwood general manager Sylvain Lehoux reports.

Ground fell in between sub-levels 104-2 and 104-8; eight miners were trapped on sub-level 104-4 and a ninth one trapped alone on 104-6. All nine workers were brought back to the surface with no injuries that evening.

“We had to pull the muck out by remote control,” Lehoux says. The eight miners on 104-4 were not completely without necessities. “They had water and food because one of the guys had a big lunch pail.”

Clairandrée Cauchy, spokesperson for the United Steelworkers District 5, the union that represents miners in Quebec, says the worker who was trapped alone went under his machine in order to be protected. While Lehoux admits that the lone miner on 104-6 was “really afraid,” he could hear the rescuing scoop tram.

Lehoux speculates that a blast in the mine at 5:45 p.m. on the previous day had probably contributed to the collapse. “But we are not sure at this moment that this is the real factor,” he notes, adding that an investigation is ongoing.

He describes the soil around level 104 as “really sensitive” to blasts. IAM-

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GOLD shut down level 104 of the mine after the incident, both to allow for investigation and to protect the workers.

“The health and safety commission is starting its inquiry,” Cauchy says. “Mining has started again, but not in this part of the mine.”

Couchy expresses concern over the fact that this was the second such incident at Westwood since the beginning of this year. On January 22, four miners were trapped on sub-level 104-6 after a collapse. Although none were injured, one miner subsequently suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. “We cannot count that we will be lucky a third time. We don’t want to rely on luck.”

COURT RECEIVES BOMB THREAT DARTMOUTH — A court building in Dart-

mouth was searched on July 9, after a man phoned 9-1-1 and reported that there was a bomb in the building.

Officers with a K-9 unit from the Halifax Regional Police (HRP) arrived at Dartmouth Provincial Court shortly after the call, which was received at 12:53 p.m., according to an HRP statement. Upon arrival, police cleared the building and sealed it off, but did not evacuate any personnel. A search of the courthouse found nothing suspicious, and regular operations resumed by 2:20 p.m.

The HRP’s integrated criminal-investigation division is investigating the incident and seeking information from the public regarding the caller’s identity.

STRIKING WORKER HIT BY TRUCK BEDFORD — A Halifax Water (HW) em-

ployee was hit by a tanker truck, which was being operated by a company that HW had hired, while on the picket line on the morning of June 9.

A statement from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) reports that a truck owned by RST — a St. John, New Brunswick-based transportation firm contracted to help reinforce sewagesludge removal from wastewater-treatment plants — crossed the picket line and struck Stephen MacRae, who works at HW’s Mill Cove facility in Bedford.

“The truck hit him and spun him around,” CUPE national representative Naomi Stewart says in a statement after the incident. “When he raised his arm to protect his face, he was hit in his left

wrist, where he had a previous injury.”

An ambulance sent MacRae to the Cobequid Centre, CUPE notes. MacRae intends to press criminal charges against the driver and RST. He plans to pursue legal action against HW and the security company that was onsite at the time.

FISHING-SAFETY PLAN LAUNCHED HALIFAX — The Government of Nova Scotia has announced Fishing Safety Now (FSN), a new plan to improve safety in the province’s fishing sector.

The plan was developed in collaboration with Safe at Sea Alliance (SSA), an organization comprising representatives of the province’s fishing industry, government and safety organizations.

According to a joint statement issued on June 4 by the Nova Scotia Ministries of Fisheries and Aquaculture and of Labour and Advanced Education and the Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia (WCB), FSN comprises 33 recommendations in nine categories to make the industry safer. In a 16-page booklet available for free on SSA’s website, the plan deals with awareness of regulations, developing a code of practice, training and equipment, weather, safety organizations and more.

“The fishing industry in Nova Scotia is ready for change to make commercial fishing safer,” the FSN booklet reads.

“Changes, however, must be industrydriven. A culture of safety will result from fisherman-to-fisherman learning and the spreading of best safety practice.”

According to the provincial government, the province has lost 35 lives in fishing-related fatalities since 2007. This

number includes eight deaths in 2013, as well as two so far this year.

The plan has already received support from such organizations as the Nova Scotia Fisheries Sector Council and the Fisheries Safety Association.

“We should all feel proud of this plan and what it means for the future of fishing in Nova Scotia. We are all committed to this work,” WCB chief executive officer Stuart MacLean says in a statement.

Keith Colwell, the provincial Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, commends the province’s fishing workers for their commitment to improving safety in the industry. “Their leadership on this plan speaks to their continued efforts to make our fishing industry the safest it can be.”

SSA member Dale Richardson, who also works as a swordfish and lobster fisher, points to the urgency of tackling fishing safety in the province. “We won’t fix everything overnight,” Richardson says, “but by having everyone in the same room — industry, workers’ compensation board, government, Nova Scotia Community College and the Transportation Safety Board — we are making giant leaps forward.”

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada Many of the preceding items are based on stories from our sister publication, canadian

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HAZARDOUS MATERIALS

LANGUAGE

of

Risk

BY KELLY PUTTER

When Canada’s Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) was introduced in 1988, it created a framework for providing

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information on the safe use of hazardous materials on job sites.

Nearly 30 years later, the national hazard-communication standard is being redesigned to align with the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) — an international set of standards governing the classification and labelling of chemical products. WHMIS 2015 requires Canadian chemical manufacturers and importers to re-evaluate chemicals and comply with GHS requirements. But the move towards the new WHMIS is creating some angst among Canadian firms.

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verybody is finding the transition extremely onerous,” says Dave Saucier, manager of regulatory and government affairs with the Canadian Association of Chemical Distributors (CACD) in Oakville, Ontario. The association represents 46 Canadian chemical distributors that sell $6.5 billion in chemical products annually.

For untested mixtures imported into Canada, the compliance process is driven by classification. So the more ingredients in a product, the more work required. “The cost to our members will be $20 million,” Saucier says.

While the implementation of the GHS is expected to improve workers’ health and safety, enhance the flow of trade between Canada and the United States and boost Canada’s overall competitiveness in the marketplace, many companies find the transition an ordeal in terms of time and money. As a result, a good number opt to disclose all possible hazards based on the ingredients of a product — however miniscule — rather than spend the money to test a product fully, especially those that are imported for resale, he explains.

The reclassification process per product takes one to two hours and averages about $250, while testing products can take months and run up to thousands of dollars, reaching the same conclusion. As such, companies are, in effect, managing risk by taking the “worst-case scenario” approach in their classification of chemical ingredients.

“This is efficient, even if this process possibly overprotects the worker, which is a good thing,” Saucier says. “We don’t want to underprotect workers.”

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IN THE MAKING Protecting workers who handle chemicals worldwide is one of the key drivers of the GHS, which has been in the works since 1992, when the United Nations General Assembly first proposed it. The United Nations developed the GHS to standardize the various classification and labelling standards that were in use in different countries. In 2003, it endorsed the GHS for four hazard-communication systems: the transportation of dangerous goods, consumer products, pest-control products and workplace chemicals.

The other driver is the fact that different countries categorize chemicals differently. This creates confusion and costs for exporters, who must employ consultants to prepare the products for export. While Canada, the United States and many other western countries have systems in place to help workplaces identify hazards, the regulations — though often similar — hold significant differences. This results in varying hazard information for the same chemical in different countries. For example, a chemical might be deemed flammable or carcinogenic in one country, but not in another.

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In Canada, WHMIS law requires labels and safety data sheets (SDSs), each of which conveys information on the hazards of a chemical to users. Labels identify the safety precautions that should be taken when using the product, indicate that an SDS is available and identify the category to which the chemical belongs. For example, labels for chlorine, which is both toxic and reactive, will caution against mixing the chemical with acids and encourage handlers to put on protective gloves and goggles as preventive measures.

According to information from Health Canada, the GHS will modify — not replace — WHMIS by updating the pictograms, labels and material SDSs and changing classification requirements.

The roles and responsibilities for suppliers, employers and workers with respect to WHMIS will remain unchanged.

“The main changes we are seeing will be in the format of the labels and pictograms. The other stuff is cosmetic,” says Gordon Leffley, a duty consultant with the Workplace Safety and Prevention Services in Mississauga, Ontario.

But for some companies, the conflicting deadlines between the two countries are causing headaches for Canadian chemical companies exporting or distributing products to the United States. While Canadian companies have until December 1, 2018 to become compliant with the GHS, the deadline for compliance in the United States was June 1, 2015.

“This deadline is a really big deal,” says Mike Moffatt, a chemical-company consultant and assistant professor of business, economics and public policy at Ivey Business School of Western University in London, Ontario. “They are absolutely scrambling to meet the deadline and make sure they have all new labels and safety data sheets. The rules require a fair bit of knowledge about the products, and companies may have to do product testing.”

The pressure is especially acute for smaller Canadian companies, he adds. “Logistically, it is a fair bit of work.”

Saucier says that WHMIS 2015 affects more than 30 distinct trade associations just on the supply side.

Leffley concedes that there is a certain amount of pressure on organizations in Canada to comply with the earlier deadline south of the border. “American corporate offices do not always understand the jurisdictional subtleties of the border and expect Canadian subsidiaries are going to comply.”

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VOICES FROM THE GROUND Henry Reinartz is the owner of Eco-House Inc., a Fredericton, New Brunswick-based manufacturer of art materials and wood finishes that exports about two-thirds of the 13 products it makes to the United States. His company is reclassifying its products to meet the new regulations. Reinartz hopes to avoid the $200-to-$300per-hour cost of hiring a GHS consultant to prepare his company for the transition.

“Many of these regulations make no sense,” says Reinartz, who finds the timing of the new regulations baffling. Smaller companies, whose revenue streams depend on cross-border exports, will have to comply with the earlier deadline down south. But much of the required information for labels and SDSs typically comes from suppliers in Canada who, by law, do not have to provide the additional data yet.

“This puts us into the position that we have to hire expensive consultants in order to satisfy our U.S. customers and U.S. legislation now,” Reinartz says.

Considering that export is an important part of the Canadian economy, coordinating the timing of introducing the GHS between the two countries will make the transition easier and less costly for Canadian exporters, he notes. “After all, not all exporters are multinational corporations, but can be considered small businesses.”

While the burden of meeting the GHS requirements applies to companies regardless of their sizes, Leffley suggests that the process may be less complex in smaller businesses that carry fewer product lines and have fewer staff to train.

Corporations like 3M Canada, a London, Ontario company that exports its products around the world, have found meeting the United States’ deadline a challenge. But considering that the country is its major trading partner, “it is a challenge that will be worth its weight in gold over time,” says Victoria Cotton, a corporate regulatory affairs specialist with 3M Canada.

As a leading manufacturer of adhesives for aerospace, automotive and electrical products, 3M welcomes an aligned system that governs hazardous workplace chemicals for several reasons. “When we see flammable liquid, at least now we are all talking the same language,” Cotton says. “If you are under GHS, we all know what it means. That was not the case before.”

Speaking the same language gives companies a wide-reaching consistency that will not only enhance trade and competitiveness, but strengthen the health and safety of employees. “The consistency that comes with the system will make everyone’s job easier and safer,” Cotton adds. “That label means the same thing wherever you go.”

That said, the biggest roadblock for 3M has been the amount of work involved in making the transition to the GHS. Previously, 3M was concerned only with Canadian requirements surrounding WHMIS, and produ-

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cing a label was a quicker process under the old system.

But it takes longer now, given that another system and set of rules are involved.

“It is a lot of work, a lot of stress and it is a lot of 3M employees all shaping the final output of the label,” Cotton explains. “The whole process can take months, but the investment will be worth it in the long-term savings of not having to stop shipments for relabelling for the two different countries, because every time you touch a product, there is a cost.”

Like 3M, chemical company BASF Canada has more than 27,000 products and materials that will be affected by the GHS. They include, but are not limited to, construction materials, paints, beauty products and food additives. To achieve compliance with GHS requirements, the company will have to work with its employees, information-technology systems and supply-chain management to produce new SDSs and labels on all affected packaging.

The challenges associated with relabelling and related tasks vary, depending on the type of labelling used on the product. Some products that are packaged in tubes have labels that form part of the packaging.

“We would have already produced, shipped and stored materials that have labelling integrated into the actual packaging. In order to replace the labels, the products would have to be retrieved, removed from the bulk containers and repackaged,” explains Lauren Reid, communications specialist for BASF Canada in Mississauga, Ontario.

LOST IN TRANSLATION Packaging issues aside, some businesses accustomed to the old WHMIS are finding the new version confusing. Leffley says the new SDSs are organized differently, with the headings on SDSs having expanded from nine to 16. While the new SDSs include headings on such items as physical data, reactivity and first-aid measures, which are similar to those that must be presented under WHMIS 1988, they require additional information like accidental-release measures, ecological information and disposal considerations.

The number of hazard classes has also expanded, notes Saucier, citing combustible dust as a new hazard class. “So anything in powder form would have to be reassessed,” he says. As well, resins that were not considered hazardous are now captured by new hazard classes to enhance worker protection.

But confusion surrounding information on SDSs is not new. Leffley has seen non sequitur information creep into data sheets from time to time, with a chemical listed as not flammable in the SDS later being cited as flammable or an SDS that cautions against using the dry fire-extinguisher chemical in enclosed areas, which defies the purpose of the product in the first place.

“The SDS needs to be written by someone with tech-

nical expertise who can stand behind information provided,” Leffley stresses. “I had one company put out their SDS by the sales team, and that doesn’t fill me full of confidence.”

According to the Canada Gazette, Ottawa’s online newsletter that keeps Canadians current on the status of legislation, tens of thousands of hazardous chemicals hit Canadian workplaces each year, either in new or reformulated formats. Add to that the hundreds of thousands of hazardous chemicals already offered for sale to, and in use in, workplaces, there is a potent array of substances. Although the exact number of chemicals regulated by WHMIS is not known, estimates put it in excess of 150,000.

Suppliers say that before the GHS was introduced, Canadian companies that sold hazardous chemicals internationally had to classify and prepare labels and SDSs for each country in which their products were sold. For Canadian chemical companies exporting their goods down south, the cost and time associated with reclassifying and relabelling compromise their ability to market their products to the United States.

The Canada Gazette cited one small Canadian company that indicated that it would save more than $20,000 a year in relabelling costs if Canada harmonized its system with that of the United States. As well, an industry association noted that one of its members in the specialty-chemical-products sector would face $2.5 million in costs if the systems were not aligned.

“Everybody is finding the transition extremely onerous.”

Furthermore, differences in classification criteria meant that test data approved for Canada could not be used in the United States. This resulted in increased costs, as more retesting and reclassification was needed.

American firms exporting hazardous chemicals to Canada face the same challenge. As a result, Canadian companies were limited in their access to certain products manufactured in the United States or were forced to pay higher prices. The increased costs were passed on to distributors and eventually, to the employers who purchase these products for use in their respective workplaces.

Finally, in instances in which a United States-based company did not classify and relabel the product based on Canadian requirements, the Canadian importer would have to bear the costs of relabelling and reclassifying the products. www.ohscanada.com

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LONG-TERM GAIN When all is said and done, the cost of switching from WHMIS 1988 to WHMIS 2015 will result in a total net benefit of nearly $400 million in increased productivity and decreased health and safety costs over the next 20 years for Canada, according to figures from Industry Canada. The Canadian chemical-manufacturing sector imported more than $28 billion worth of chemicals from the United States in 2013 and exported more than $24 billion to the market down south.

While Canadian chemical firms will have to face up to the upfront costs of implementing WHMIS 2015, which the Canada Gazette estimated at $285.5 million — a large part of which is the cost for training — they will eventually reap the rewards of a trade system that is easier and cheaper to navigate, Moffatt assures. “The big cost is the transition,” he says. “But once that is paid, international trade becomes a lot easier.”

According to Andre Gagnon, a media relations official with Health Canada in Ottawa, the Canadian industry should start seeing yearly net benefits of $80 million within four years. The benefits associated with imports and exports, including not having to reclassify and prepare different labels and SDSs, may be felt even earlier, as a result of advanced implementation in other countries.

A majority of Canada’s trading partners — the United States, Australia, the European Union, China, Japan and South Korea — have applied, or are in the process of applying, the GHS to their workplace hazardous-chemicals programs. As information on hazardous chemicals is being aligned worldwide, Health Canada expects that the GHS will strengthen the overall health and safety of workers both at home and abroad. The fact that the GHS goes further in identifying some hazards not previously identified in WHMIS 1988 will also likely increase the level of protection for workers.

A Phased Transition

In Canada, the transition to the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals will take effect in three phases, concluding by December 1, 2018. According to Health Canada, the first phase took place with the coming into force of WHMIS 2015 on February 11, when suppliers could comply with either the old Hazardous Products Act (HPA) and Controlled Products Regulations (CPR) under WHMIS 1988 or the new requirements of the HPA and CPR under WHMIS 2015. This first phase will end on May 31, 2017.

During the second phase, which runs from June 1, 2017 to May 31, 2018, suppliers importing hazardous products for their own use and distributors can continue to sell and/or import hazardous products with labels and material safety data sheets, based on the requirements of either WHMIS 1988 or WHMIS 2015.

In the final phase from June 1, 2018 to November 30, 2018, manufacturers, importers, distributors and suppliers importing for their own use are required to sell or import only hazardous products that are compliant with WHMIS 2015. By December 1, 2018, all suppliers and employers must comply with the new HPA and CPR.

ic value of these projected health effects is estimated to be $25 million per year. Over a 20-year period, it is expected that the present value of health and safety benefits will be $195.5 million.

One downside stemming from the transition to the GHS is complaints that Leffley says he has received about aggressive tactics employed by some WHMIS trainers and material vendors, who are caught in the changeover and are trying to sell WHMIS training programs and related products that will soon be made obsolete by the new WHMIS. “I have heard from small businesses — dental offices, variety stores and hairdressers — who have vendors phoning them every day to say, ‘You need to sign up for my course today, or the ministry will shut you down,’” Leffley reports.

He describes the federal government’s gradual transition to the GHS as a soft rollout. “We are not creating a whole new world with GHS; we are just tweaking the system,” he says. “The benefit will be a standardized system of information that is consistent, regardless of the jurisdiction.”

The GHS will modify — not replace — WHMIS. *

According to the model for estimating health benefits used by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Washington, D.C., the adoption of the GHS in Canada will result in the annual prevention of 30 non-lost-workday injuries and illnesses, 20 lost-workday injuries and illnesses, six chronic illnesses and four fatalities in Canada, says Gagnon, citing information from the Canada Gazette. The socio-econom-

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Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Kelly Putter is a writer in Beamsville, Ontario.

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CONTRACTOR MANAGEMENT

ties that

BIND

Your workplace has a health and safety program in place; the employees are well trained and aware of the hazards in the workplace. With an impressive safety record, employees can be proud of your commitment to safety. But what about the contractors that a company engages?

BY GLENN PRINGLE

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ontractors are an important part of a business.

They maintain electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems, complete renovations, remove hazardous waste and snow, and the list goes on. Choosing and working with a contractor can be a great experience — if all goes well. Companies want to be sure that they have engaged the right contractor for the work, since almost anyone can call himself or herself a “contractor” except for certain trades, such as being a plumber, an electrician or an engineer, who need to be licenced.

Employers must keep up to speed with changes in health and safety regulations and laws, corporate governance and transparency, including risk-management and insurance requirements, changing workers’ compensation board (WCB) requirements, contracts, rate schedules, policies, procedures and documentation.

Various elements of the contractor’s ability to do the job, such as price, availability, experience, quality of work and the ability to meet schedules, also need to be assessed.

But do they meet minimum health and safety qualifications, or does anyone even check?

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VERIFYING CREDENTIALS There may be an existing practice of collecting the contractor’s certificate of insurance, workers’ compensation clearance certificate and accident history, but is this enough? And is this done before the documents expire? While these documents do not provide a complete health and safety prequalification picture, they are nevertheless important in protecting the hiring party and demonstrating that the contractor has protection in place to cover any damage or injury costs that may arise and maintains a clean safety record.

There are various types of insurance that a contractor should provide, with the two most common being workers’ compensation clearance and commercial general-liability insurance, with the principal named on both certificates.

A clearance letter from a WCB confirms that a company is in good standing. This means that the company has workers’ compensation coverage, has met all payroll reporting re-

Hard Lessons Learned Since Bill C-45 became law in 2004, there have been eight cases — some of which involved contracting work arrangements — in which charges under the law have been laid.

Most of these cases did see other charges and fines being issued under the oh&s legislation of the jurisdiction in which the incident took place.

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Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan received a penalty of $300,000 in August 1998, in connection with an incident involving contracted workers who were repairing a cover on a vat containing potash/water mixture heated to approximately 90° Celsius. Three contract employees fell through a section of the cover, leaving two dead and one severely burned. The corporation had warned its workers about the potential danger, but had apparently failed to inform the contractor, Bedry & Sons, which employed the workers. The contractor was convicted and fined $10,000.

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quirements, has paid all premiums to date and has no outstanding balance on account. On the other hand, commercial general-liability insurance protects a business from financial loss should it be sued because of property damage, injuries or fatalities caused by the company’s services, business operations or employees.

It is important to name the principal in a WCB clearance certificate, considering that only half the provinces in Canada require this to be done. Regarding the certificate of commercial general-liability insurance, it is recommended that a principal be named as an additional insured. Otherwise, the principal may not get any benefit from the contractor’s policy in the event of an incident. It should also be noted that a certificate of insurance confers no rights to the certificate holder.

Both types of insurance are required to provide protection to the principal or an employer when engaging a contractor.

In most provinces, proof of workers’ compensation clearance is mandatory before a principal permits a contractor to perform work on the property.

According to the WCB of Nova Scotia, people who hire contractors or sub-contractors should always obtain clearance letters from them as proof of WCB coverage. If a contractor does not have WCB coverage, the hiring party is responsible for any injuries sustained by these uncovered contractors or subcontractors on the job site, and those incidents will become part of the hiring party’s injury history with the local WCB. In Ontario, contractors who are not registered with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and do construction

Georgia Pacific Canada Inc. received a fine of $100,000 in November 1998 for a lockout contravention at its Ontario facility. A worker for Ancaster Tool Company, under contract to Georgia Pacific, was performing routine maintenance on a screw auger. The worker locked out only his end of the equipment. An operator for Georgia Pacific, not having been informed that work was underway, turned on the equipment, causing fatal injuries to the operator. The direct employer of the worker, Ancaster Tool Company Inc., was fined $65,000.

Dofasco Inc. received a total fine of $675,000 in February 1999 for three separate workplace accidents at its facility in Ontario. Of this amount, $400,000 stemmed from an incident in which two workers of a contractor retained

by Dofasco were fatally injured during a confined-space entry. A gas check had failed to detect the presence of argon gas, which displaced the oxygen in the tank. The direct employer of the two workers, Steelcat Task Force Inc., received a fine of $100,000 for failing to inform the workers of confined-space entry hazards.

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In March 2008, a Quebec Court imposed a fine of $110,000 on Transpavé Paving Stone Inc. — the first company in Canada to be convicted of criminal negligence in a workplace death under Bill C-45 amendments to the Criminal Code. A Transpavé employee was fatally crushed on October 11, 2005, when he attempted to clear a jam in one of the company’s machines. An investigation led by Quebec’s Health and Safety Commission and the provincial police found that the company had allowed the employee to operate the machine with its motion-detector safety mechanism deactivated. Transpavé pleaded guilty to the charge on December 7, 2007.

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work without a valid clearance number could be fined up to $100,000 upon conviction. Those who hire contractors without confirming that they have valid clearance numbers also face serious fines and penalties.

A consideration that is often overlooked when engaging contractors is pre-qualifying their health and safety programs, and the failure to do so can lead to significant issues.

Contractors must be able to demonstrate to their principals or whoever has contracted them that they have health and safety programs in place and are aware of the basic health and safety responsibilities, issues and hazards relating to the work they perform. Where there are potential hazards, they have to demonstrate that not only are they aware of the dangers, but that they can take the necessary steps to mitigate or eliminate them.

Some of the problems that companies face include contractors who lack appropriate insurance coverage, do not have appropriately licenced tradespersons and do not have documented policies and procedures. In fact, many companies have been told that pre-qualification is not necessary, either by contractors who feel that they do not need to go through pre-qualification, since they have never had an accident before, or by principals who do not think that they need to put their contractors through pre-qualification, as they have known them for years without incident.

Collecting these and related documents is essential in proving a company’s due diligence in the event of an inciOn June 12, 2006, a landscape contractor was crushed to death when the backhoe driven by his employer failed to stop, pinning the employee to a wall. The investigation of the incident found that the 30-year-old backhoe had not received any regular maintenance since the vehicle’s purchase and that no formal inspection had been done in the previous five years. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the vehicle had no braking capacity. In September 2010, the employer was convicted of criminal negligence causing death and given a two-year conditional sentence to be served in the community.

dent, investigation or inspection, considering that health and safety legislation across Canada holds employers and worksite owners responsible for the safety of not just their own workers, but those hired by contractors as well.

[

A consideration that is often overlooked when engaging contractors is pre-qualifying their health and safety programs.

]

PRE-QUALIFICATION AS DUE DILIGENCE While one is presumed innocent until proven guilty in criminal law, in occupational health and safety, a party is more likely to be deemed guilty until proven innocent, and due diligence is often the best defence. Generally, to establish criminal negligence, the accused must be under a legal duty or obligation to act in a particular way, but failed to do so.

This failure or omission must demonstrate a “wanton or reckless disregard” for the lives or the safety of others, according to Section 219 (1) of the Criminal Code of Canada.

Prior to 2004, employers or contractors who were involved in a breach of oh&s legislation could be charged only under provincial regulatory law. Offences under this legislation were considered to be strict liability offences — that is, there was no need to prove mens rea or criminal intent.

Since Bill C-45 took effect in March 2004, it imposed a duty on organizations and their representatives to protect their workers and the public by creating a Criminal Code of Canada duty similar to the one already found in Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA), which requires that employers take every reasonable precaution to protect their employees.

Under Bill C-45, a workplace injury or fatality may result in a corporation being convicted of criminal negligence causing bodily harm or death, if there is proof that a representative of the corporation behaved in a criminally negligent manner and that the senior officers or management of the corporation failed to correct the resulting situation. More

On December 24, 2009, four workers were killed and one was seriously injured at a Toronto construction site, when the swing-stage scaffolding on which they were working collapsed. The Ministry of Labour laid a total of 61 charges. This was the first time in Ontario that the Criminal Code had been used to hold a company responsible for a worker’s death. Metron Construction and three corporate officers were charged with criminal negligence and fined $200,000, plus a victim surcharge of $30,000. Metron’s owner was personally fined $90,000, plus a victim surcharge of $22,500 under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The fine against the company was appealed, and in September 2013, the appeals court judge found that the original fine of $200,000 was “manifestly unfit” and raised the fine to $750,000 for criminal negligence. An additional victim surcharge of $112,500 was levied against the company. The project manager who oversaw the crew was found guilty of five criminal charges in June 2015 and will be sentenced in October. The company that supplied the swing stage, Ottawa-based Swing N Scaff Inc., was fined $350,000 for failing to ensure that the platform was in good condition. www.ohscanada.com

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specifically, it added Section 217.1 to the Criminal Code: 217.1 “Everyone who undertakes, or has the authority, to direct how another person does work or performs a task is under a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent bodily harm to that person, or any other person, arising from that work or task.”

Demonstrating due diligence means that employers shall take all reasonable precautions under the particular circumstances to prevent injuries or accidents in their workplaces.

In the case of contracting out work, there must be a meaningful assessment of the contractor’s health and safety program.

A practice known as pre-qualification is increasingly recognized as an acceptable and appropriate assessment of contractors to ensure that they have practices in place to comply with the legislation and best practices. The main health and safety program elements that should be included in written polices, practices and procedures include the following: • The contractor’s health and safety program and practices reflect knowledge of the legal requirements: The contractor to whom the work is contracted has clearly defined health and safety duties of various parties, including workers, supervisors, manager and owners.

• The contractor must be knowledgeable of the workplace and its potential and actual hazards: The contractor conducts workplace-hazard assessments, develops specific safe-work procedures and policies (if necessary) and instructs and trains employees before commencing work. This includes coordination of work with other contractors.

The contractor’s health and safety program is actually • implemented: The contractor should be able to provide documents, such as training records, inspection records, hazard-analysis forms, completed risk and hazard analyses, joint health and safety committee agendas and minutes and a signed and dated health and safety policy.

• The contractor’s employees have received all necessary safety training applicable to the nature of their work: This may include training in health and safety awareness, the Workplace Hazardous Material Information System, first aid, fall protection, lockout, confined-space entry, forklift or crane operation and ergonomics.

• The contractor’s employees (for example, electricians, plumbers, HVAC mechanics, gas fitters, crane operators and steamfitters) hold all necessary trade certificates as required by law or are holders of voluntary certifications, such as those for sprinkler and fire-protection installers, painters, millwrights and masons.

• The contractor has incident-reporting and investigation procedures in place: All incidents are reported and investigated promptly, and corrective action is assigned and followed through to completion.

• Due supervision: The contractor has appropriate supervision in place for the number of workers and the type of work being performed.

• There is a plan in place for initial and ongoing communication and coordination of work between the principal and the contractor: This includes participating in regular meetings with the contractor to provide feedback, discuss areas 28

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of concern and share information.

• Th e contractor has established equipment-maintenance policies and procedures: All equipment used is maintained according to manufacturer’s recommendations and applicable technical standards.

• Contractor monitoring: This includes monitoring the contractor to ensure that the contracted work proceeds safely and according to agreed requirements and that corrective action and enforcement are undertaken where warranted.

If a gap has been identified — something significant that is required by legislation and is not being done by the contractor — during a review of the contractor, the principal could be held responsible, regardless of whether or not he or she was personally aware of the gap.

Assessing the due diligence of a contractor’s health and safety program provides an indication of how much they care about safety. It also gives companies a measure of confidence that the contractor has demonstrated that an oh&s program is in place to satisfy federal and provincial legislation and the contracting company’s specific requirements.

[

If a contractor does not have WCB coverage, the hiring party is responsible for any injuries sustained by these uncovered contractors or subcontractors.

]

Some organizations have developed programs internally to manage the health and safety pre-qualification process.

This can be one of the most tedious and cumbersome parts of a contractor-management system, yet it is also the most important. In order to reduce internal inefficiencies and address a lack of health and safety qualifications, there is a growing trend to turn to an external third party with expertise in health and safety pre-qualification.

However, there will always be contractors who choose not to participate in the pre-qualification process. Not being duly diligent can be costly for both the contracting and the contracted parties — think fines, criminal prosecution and possibly imprisonment, damage to reputation and brand and, tragically, worker injury or deaths.

And should one ever find oneself faced with contractors who do not want to meet minimum requirements for the health and safety of themselves and others, perhaps the ultimate question that should be asked is, do you want them working for you?

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Glenn Pringle is a Canadian Registered Safety Professional, a World Safety Organization Certified Safety and Security Director and the manager of Accreditation Services at ContractorCheck, which provides pre-qualification health and safety assessments of contractors from large construction projects to individual service providers across Canada.

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NANOPARTICLES

beyond the

naked

IMAGE: DRA_SCHWARTZ / ISTOCK

EYE

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BY DANNY KUCHARSKY

It is an infiltration of the most imperceptible kind. Researchers have studied the toxicity of nanoparticles in general terms, but for the first time, a team of scientists has found that nanoparticles of silicon dioxide can play a major role in the development of cardiovascular diseases when these particles find their way into the circulatory system by crossing tissue and cellular barriers.

hen Troy Winters looks at nanotechnology, he sees nothing less than “the next industrial revolution.” Nanotechnology — essentially the manipulation of matter on an atomic or molecular scale — will change many things that we use for the better, says the senior health and safety officer at the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in Ottawa. This includes the development of new drugs, tissue engineering and energy conversion — and virtually anything electronic.

“But we are not looking at the potential downstream effects of all these wonderful things,” Winters cautions. “We don’t know how big of a problem it is.”

He shares the same concerns that many scientists and safety professionals have, that not enough is known about the long-term health and environmental effects of nanoparticles or microscopic particles measured in billionths of a metre.

“Nanoparticles are becoming ubiquitous in our environment, leading to higher chances of exposure,” says Lauren Petrick, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. Dr. Petrick, co-author of a study raising concerns about nanoparticle exposure published last December in Environmental Toxicology, found that exposure to nanoparticles may threaten cardiovascular health. The study, Silicon Dioxide Nanoparticles Increase Macrophage Atherogenicity, notes that the number of nano-based consumer products has increased a thousandfold in recent years, with an estimated world market of USD$3 trillion by 2020.

But the role that nanoparticles play in promoting the formation of fatty plaque in the arteries is not yet clear, Dr. Petrick cautions. “What we found is that the nanoparticles were cytotoxic and increased oxidative stress and triglyceride accumulation in the macrophages.”

Michael Aviram, the study’s lead author and professor at the Technion Faculty of Medicine in Haifa, Israel, says environmental exposure to nanoparticles is becoming unavoidable due to the rapid expansion of nanotechnology. “This exposure may be especially chronic for those employed in research laboratories and in high-tech industry where workers handle, manufacture, use and dispose of nanoparticles,” Professor Aviram says.

Products that use silica-based nanoparticles for biomedical uses, like various chips, drug or gene delivery and tracking, imaging, ultrasound therapy and diagnostics, may also pose an increased cardiovascular risk for consumers, he adds.

KNOWLEDGE GAP To determine whether there is a cardiovascular risk, researchers exposed cultured laboratory mice cells that resembled the arterial wall cells to silicon dioxide (Si02) nanoparticles.

These nanoparticles are toxic to and have significant adverse effects on macrophages, a type of white blood cell that accumulates lipids or fats in the arterial wall. The researchers found that nanoparticles could play a role in the development of atherosclerotic lesions — an inflammatory disease in which plaque builds up in the arteries — in mice and lead to cardiovascular events like heart attacks or strokes. www.ohscanada.com

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“The occupational health risks associated with manufacturing and using nanoparticles are not clearly understood,” Dr. Petrick says, “but this study, as well as others, indicates possible adverse health effects associated with exposure.”

In another study, published last October in the Journal of Nanomedicine and Nanotechnology, researchers found that even low concentrations of engineered nanosilver particles, which have applications from cosmetics to pharmaceuticals, could have harmful effects on human gut bacteria.

“We think that this is the first time anyone has looked at the effect of this potential toxin on the human gut bacteria,” says study co-author Pranab Das, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Using a synthetic stool substitute as a model, “we were surprised to see a significant perturbation of this community with silver nanoparticles even at the lowest concentration that we used — 25 parts per million,” Dr. Das says. “We suggested in our research paper that silver nanoparticle ingestion, either deliberate or inadvertent, could have negative consequences on our intestinal microbiota.”

Dr. Das says exposure to engineered nanoparticles is increasing in consumer products. He hopes that research will help prompt a thorough investigation into the effects of nanosilver toxicity on overall human health.

Former journalist Carolyn Green of Victoria was commissioned to write a comprehensive review about nanotechnology in 2011 for the Vancouver-based National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health. She says her research provided no reassurance about the potential risks of nanoparticle exposure.

“We are just not organized to find out what we may be exposed to on the nanoparticle level,” Green says. “It is important for people to realize how much we do not know.”

SAFETY STEPS Given the uncertainty about exposure risks, the occupational health and safety community has, for several years, been considering what the appropriate way should be when dealing with worker exposure to nanomaterials, says Warren Fox, an instructor in the occupational health and safety program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Vancouver.

“What we know now is too preliminary to talk about with good certainty.”

Fox maintains that the time will come when we will know a lot more about the potential health hazards associated with these materials. “We already know that this is too simple. There are many types of nanomaterials, and their size alone is not going to dictate the hazard. We will get to a point where we say that this nano-sized material with its unique chemical and physical properties presents these hazards.”

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But until that time comes, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards adopted for use in Canada by the CSA Group “just make good professional oh&s sense,” Fox says. They include developing an exposure-control plan and making use of standard worker-exposure controls that have been shown to be effective on particulates verging on the “ultrafine” size. The standards also call for the proper selection and use of exhaust-ventilation systems, installation of effective personal-hygiene facilities to minimize the spread of materials outside of work areas and the use of air-purifying respirators with appropriate protection factors to match the work involved.

For her part, Dr. Petrick advises those who work with nanoparticles to wear appropriate protective clothing, follow all workplace-safety practices and ensure that engineered controls in their facilities work properly. She recommends conducting an evaluation of the toxicity and impact of nanomaterials on cellular responses when these technologies are being developed. In addition, “airborne-nanoparticle monitoring should be implemented in workplaces of nanotechnology research and development, with personal monitoring of workers at the highest risk.”

SKIN DEEP While a nanoparticle-exposure test for humans does not yet exist, it is not far away, suggests Warren Chan, Ph.D., an associate professor with the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto.

Using rodents, Dr. Chan developed a skin test last year that can detect exposure to nanoparticles. He found that skin with a build-up of nanoparticles reflects the properties of these particles and that the skin becomes fluorescent when the light of certain colours are shone on it. In other words, if the nanoparticle has a blue colour, the skin will appear blue after sufficient exposure.

“By just looking at the skin based on the properties of the nanoparticle, you can tell that you have been exposed to the nanoparticles that are in the air or have been introduced in your body,” he illustrates.

But industries that work with nanoparticles have yet to express interest in using the animal-skin test that Dr. Chan developed. “In companies that work in this area, there [are] basically no standards for how to determine whether the workers are being exposed to nanoparticles,” he says. “Until regulations come in, they would not be particularly interested in this aspect of the equation.”

Dr. Chan believes that a similar test for humans is not far away, once researchers obtain regulatory approvals to test on humans. “That is where some of the struggles come in terms of developing a possible test, [since] the human toxicity of nanoparticles is not clear.”

Not enough is known about the long-term health and environmental effects of nanoparticles.

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In the absence of nanoparticle-exposure testing for humans, Dr. Chan ensures that workers in his laboratory wear gloves and coats. Shorts or sandals are frowned upon in the summer, because it is not known how nanoparticles could potentially enter the body through the skin. As well, there are filters and fume hoods to protect laboratory employees against potentially dangerous reactions.

But he says that he is not too concerned about researchers in his laboratory being exposed to nanoparticles. “We know the particles we work with are pretty heavy and they are not going to go into the air. It is a pretty controlled environment.

But if I work with particles that are light and not very dense, they could go into the air and thus into people’s noses and into their systems.”

What is needed, Dr. Chan suggests, is the establishment of a government-funded database containing information about nanoparticles, such as their volatility, properties, potential exposure routes and potential toxicities associated with exposure. Currently, safety professionals operate in an information vacuum, with scarce knowledge of the toxicity of and responses to various nanoparticles. Until infrastructure that can determine the effects of nanoparticles on humans exists, “it is very difficult for the oh&s people to determine how to regulate or what is best to regulate,” he says.

SETTING BENCHMARKS Despite the absence of conclusive evidence on the negative health effects of nanotechnology, Green recommends putting in place measurement systems and regulations that would limit potential exposure among people who work with nanotechnology.

But Winters thinks that developing occupational exposure limits (OEL) for nanoparticles, while laudable, is difficult to implement. “When things get down to the nanosize, they operate in a different way,” he says, adding that OELs are not a benchmark of safety. “Just because you have a number that says, ‘At this level, most people won’t get sick, so that is okay,’ — well that’s okay for most people,” he explains, “but excludes the fact that some people will get sick.”

He cites OELs for asbestos as an example. “Nobody wants to be sitting there actually breathing in that level.”

Winters, vice-chair of the CSA Group’s nanotechnology group who sits on several regulatory and review bodies, notes that nanotechnology is growing quickly, but governments are falling behind in regulating the industry. “It takes, just at the federal level, four or five years to go through one regulation.”

However, he points to Environment Canada’s New Substances program, which requires manufacturers or importers of new substances on the nanomaterial scale of one to 100 nanometres to conduct tests to determine whether the substances are toxic or capable of becoming toxic, as a step in the right direction. “We have to identify [nanomaterials] first, so we can figure out what the potential toxic effects will be, so we can figure out what will be the best control mechanisms.”

For Dr. Chan, establishing a database that provides information on nanoparticles is key. “It is hard to say all nanoparticles are toxic,” he stresses, pointing out that different prop-

Nanotechnology is growing quickly, but governments are falling behind in regulating the industry. erties have different characteristics.

Winters reports that the CSA Group has developed safety data sheets, originally based on ISO standards, for products containing nanomaterials. He suggests that the federal government could adapt these safety data sheets.

He also notes that while CUPE, which represents about 150,000 hospital workers, is trying to educate members about what nanomaterials are and where they could potentially be present, there is just not enough information available. As a result, some employers are not sure what is in some of the items that they buy. “Lack of knowledge is our biggest problem — we just don’t know where that stuff is because of the lack of required reporting.”

Green agrees, referring in particular to the lack of knowledge about the dose-response relationship of nanoparticle exposure. “Just because there is not that completely conclusive, high-level evidence of impact on Canadian workers — the impact of nanotechnology on their health — it does not mean there isn’t one.”

Given the lack of information about nanomaterials, Winters recommends that workers adhere to the precautionary principle. “If you don’t know what the hazard or toxic risk is, you minimize or stop exposure. Eliminate where you can.

Where you can’t, put in engineering controls. Where you can’t put in administrative controls,” he advises, “use your personal protective equipment as a last resort.”

While nanomaterials are relatively new, “the big message I have been pushing is, the occupational health and safety control strategies that we use [to prevent exposure] really aren’t,” says Winters, who would like to see the implementation of stricter regulations. Strategies used to control potential airborne hazards from ultrafine particles should be adopted for nanomaterials, he stresses. “It comes back to classic glove box or fume hoods or isolation chambers where the work is being done.”

He also recommends that work be done in negative-pressure rooms that stop the flow of air from getting outside the laboratory if the nanomaterial has the potential to be airborne.

Despite the concerns surrounding the health and well-being of those who work with nanomaterials, Winters remains positive about the industry. “I am not one of those guys who thinks this thing has to be shut down completely. I think nanotechnology is going to bring fantastic positives for industry, for us. There just has to be a little more oversight and regulation as to where this stuff is going.”

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Danny Kucharsky is a writer in Montreal. www.ohscanada.com

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It’s Time for you to be the Judge - Again

2015 2nd annual ReAdeRS’ CHOICe AwARdS is coming this fall.

2014 introduced the first ever OHS Canada Readers’ Choice Awards, letting our readers view, review and vote for their favorite products and services, across many key product categories. This fall, OHS Canada will showcase this years’ latest and greatest in personal protective equipment, apparel and services, ready for your review.

Visit the 2015 OHS Canada Readers’ Choice Awards this fall available on

www.ohscanada.com

– And YOu Be THe Judge dOn’T fORgeT to register your votes to win this year’s Grand Prize – iPad Mini

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THe 2014 VOTeS ARe In.

we poured over the votes Our 2014 OHS Canada Readers’ Choice Awards winners are: #1 Overall – Picked by You

foot Protection

WILGRIP – ERGONOMIC BUCKET HANDLE wilson Innovations

ONGUARD ECONOMY STEEL TOE & STEEL MIDSOLE BOOT # 86622 Ansell

Apparel

gas detection / Instrumentation

SAWYER-TOWER COVERALL 66-677 Ansell ALUMINIZED CLOTHING International Sew Right

TANGO™ TX1 SINGLE GAS MONITOR Industrial Scientific Corporation 2015

GASALERTMICROCLIP XL Bw Technologies by Honeywell

emergency eyewashes

Hand & Arm Protection

AXION ADVANTAGE Haws Corporation

GRITTYFOAM deb Canada

2015

HALO EYE AND EYE/FACE WASH The Bradley Corporation eye & face Protection THE “ULTRA SPECTAGOGGLE” EP910 SERIES dynamic Safety Inc.

2015

HYFLEX® 11-518 Ansell Head Protection ROCKY dynamic Safety Inc Inspection Checklist Books

A special “thanks” to all our readers and web visitors for their votes.

THE CHECKER deVTRA Inc.

Congratulations to all our winners NANOPARTICLES 2.indd 35

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DISPATCHES

Aiming for zero by recycling protective equipment

By Jean Lian

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e have heard of companies striving towards zero accidents in their workplaces. Now, this preoccupation with achieving zero has extended to a new area: recycling personal protective equipment (PPE).

TerraCycle Canada ULC, a Toronto-based recycling organization that specializes in collecting difficult-to-recycle packaging and products, has launched the Zero Waste Box for safety equipment. Available at Staples and Grand and Toy for $84, this PPE-recycling box collects nitrile and latex gloves, dust masks, reflective clothing and coveralls, hair and beard nets, earplugs, safety glasses and even respirators.

“Safety equipment and protective gear tends to accumulate in vast quantities,” says Vanessa Farquharson, communications manager with TerraCycle. “This kind of material is almost always ordered, utilized and disposed of in bulk, and it creates a huge burden on our natural environment when it all ends up in landfill.”

According to Statistics Canada, 26 million tonnes of waste were sent to landfills or incinerators in 2008. Residential waste makes up one-third of waste for disposal, while the remaining two-thirds stems from non-residential sources, which includes non-hazardous waste from industrial, commercial and institutional sources like construction and demolition.

The Zero Waste Box applies to any industry in which workers use protective gear. A company can call a 1-800 number whenever the box is ready for collection.

According to Farquharson, shipping is included in the price, and the waste boxes are sent to a warehouse, where the collected items get sorted and recycled, most often into hard plastic lumber.

“Zero Waste Box accepts everything you can’t put into the blue bin. Municipalities have strict rules about what they will and won’t pick up through curbside recycling programs, and it all comes down to money,” Farquharson explains.

But if you think the Zero Waste Box takes just about anything, think again. It is restricted to personal protective equipment and excludes hazardous waste like syringes.

Last fall, TerraCycle launched the Zero Waste Box pilot project as a recycling solution for K-Cups and other singlebrew coffee capsules. It proved so popular that the company realized that there was a strong demand for recycling all kinds

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of waste streams. “We gradually started introducing more and more boxes, the most recent iteration being the box for safety equipment and protective gear,” Farquharson reports.

The Zero Waste Box is available across Canada. More than 40 PPE-recycling boxes have been sold since its launch.

Jean Lian is editor of

ohs canada.

Sisters win record damages for workplace harassment

By Jeff Cottrill

I

n a landmark decision by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO), two migrant workers from Mexico have won more than $200,000 collectively in damages for being discriminated against and sexually harassed at a fishprocessing plant.

Adjudicator Mark Hart, who administered the ruling on May 27 in Toronto, accused the Presteve Foods Limited facility in Wheatley, Ontario of creating a “sexually poisoned work environment.” Court documents say the company had exposed the workers — identified as O.P.T. and M.P.T., who are sisters — to sexual solicitation and harassment, gender discrimination and reprisal.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission confirmed on its Twitter account on May 28 that this amounted to the “largest damages award in [the] HRTO’s history”.

According to the decision, the women came to Canada in August 2007 as temporary foreign workers (TFW) for Presteve. During O.P.T.’s time at the plant, a “personal respondent,” identified as Jose Pratas, reportedly subjected her to numerous occasions of unwanted touching and assaults, threatening to send her back to Mexico if she did not comply with his sexual demands. Pratas treated M.P.T. in a similar fashion and even sent her back to Mexico in April 2008 for refusing to “apologize to him for being disrespectful.”

In April 2009, the union CAW-Canada, which would later become Unifor, filed a suit against Presteve on behalf of 39 TFWs, including the two sisters. Pratas subsequently faced criminal charges connected to the workers’ allegations.

Following Hart’s ruling, O.P.T. called on women everywhere to speak out against sexual harassment on the job.

“Under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, the boss has all the power — over your money, house, status, everything.

They have you tied to their will,” she says. While it has taken eight years to seek redress, “justice is finally here today.”

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Unifor member Niki Lundquist, who acted as counsel for the women in the case, says in a union statement that while the ruling is a vindication for these women, the real takeaway from the case is that the TFW Program creates the conditions that allowed this exploitation to go unchecked. “Handcuffing workers to employers creates vulnerability, and without meaningful oversight, abuse is inevitable,” Lundquist argues.

Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW) also commends the HRTO ruling. “This decision is an indictment not only against Jose Pratas and Presteve Foods, but an indictment against Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program,” J4MW organizer Chris Ramsaroop says.

Both J4MW and Unifor are lobbying for improvements to the TFW Program.

Jeff Cottrill is editor of canadian occupational health and safety news.

Most Canadians “physically present” at work: report

By Carmelle Wolfson

A

majority of Canadian employees are inattentive at work, says a Morneau Shepell report released in June.

The study, The True Picture of Workplace Absenteeism, found that 80 per cent of respondents self-reported experience with presenteeism — time spent at the workplace, but not productively engaged in work. Meanwhile, 81 per cent indicated that they had gone into work while they could not perform as well as they would have liked, due to physical sickness (47 per cent), stress or anxiety (40 per cent) and workplace issues and/or problems with co-workers or managers (22 per cent). Depression was specified as the cause by 15 per cent of respondents.

The study interviewed more than 1,300 Canadians, according to a statement from Morneau Shepell. “We are hoping that it will be a bit of a wake-up call to employers,” says Paula Allen, vicepresident of resource and integrative solutions with the firm.

Accidents, errors, missed deadlines and having to redo things are all indicators of inattentive employees. Both presenteeism and absenteeism can contribute to increased risk of accidents, Allen notes. With absenteeism, co-workers might be expected to do extra work to compensate for the missing employee, which can lead to fatigue, overtime hours or skipped breaks. Contract workers, who are generally less trained, may also be hired to replace absent workers.

Allen suggests that employers should not deal with absenteeism in a punitive manner. “In most situations, it really is an indication that there is something going on and that it makes sense for employers and employees to collaborate to improve the health of the workplace and, ultimately, absence.”

Other key findings in the report include 56 per cent of

employees who responded that they were not aware of their organization offering employee-assistance programs and 43 per cent who indicated that their organizations did not create an environment that supported mental wellness on the job.

“Safety isn’t only about policy, it is really about building a health and safety culture,” Allen says.

Carmelle Wolfson is former assistant editor of

Wheel defect cited as cause of freight-train derailment

By Jeff Cottrill

A

broken wheel in the 13th car of a Canadian National (CN) freight train caused track damage that spiraled into the derailment of 19 cars and a locomotive near Plaster Rock, New Brunswick on January 7, 2014, concludes a report from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), released on June 19.

No one was injured or killed in the accident, but the train’s tank cars spilled about 230,000 litres of crude oil, triggering a fire that led to the evacuation of around 150 nearby residents.

The incident also destroyed more than 105 metres of track.

According to the report, the CN train was travelling from Toronto to Moncton when the L3 wheel on the 13th car broke as a result of wheel fatigue, due to a large area of porosity under the surface. This damage had not been detected during the wheel’s initial ultrasonic testing in 1991, nor was it found during the wheel’s 2006 re-profiling.

“This accident and other recent accidents in North America, including the one at Lac-Mégantic, have illustrated the vulnerability of Class 111 tank cars to damage in a derailment and to product release,” the report states, referring to the fatal derailment and explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec in July 2013. “If Class 111 tank cars that do not meet enhanced protection standards transport flammable liquids, there is an ongoing risk of product loss and significant damage to persons, property, and the environment when these cars are involved in accidents.”

The TSB report notes that ultrasonic testing of wheels have become stricter since the broken wheel’s original manufacture. “Most failures due to shattered rims occur when the wheels are fairly new,” the report notes. “The action taken by the industry has improved detection of defective wheels before they are placed into service and, as a result, reduced the risks of failure due to shattered rims.”

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

www.ohscanada.com

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SAFETY GEAR

HEARING PROTECTION

Hear, There and Everywhere tures personal protective equipment (PPE) in Newmarket, Ontario. Dente cites pulp and paper, electrical utilities and automotive manufacturing as among the key sectors that require hearing-protection products.

By Jeff Cottrill

L

oud noise is present in many work environments. Think of people who work at airports and construction sites, or in factories, forestry and the resources sector, even at entertainment venues or schools packed with crowds. As hearing damage is permanent and irreversible, hearing protection — usually in the form of earplugs or earmuffs — is a key requirement across a swath of industries to prevent noise levels from damaging workers’ eardrums.

Health Canada notes that approximately 9,000 workers across the country suffer from some form of hearing impairment, including tinnitus, due to overexposure to occupational noise each year. Excessive noise has also been shown to increase the risk of accidents within the workplace, when workers fail to hear warning sounds.

Meanwhile, statistics from the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission (WHSCC) in St. John’s, Newfoundland indicate that the province’s hearing-loss claims cost between $1.5 million and $3.5 million every year from 2003 to 2009.

“Wherever machines generate sound is a potential for the requirement for hearing protection,” says Claudio Dente, president of Dentec Safety Specialists Inc., which manufac-

EARPLUGS AND EARMUFFS Hearing protectors range from disposable earplugs to longterm earmuffs. Special helmets designed to protect against both hearing loss and impact to the head are also available, but these are intended primarily for the military and some recreational use and are not common in work settings.

Hearing protectors can be classified as active or passive: passive devices provide a constant level of sound reduction, which is convenient for environments that are continually noisy, while active devices use electronic means to augment or regulate noise reduction. Some active hearing protectors can even amplify sounds during quieter moments to enhance the worker’s awareness of the surrounding environment.

From simple foam earplugs to earmuffs that can be worn around the head or neck, Dentec offers a gamut of hearingprotection products through a line called Tasco, Dente says.

Also offering a broad range of products is 3M Canada, based in London, Ontario. In addition to the usual earplugs and earmuffs, 3M sells electronic headsets that allow workers

THIS OR THAT There are advantages and disadvantages associated with using earmuffs or earplugs. Earplugs can be mass-produced or individually moulded to fit the ear, and they can be reusable or disposable, according to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) in Hamilton, Ontario. On the other hand, earmuffs can vary with respect to the material and depth of the dome and the force of the headband. The deeper and heavier the dome, the greater the low-frequency attenuation provided by the protector. The headband must also fit tightly enough to maintain a proper seal, yet not be too tight for comfort.

The table below from the CCOHS compares the protection that earplugs and earmuffs offer:

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Advantages

Disadvantages

Earplugs

•S mall and easily carried • Convenient to use with other personal protective equipment (PPE), like earmuffs • More comfortable for long-term wear in hot, humid work areas • Convenient for use in confined work areas

• • • • • •

equire more time to fit R More difficult to insert and remove Require good hygiene practices May irritate the ear canal Easily misplaced More difficult to see and monitor usage

Earmuffs

• L ess attenuation variability among users • One size fits most head sizes • Easily visible at a distance to enforce or monitor their use • Not as easily misplaced or lost • May be worn with minor ear infections

• • • • •

L ess portable and bulkier Not so compatible when used with other PPE May be uncomfortable to wear under hot, humid conditions Less suited for use in confined work areas May interfere with the wearing of safety or prescription

glasses by breaking the seal between the earmuff and the skin, resulting in decreased protection

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PHOTO (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT): DENTEC SAFETY SPECIALISTS INC.; MSA; 3M CANADA.

to communicate with one another, while protecting their ears FIRST THINGS FIRST from excessive nearby noise.

One of the challenges of manufacturing hearing protectors is “Probably the most popular hearing-protection device that to shield a worker’s hearing without blocking out sounds that we sell, or one of the more popular, is the foam earplugs,” says he or she needs to hear. For those who need to communicate Bev Borst, advanced-development specialist with 3M. “It is an constantly with colleagues and protect their hearing at the earplug that they roll down, put in their ear, and then replace same time, Borst recommends active hearing-protection deit with another one the next time or a few uses later.” The com- vices with electronic functions. pany also sells reusable earplugs that last longer, in addi“They can just connect to their tion to earmuffs for long-term use, she adds. radio system or through their cell Jeffrey Goldberg, president of CusEarmuffs protect our hearing phones,” she says. That will enable from acoustic challenges tom Protect Ear in Surrey, British them to communicate without havat work. Various types of Columbia, points out that hearing ing to remove their hearing protecearmuffs are available from is the only sense that PPE manution. There are earmuffs and earDentec (left), MSA (below) facturers protect by blocking it. plugs available with microphones and 3M Canada (bottom).

“If we protect somebody’s vision, that help accentuate speech frewe give them a pair of goggles quency. “But the electronics also they can see through. If we want turn off when the noise level is to protect their hands from cuts, dangerous,” Borst says. “People can we give them a pair of gloves, but easily communicate with someone, they can still function.” they can hear noises, they can actually But when it comes to hearing, adjust that volume, but the electron“we put corks in their ears and we ics also maintain a safe level, so that try to reduce the amount of noise there is no damage to their hearing from communicating.” they are exposed to,” Goldberg says. “And then we wonder why people don’t wear their hearing protecGoldberg suggests that compation effectively.” nies should try to eliminate the need for This is why Custom Protect Ear is one of the hearing protection before considering few companies in the world that manufacbuying it. “We should be all in the business of committing to maintaining the tures custom-molded hearing protection.

The firm tailors protectors for each indiworker’s hearing,” he advises. “The best vidual wearer by taking an impression of way to do that is to eliminate the noise. But sometimes, that is uneconomic.” the wearer’s ears and using that to design the protector to fit the person.

In that case, an employer should try to lessen This not only makes the product or manage the noise level by limiting the tasks that workers are conducting or moving them to a differmore effective, but also increases its comfort level and, therefore, makes it ent location. “And if that is not possible, then we talk more likely to be used. The company also about providing hearing protection.” adjusts the protector to accommodate the FEEL THE NOISE job’s noise exposure, the work involved and/ Before making a purchase, an employer must measure the or the need for interpersonal communication level of noise to which a worker is exposed, in order to deterwith other employees.

“Custom hearing protection has been around for a while,” mine how much protection is necessary.

Ashley Gaworski, product-line manager for hearing proGoldberg says. “What has happened in the last 10 years is that tection with MSA in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, says it has become a much better-refined, more useful product.”

Only a handful of companies around the world share Cus- that a piece of equipment called a dosimeter is typically used. tom Protect Ear’s personalized approach to hearing protec- “There are manufacturers that make advanced ones, Bluetion, he adds. But some manufacturers claim to tailor their tooth technology ones,” she explains. The dosimeter reading products to individual needs. And that, Goldberg says, “actu- is applied into a special calculation that reveals the approprially give the rest of us a bad name, because they don’t func- ate protection level, and three is subtracted from that to get the final reading. tion all that well.”

The CSA Group’s Standard Z94.2-14 or Hearing ProtecDente agrees with Goldberg that comfort is an important factor when selecting the right auditory protection. “Wearing tion Devices — Performance, Selection, Care and Use, offers a hearing protector can be uncomfortable. If it is an earplug, specific criteria to follow when choosing a product. It recomyou are going to insert it to your ear canal, and some people mends such considerations as the level of noise exposure, the have sensitivity to inserting an earplug into their ear canal,” worker’s current hearing ability, compatibility with other PPE being used, the worksite’s temperature or climate, the physihe explains.

“The issue about an earmuff is the amount of pressure that cal limits of the work or the worker and what communicait applies to the side of the head in order to get protection. So tion abilities the worker needs. Goldberg says the Canadian that might cause some discomfort to people,” Dente notes. Standards Association (CSA) is in the process of developing But the wide variety of products out there ensures that any- a new standard, CSA Z1007 or the Hearing Loss Prevention one should be able to find one that offers both comfort and Program Management Standard, which will define additional ways to determine the most effective hearing protector. proper protection, he adds. www.ohscanada.com

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The current standard also recommends that workers always wear hearing-protection devices in work environments where administrative or engineering controls cannot lower noise exposure to an acceptable level. It requires that employers train all workers on where, when and why they should use their protectors, while providing “refresher training” on proper maintenance of hearing protectors every two years.

CSA recommends three different selection methods for hearing protectors: the CSA Class, Octave Band Analysis or, most commonly, Noise Reduction Rating (NRR). The CSA Class is based on an ABC rating system — with “A” protectors providing the highest amount of noise reduction and “C” giving the least. Octave Band Analysis provides a rating number through a complex calculation that involves the equivalent workplace octave-band sound-pressure levels and the octaveband attenuation data for the device.

The NRR is a concept that the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States defined in 1984. A protector with an NRR of 20, for example, reduces noise in a workspace by 20 decibels to the wearer’s ears. “Wearing a hearing Meanwhile, the noise-expoprotector can be sure limit permitted over an eight-hour workday is 85 deciuncomfortable.” bels (dBA) for every province and territory in Canada except for Quebec, where the limit is 90 dBA. For work environments with 105 dBA of noise or higher, CSA recommends that workers wear both earplugs and earmuffs simultaneously.

One of the mistakes that employers often make, Dente notes, is overprotecting the worker. “If someone is working in an environment that has 90 decibels of sound and somebody selects a hearing protector that gives 30 NRR protection, that is going to get the noise level down to 60. That is too quiet.”

According to the CSA standard, any noise-exposure level below 70 dBA is a sign of possible overprotection. In such conditions, workers may not be able to hear oncoming vehicles or moving machinery, or they may be oblivious to co-workers’ warning shouts. “Other issues can be that they might feel isolated,” Dente adds.

Gaworski suggests that workers who need to wear hard hats along with hearing protectors should equip themselves with the same brand of both products for a greater likelihood of compatibility. Although the CSA standard does not require hats and earmuffs to come from the same manufacturer, it does stress the importance of compatibility.

With this in mind, MSA manufactures helmet-mounted hearing protectors that are specifically designed for MSA helmets. “We have tested them together to be compliant, so that we know that our hearing protection doesn’t interfere with the compliance of the helmet,” Gaworski says. “We have had experiences where competitive earmuffs have been shoved into our slots and it has cracked the slots of the helmet.”

MSA offers a range of both active and passive hearing protectors, including one that plays FM radio and another that provides two-way communication for military work.

Gaworski adds that there is also a product that has a cutoff technology, which is for impulse noise. “So anytime there is a shotgun noise or any kind of impulse noise that goes above the 82 decibels, that cutoff technology brings it back down to 82 in your ears.”

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IN CHECK As with all PPE, it is necessary to do routine checks of longterm hearing protectors in order to make sure that they are still working properly. Gaworski says that the foam and ceiling ring inside a pair of protective earmuffs should be replaced semi annually.

“That is typically what manufacturers recommend, and it is what the standard recommends as well,” she points out.

“Without doing that, you are possibly affecting the attenuation that you get, because they can deteriorate with oil and dirt and grime.”

It is also important to check regularly for cracks and other damage that may weaken the product’s ability. “If they are around chemicals, they need to make sure nothing is deteriorating,” Gaworski notes.

Dente recommends visual inspections, particularly of metal or plastic headbands that could crack or bend. “If it is metal,” he says, “people might bend it to loosen it, and you have got to be careful of that, because when you do that, it reduces the pressure of the ear, which reduces the protection.”

Ceiling rings are also vulnerable, he adds. “If you are wearing it steadily, the plain old synthetic material might have a reaction to sweat, perspiration, harden and so forth.”

Earplugs, on the other hand, are normally disposable after a few uses, although reusable earplugs made of rubber, plastic or silicone can last a lot longer if they are inspected regularly.

“And again, it is a visual inspection,” Dente says. “If it is torn in any manner or soiled, you don’t want to put a soiled hearing protector in your ear.”

The WHSCC suggests washing reusable earplugs with soap and water and to keep them in a case to prevent them from getting dirty or lost. It also recommends replacing them when they become hard or cracked — typically every six months or so, it estimates, although this will likely vary according to the plugs themselves — and replacing custommolded earplugs if they start to feel loose.

It is essential that earmuffs fit properly and that the cuffs seal tightly over the ears without interference from hair, glasses or jewellery, according to the CSA standard. Borst points out the importance of fit-testing hearing protectors to ensure that they provide the right level of protection.

“There are other checks, like visually looking at the worker to make sure the earplug is well inserted into the ear or that the earmuff is situated properly over their head or on their hard hat,” Borst explains. But with the technology available today, “we can now fit-test earplugs and earmuffs and determine the worker’s Personal Attenuation Rating. We know exactly what that worker is getting from their hearing protection.”

As hearing is the primary sense that people use for communication, noise-induced hearing loss or any form of hearing loss can lead sufferers to withdraw from society to some degree, in part because they get weary of asking family and friends to repeat themselves in conversation, Goldberg cautions. This is why it is so important for employers to protect their workers’ hearing on the job — and to do so with the proper equipment.

“The repercussions of not doing that are quite serious,” Goldberg says. “We want to maintain and enhance their ability to live their lives as functional individuals.”

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Jeff Cottrill is editor of canadian occupational health and safety news.

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SPECIAL REPORT

The Weakest Links

By Carmelle Wolfson

O

n June 16, Ontario’s Ministry of Labour (MOL) started public consultations on how the Labour Relations Act, 1995 and the Employment Standards Act, 2000 could be amended to keep pace with the changing needs of workers and employers in the modern workplace.

Consultations in the Greater Toronto Area have continued throughout the summer and examined workplace trends that include the increase in non-standard working relationships and the effects of globalization and accelerating technological change.

According to a statement issued by the MOL on May 14, non-standard employment, which includes involuntary parttime jobs, temporary work, self-employment and multiple job holders, has grown almost twice as quickly as standard employment since 1997. Private-sector services account for more than half of all employment in Ontario.

While the term “vulnerability” is increasingly used in the province’s workplaces in general, there was no discussion of what factors led to this increased ‘vulnerability’ or if these groups were vulnerable in similar ways, says Peter Smith, Ph.D., a scientist with the Institute for Work and Health (IWH) in Toronto.

“Labelling any “The labelling of groups in this way can have the unintended consequence group, such as of making the focus about the individual, rather than the working condi- young workers, tions that lead to this increased risk.”

To address this issue, Dr. Smith as vulnerable has come up with a definition of what constitutes workplace vulnerability workers is and devised a set of questions that can measure changes in worker vulproblematic.” nerability over time. “We define oh&s vulnerability as exposure to workplace hazards, in combination with inadequate workplace policies and procedures, low oh&s awareness and/or a workplace culture that discourages workers’ participation in injury prevention,” he says.

At the IWH plenary on January 20, Dr. Smith shared the preliminary findings from a survey capturing different dimensions of workplace vulnerability across a sample of workers in Ontario and British Columbia. With funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Dr. Smith and his team surveyed more than 1,800 workers in the two provinces from May to June 2014. The 29-item questionnaire covered four areas: the hazards to which respondents were exposed; oh&s policies and procedures in place at their workplaces; respondents’ levels of workplace-safety awareness; and how empowered they felt while participating in injury prevention.

“I think labelling any group, such as young workers, as vulnerable workers is problematic, as it doesn’t really tell you

anything about why these workers are vulnerable,” Dr. Smith says. When young workers were first identified as a vulnerable group, people thought that it meant something unique about young workers that led to this increased risk of injury, he explains. But research later showed that this was not the case.

“Measuring factors that place workers at increased risk of injury is a more proactive approach to injury prevention than waiting for injuries to occur and then taking action,“ Dr. Smith says. “Using this measure, we can learn more about the patterns of different types of vulnerability across the labour market, which can inform the development of more appropriately tailored primary-prevention interventions.”

WORK IN PROGRESS Protecting vulnerable workers was a priority in Ontario as far back as 2012, when the MOL established the Vulnerable Workers Task Group. Over the last few years, the provincial government has introduced legislation aimed at strengthening protections for vulnerable workers through the Stronger Workplaces for a Stronger Economy Act. Five vulnerableworker inspection blitzes were conducted, and mandatory health and safety awareness training was introduced.

More recently, the ministry announced funding towards research projects aimed at improving the safety of vulnerable workers on June 1. Among the projects getting funding is an IWH study that is receiving a $263,994 grant to evaluate the effects of the province’s mandatory awareness training program, introduced last July.

Worker vulnerabilities often stem from socioeconomic circumstances, says Avvy Go, director of the Metro Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, which serves low-income immigrant populations in Toronto. “I would define vulnerable workers as workers who work in precarious job situations where there is no job security and very little rights protection,” Go says. “Almost all of them are people of colour, immigrants.

For many of them, English is not their first language.”

According to the Public Services Health and Safety Association in Toronto, vulnerable workers have greater exposure than most to injury and illness, due to their lack of experience, reluctance to ask questions, communication barriers and type of work. “So it is the legal framework, the lack of protection in the labour environment, plus the socio-economic disadvantages faced by these groups,” Go sums up.

While Dr. Smith says the questionnaire he devised demonstrates good variability and strong factorial validity, future studies should look at harder-to-reach samples, such as recent immigrants and short-tenure employees. “By identifying the specific reasons for increased vulnerability, primaryprevention activities can be more targeted and effective.”

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Carmelle Wolfson is former assistant editor of www.ohscanada.com

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ACCIDENT PREVENTION

GRAIN HANDLING

Against the Grain GRAIN OF TRUTH: Grain processing is a major Canadian industry. Grain-handling facilities, which process a variety of agricultural commodities, include grain elevators, feed mills, flour mills, rice mills, dust-pelletizing plants, drycorn mills, facilities with soybean-flaking operations and those with dry grinding operations of soycake.

Grain-handling is a high-risk industry, and workers can be exposed to hazards that include fires and explosions from grain-dust accumulation, suffocation from engulfment and entrapment in grain bins, falls from heights, crushing injuries and amputations.

Workers can become trapped in flowing grain when they are unloaded in a funnel-shaped path to an unloading auger. A conveyor at the bottom of the bin transports the grain out, creating a grain vortex similar to a whirlpool, information from Health and Safety Ontario (HSO) notes. Like in quicksand, a worker who is pulled into flowing grain is rapidly drawn to the bin floor.

A PERILOUS BRIDGE: Apart from flowing grain, workers can also become submerged when a grain bridge or a vertical grain bridge collapses. A grain bridge is a hardened, crust-like mass of spoiled grain that conceals a cavity underneath. The weight of a worker walking onto a grain bridge can cause the thin crust to collapse, engulfing the worker.

On the other hand, a vertical grain wall is crusted grain that sticks to the bin walls, creating large vertical columns. A worker entering the bin to break the grain free can cause a “grain avalanche”.

Grain that is wet enough to form a bridge across the bin may contain little oxygen in the cavity beneath the bridge due to microbial action, a paper from the University of Kentucky’s College of Agriculture cautions. A person who falls into this pocket of space may inhale toxic gases and microbial spores, even if the head remains above the level of the grain.

SHADES OF DANGER: Highly combustible grain dust is another hazard. The types of grain dust to which workers can be exposed are complex and encompass wheat, barley, rye, oats and corn. These dusts can include plant contaminants like weeds and pollens, as well as fungi that grow in grain.

If grain dust becomes airborne or accumulates in sufficient quantities on a surface and finds an ignition source, such as a hot bearing, an overheated motor or a misaligned conveyor belt, a deadly explosion can occur, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in Washington, D.C. cautions.

As well, operators’ limbs can get caught in improperly guarded moving parts of mechanical equipment in grain-storage structures, such as augers and conveyors, resulting in entanglement and amputation.

ENTER AT OWN RISK: One of the reasons why workers enter grain bins is to check on the grain’s condition visually and probe the bin to determine the grain’s temperature and moisture content, so as to ensure that no hot spots are developing in the centre of the bin. Grain that is being removed from a bin equipped with a bottom unloading auger may fail to flow due to clogging or bridging. An operator may have to go inside the bin to remove the obstruction or break up the bridged grain, information from the University of Kentucky notes.

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TELL-TALE SIGNS: Knowing the dangers associated with flowing or crusted grain can help prevent entrapment. To detect a grain bridge, look for an inverted cone or funnel after unloading from a bin. Using a safety harness and lifeline, use a pole or a weighted line to free the bridge, HSO advises. Workers must never stand on the surface of the grain, and proper storage techniques should be used to avoid conditions that can cause grain spoilage.

The University of Kentucky recommends taking the following precautions, among others, when entering grain bins: • A worker entering a grain bin must be fastened to a safety harness tied to a point outside the structure. Two additional people should be involved: one who can see the person entering the bin, and another on the ground to ensure that no one starts the unloading equipment and who can seek help if warranted; • Always stop the flow of grain first before retrieving any lost item in the bin, such as a shovel or a grain probe; • Know the bin’s unloading history prior to entering it, especially if the surface of the bin appears crusty, which could mean that the grain has bridged; and • If one has to enter a grain bin alone, lock out the control circuit, inform someone what you are doing and post a sign on the control switch to inform other workers that someone is inside the bin.

Always check that no one is inside the bin before unloading it.

SILENT KILLERS: While mechanical dangers pose threats, silent gases that lurk in silos can kill with little warning. According to the Farm Safety Association (FSA) in Guelph, Ontario, silo gas is formed by the natural fermentation of chopped silage — food for farm animals stored in a silo.

Although a variety of gases are released during this process, the type of silo in which the forage is stored determines which gas will be predominant.

For instance, both nitrogen and carbon dioxide are created in sealed silos, but carbon dioxide is produced in far greater amounts, which, in high concentrations, can replace oxygen. Gases are also formed in conventional or open-top silos, with nitrogen dioxide being the most abundant. This highly toxic gas has a strong bleach-like odour and low-lying yellow, red or dark brown fumes. A farmer might inhale the gas without noticing any serious ill effects before dying in his sleep hours later from fluid collecting in the lungs.

GAS ALERT: To tackle these silent dangers, the FSA cautions workers to be on the alert for silo-gas odours and coloured fumes in or near the silo. The greatest danger from nitrogendioxide gas emanating from silage occurs during the first 12 to 60 hours after filling.

Avoid entering a silo four to six weeks after filling stops, and ventilate the silo room adequately for at least two weeks after filling. If entering a silo is necessary, do it immediately after blowing the last load into the structure and ensure that the blower has been running for 15 to 45 minutes prior to entry. Never enter a silo alone without wearing a self-contained breathing apparatus and a lifeline, especially during the period when dangerous gases might be forming. If one starts coughing or experiences throat irritation, get out into fresh air and seek medical attention.

RESCUERS BEWARE: If someone has fallen into a grain bin, rescuers must be mindful of being pulled into the flowing grain and becoming a second victim. In such a situation, HSO recommends stopping the flow of grain by turning off the grain-moving machinery and ventilating the bin with a drying fan without activating the heat source. If entry into the bin is necessary to save the worker, the rescuer must wear a body harness, with a safety rope tied to at least two rescuers on the roof of the bin.

SEAL OF SAFETY: The best precaution is to prevent incidents from happening in the first place. Getting a certification from the Canadian Grain Commission Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point is a good start. This voluntary program certifies whether a company’s grain safety quality-management system meets the requirements of the national Food Safety and Identity Quality Management System Preserved Standard. To obtain certification, a company must have effective grain-safety processes to manage the risks associated with handling, storing, processing and shipping grains, oilseeds and pulses. A Certificate of Recognition is issued to a company that has successfully completed third-party audits on grain safety quality-management systems by accredited auditors. www.ohscanada.com

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Sum of Its Parts

By Jean Lian

E

ngaging in “system think” — understanding how change in one sub-system of a complex system may affect other sub-sub-systems within that system — rather than punitive action is the way to improve transportation safety, according to Christopher Hart, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington, D.C. Hart underscored the importance of a mindset shift among regulators when he addressed an audience at the Safety 2015 Professional Development Conference and Exposition, held by the American Society of Safety Engineers in Dallas on June 8.

“Collaboration is powerful in improving transportation safety,” Hart said. Instead of the conventional way of punishing those who make mistakes, safety improvement in workplaces should focus on making the system more able to accommodate human errors without catastrophic consequences.

“Most of our transportation systems are complex systems of sub-systems that are coupled together and have to work effectively together for the entire system to work,” he noted.

“That means if you make a change in one sub-system, it is going to have effects throughout on all the other sub-systems.”

To illustrate his point, Hart shared lessons learned from proactive aviation-safety programs. From the mid- to late ’90s, the accident rate in the aviation sector was coming down, thanks to the introduction of jet engines in place of piston engines. The use of simulators in training pilots also led to a quantum drop in accident rates. That dip eventually reached a plateau.

When the Federal Aviation Administration predicted that the volume of air travel Christopher Hart, chairman of the would double in 15 to National Transportation Safety 20 years, “that means Board in Washington, D.C. Joe public is going to see smoking, burning planes on CNN twice as often,” Hart noted. “That was what scared the industry into doing something different.”

The aviation industry adopted a system-think process and brought together operators, manufacturers, regulators, pilots and air-traffic controllers to address the issue. As a result of this collaborative effort, the fatal-accident rate was reduced by 83 per cent in less than a decade from 1998 to 2007.

“This was a huge, huge change from the way they used to do it,” Hart said, referring to the manner in which the regulator identifies the problem and has the industry fix it. This creates a situation in which the industry begrudgingly and minimally implements the solutions, which it deems ineffective and expensive. “It is an adversarial relationship between the regulator and the regulated.”

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the flaps, which enable planes to fly more slowly and need less runway, too quickly. Doing so could result in a breach of the structural integrity of the plane and requires it to be taken off for several days for disassembly and inspection. The airline’s head of safety looked into the problem and found that the issue stemmed from air-traffic controllers bringing the planes in from too high an altitude too quickly.

“They realized that these approaches were great for DC4s and DC6s,” he noted, but not so good for other types of planes.

“In other words, they were just out of date. They had not been fixed in a long time, and when pilots complained about it, nobody listened. But when they showed up in real data from flight-data recorders, people started paying attention.”

BEYOND COMPLIANCE

By Jean Lian

W

hile regulations save lives, compliance with standards alone does not make workplaces safe, and workers can still be injured and killed even in the absence of any violation of safety standards. This was the key message that David Michaels, assistant secretary of labour for occupational safety and health with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in Washington, D.C., delivered at the plenary session of Safety 2015 on June 9.

“Every year in the United States, 4,500 workers are killed on the job — 12 a day,” Michaels said. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employers record three millions injuries a each year, and that is already a 40 to 70 per cent undercount. “What do we need to do to get to zero?” he questioned. “We have a long way to go.”

The majority of the costs stemming from worker injuries are picked up by workers and their families (50 per cent), followed by workers’ compensation (21 per cent), private health insurance (13 per cent), federal government (11 per cent) and state and local government (five per cent), according to Michaels.

“One of the reasons why programs like the Social Security Disability Insurance Programs are close to bankrupt is because they are covering a lot of people who have work-related injuries that are not being covered by workers’ compensation. What that means is that you and I, every taxpayer in the United States, is subsidizing hazardous employers,” Michaels said. “So on every level, it is hurting workers, and it is coming out of your pocket.”

An estimated 50,000 deaths from occupational illnesses are attributed to chemical exposure every year. Silicosis, in particular, remains a major problem in the United States.

“Workers are overexposed to silicosis,” Michaels noted, adding that the two standards for silica — one for the general industry and the other for the construction sector — are incredibly outdated. “It actually uses a million particles per cubic foot, and we can’t measure that anymore.”

The vast majority of existing permitted exposure levels

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Sometimes, trying to improve safety outcomes by targeting zero errors may be counter-productive. “Leadership in the organization has to have commitment to safety, but it cannot be ‘no errors on my watch’,” Hart cautioned, adding that this could “Collaboration lead to problems being swept under is powerful the carpet out of fear of reprisals. “You won’t hear about it until there is a cain improving tastrophe, so ‘no errors on my watch’ simply does not work.” transportation In order for system think to bring about safety improvement in workplacsafety.” es, Hart recommended that employers identify a problem and appoint an improvement team to address that problem. “Once they realize this is not a process to determine who to punish, but to determine how to fix what

(PELs) have not been updated since 1971, and the number of chemicals found in workplaces today far exceeds the number regulated by OSHA. He reported that OSHA is currently working on a final regulation, which includes provisions for measuring worker exposure to silica, limiting access to areas where workers could be exposed above the PEL, using dust controls and respirators when necessary, requiring highly exposed workers to undergo medical exams, providing worker training and keeping records.

That said, Michaels advised employers — in particular, those in construction — not to wait for the new standards to be put out, but to use various dust-control measures like water sprays, enclosures and vacuum dust-collection systems to lower exposure immediately.

Rules relating to confined spaces in the construction industry will also make a big difference, he suggested. The new requirements include coordinated activities when there are multiple employers at a worksite, having a competent person evaluate the worksite and identify confined spaces and continuously monitoring hazards presented by the atmosphere and engulfment.

But the reality is that from the moment a standard has been issued, it is out of date. Currently, OSHA has as many as 500 standards for chemical exposures, of which 470 date back to the 1960s or before.

“We are not going to be able to issue standards for every chemical,” Michaels said. “When you issue a new standard for any chemical, employers move to a different chemical.”

For example, OSHA has a very good standard for methane chloride, but employers who want to avoid the standard simply move to 1-Bromopropane, which is a neurotoxin.

“We call this regulatory whack-a-mole.”

Nevertheless, OSHA regulations remain an effective enforcement tool, he noted. The grain-handling standard reduced grain-bin explosions by 42 per cent, the excavation and trenching standard lowered fatalities to 35 per cent and the Bloodborne Pathogen Standard and the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act cut Hepatitis B infection among healthcare workers by 90 per cent.

I do everyday to make it better, they are going to willingly engage in that as opposed to being defensive,” he suggested.

Regulators can emphasize the importance of system issues — in addition to worker issues — by encouraging and participating in industry-wide system think, facilitating the collection and analysis of information and recognizing that while compliance is important, the agency’s mission is, ultimately, to reduce systemic risk.

“Regulator needs to be a strong believer in using system think,” especially at an industry-wide level, Hart said. “Compliance with the law is one of the tools, but if that is their objective, then they are focused on the wrong target. Their target needs to be improve the safety of the system.”

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Jean Lian is editor of

ohs canada.

IN THE WORKS Apart from construction work, the upstream oil and gas industry is also on the radar of safety regulators. While the oiland-gas-extraction industry has made great strides, there are far too many deaths. The fatality rate in the sector is five to eight times greater than the national average for all sectors.

“We are now introducing the industry to our Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP),” said Michaels, adding that drilling companies that were found to have contravened oh&s regulations will be put under the SVEP. “What that would mean is, you will get more inspections, we could go to other sites in the same company, we would keep our eyes on you very closely, and you are much more at risk for more fines and more problems.” Considerations for the SVEP include two or more willful or repeated violations or failureto-abate notices and serious violations.

To protect healthcare workers from transmittable diseases, OSHA and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health have released a new toolkit to protect hospital staff from respiratory hazards. The Respiratory Protection Standard by OSHA also requires employers to establish and maintain a respiratory protection program.

Another new development relates to the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order signed by President Barack Obama last July. The order contains several new requirements designed to improve the federal contracting process. The basic premise of this executive order is that the opportunity to contract with the federal government is a privilege, not an entitlement. “There is no reason that companies or contractors that get government money should be lawbreakers,” Michaels said.

Under a document proposed by the Department of Labor, an estimated 22,000 contractors bidding on contracts exceeding $500,000 will be subject to the new rule. Before receiving contracts, contractors must disclose workplaceprotection violations from the past three years, including OSHA violations. “That won’t bar them from becoming a contractor, but we will work with them on how they might get into compliance.”

www.ohscanada.com

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Safety 2015 attracted delegates and members from more than 40 countries, including a delegation from China’s Safety Administration of Work Safety. On June 8, the delegates met with the executive team of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) to discuss areas for cooperation between the two organizations in the oh&s field, such as exchange of best practices and technical information, professional development training and conferences and elevating the profession in both countries.

From left: Nick Yin, ASSE’s ambassador to Greater China; Liu Yan, director of China Occupational Safety and Health Association; Liu Jia, deputy director of National Center for International Cooperation in Work Safety; Patricia M. Ennis, ASSE president; Michael Belcher, ASSE president-elect; Yassie Dunn, global growth and development manager; Dennis Hudson, ASSE professional affairs director; and Fred J. Fortman, Jr., ASSE secretary and executive director.

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Product Highlights More than 600 exhibitors showcased their safety products and services at Safety 2015 in Dallas from June 7 to 10. Below is a snapshot of products showcased at the event.

AccessPoint Equipment-Access Control System Inno

by American Green Ventures, Inc. SpillFix is an organic, non-toxic industrial product that absorbs hazardous liquid spills on contact, including oils, fuels, solvents, paints and chemicals. It requires 80 per cent less product to clean up spills than clay-based absorbents do and leaves behind no residue like sticky clay or absorbent pads.

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SpillFix Industrial Organic Absorbent

by Whiting Corporation Using smartcard technology to prevent unauthorized operation of high-risk machinery, AccessPoint can be fitted to any electronically powered device to record who accessed 2015 the equipment, when and for how long. Users can view run-hours and usage patterns of all AccessPoint devices within range from any Bluetooth device or personal computer.

tion Awar va

ThermaCELL Heated Insoles

HyFlex Cut-Resistant Ultralight Glove

by Ansell HyFlex 11-541’s 18-gauge ultralight weight liner with Intercept™ yarn provides ANSI cut-level-4 protection. The liner also features ZONZ™ comfort-fit technology for breathability and freedom of movement, while the palm-dipped coating along with FORTIX™ formulation provides enhanced abrasion resistance and grip.

by Schwabel Corporation LLC ProFLEX heated insoles feature a removable cushioncovered battery, allowing wearers to charge the insoles without having to take them out from their shoes. Temperature adjustments can be made through a wireless remote control. Insoles are water-resistant and provide up to five hours of warmth per charge.

Machine-Safety-Management Software (Award Winning)

by Machine Safety Management Corporation This secure, cloud-based software clinched the Award for Innovation in Occupational Safety Management at Safety 2015. By enabling companies to conduct, store and manage machinesafety audits, risk assessments and machine information, safety managers can get an accurate, detailed view of the firm’s machine-safety compliance through a central repository of information.

EdgeAlert™ Open-Gate Alarm

by Wildeck, Inc. This patent-pending alarm system, launched in March, emits a flashing light and beeping sound when the gates of an elevated mezzanine platform are left open, which can result in workers falling from heights. Easy to operate, it can be installed on new or existing swing gates, slide gates, tilt gates or scissor gates. www.ohscanada.com

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Applied to moderate-to-high industrial noises, lightweight 3M™ X-Series earmuffs are the perfect match. With a newly designed spacer, specially formulated foam liners, and innovative ear cushions, our science can help you to improve attenuation.

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THE HATSCAN HANDI-GUIDE SERIES The leading source of expertise on occupational health and safety law in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Atlantic Canada.

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GOGGLE GUARD The new Goggle Guard™ clip is a fast and convenient way to keep safety goggles securely held to a hard hat. Made from a high quality plastic, the clip snaps to the brim of most hard hats and some bump caps. Goggle Guard™ clip also features a pencil clip.

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GRAVITY UTILITY HARNESS MSA announces the Gravity Utility Harness, a versatile full-body harness that can be used in a diverse number of applications like Confined Space, Rescue, Transmission Tower, Telecom Tower, Rope Access, and many others. This harness is suitable for electrical environments and is also tested for arc flash, meeting all requirements of the ASTM F887 standard.

Visit www.msasafety.com 1-800-672-2222

WORKRITE UNIFORM COMPANY LAUNCHES FR CLOTHING APP Workrite Uniform Company’s industry-changing FR clothing smartphone app is now available for download from the iTunes App Store and Google Play nationwide. The app features an FR dictionary, educational videos, FR fabric usage and care information, and 360-degree images and product details for Workrite® FR, Dickies® FR and Walls® FR workwear.

Workrite Uniform Company 800-521-1888 www.workrite.com/canada

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www.ohscanada.com

A D V E R T I S I N G D I R E C T O RY

www.ohscanada. com

C A N A D A

3M

Carswell

www.3M.ca/safety For ad see page 52

MSA Safety

www.carswell.com For ad see page 9

A+A

www.msasafety.com For ad see page 5

Glove Guard

www.aplusa.de/experience For as see page 14

Canadian Red Cross

Nasco Inc.

www.gloveguard.com For ad see page 10

www.nascoinc.com For ad see page 46

Martor www.martorusa.com For ad see page 12

www.workrite.com/canada For ad see page 2

ADVERTISING DIRECTORY

www.ecconference.ca For ad see page 7

Workrite

Canadian Occupational Health & Safety News

The Annual Index for articles published in OHS Canada in 2014 is now available online at our website.

C A N A D A

ANNUAL INDEX 2014

www.ohscanada.com

So, what’s on your mind?

JULY/AUGUST 2015

MAY/JUNE 2015

Can workplace injury shorten lifespan?

Yes

96%

Should sexual harassment be considered an oh&s issue under the law?

Yes

67%

No 2%

No

29%

Not Sure

2%

Total Votes

695

Don’t Know

4%

Total Votes

845

Go on — have your say.

Check out www.ohscanada.com to vote in our latest poll.

www.ohscanada.com

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TIME OUT

SILENT PARTNERS: “Are you hangin’ out with dum- the past were considered improper, illegal or a violation of mies?” That was the tweet posted by the Toronto Police Service (TPS) on July 8, after an officer observed a pickup truck travelling eastbound in the restricted Pan Am Games highvehicle-occupancy (HOV) lane with two dummies. As the vehicle carrying multiple occupants drove past the marked police car, the officer noticed that the front-seat passenger did not appear lifelike. The officer stopped the driver a short distance later and found that the front- and back-seat passengers were dressed mannequins, a TPS statement reports. The driver was charged with the appropriate HOV offence. It was a good thing that everyone in the vehicle was wearing a seatbelt.

NO QUACK JOB: A truck that rolled over and spilled oil has ruffled the feathers of dozens of ducks swimming in Mimico Creek in Toronto. The driver of the flatbed truck carrying three electrical transformers failed to negotiate the curve on a highway properly, resulting in a rollover that spilled almost 6,000 litres of mineral oil onto the roadway and surrounding area, CP24 reported on July 14. While the driver sustained minor injuries, the real concern lay with the oil-soaked ducks. Although mineral oil does not have the same corrosive qualities as traditional petroleum, it still weighs birds down in the water and affects the waterproofing of their feathers. In demonstration of typical Canadian niceness, volunteers helped capture and transfer the afflicted ducks to an area where they could be cleaned. They found the treatment simply ducky.

department rules, the Toronto Sun reported on July 11. The officer claimed that she had never made porn since joining the force. If she had, the handcuffs could have come in useful.

DILDO ALERT: In Portland, Oregon, sex is in the air, with hundreds of dildos and phallic sex toys hanging from power lines across the city. The ubiquitous sights of large dildos in white and bright orange strung together in pairs have prompted numerous reports to the Portland Office of Neighborhood Involvement, Reuters reported on July 14. A spokesman for public utility Portland General Electric said the rubber products were unlikely to pose a fire hazard. Meanwhile, photographs of dildos swaying in the wind above a number of major commercial streets were posted on online forums, making it seem as if Japanese fertility festivals had come to North America. If any good has come out of these dangling sex toys, it is the sense of camaraderie arising from these titillating decorations, which have become the talk of the town.

HEARSE THIEF: We have all heard of car thefts and petty

thefts, but hearse thefts? In Buffalo, New York, a man has been charged with stealing a hearse from outside a church while a funeral was underway, CBS News reported on July 17.

The funeral director told a man, who was one of the pallbearers for his deceased father, that the hearse had been stolen while the casket was being carried out of the church. Police eventually recovered the hearse in the town of Tonawanda.

RODENT ROBBER: If you want to do something big, HELTER SWELTER: In summer, it is not only outdoor make sure you look the part. That was what a robber, dressed as a giant mouse, did when he entered a Mac’s convenience store in Barrie, Ontario on July 14. Police have released footage of the robber wearing a long-sleeved shirt and black trousers with no shoes, Sky News reported. The store employee was not hurt, and the man, who was armed with a knife, fled, leaving behind the mask and knife. No mousey act, indeed.

HEAVEN IN HELL: A cop in Vancouver who expected

hell when he went undercover in a rough part of the city to catch those who had been attacking people in wheelchairs found a little piece of heaven instead. The veteran police officer, posing as a wheelchair user with a brain injury in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside for five days, was all geared up for abuse, Metro reported on July 16. But in more than 300 interactions, no one took advantage of him. In fact, passers-by bought him pizza and gave him money, and one even asked for his permission to pray for him to heal. Not surprisingly, the undercover operation was declared a failure.

ON THE HOOK: “Going undercover” might have a different ring for a cop in Miami. The 30-year-old female officer is under investigation for going under the covers, as her former occupation as a porn star came to light. For the employer, the officer’s transition from a porn actress to a law enforcer was more than just a change in uniform and has launched an investigation to see if her suspected actions in 50

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workers who have to take measures to combat heat stress.

In Italy, farmers are helping their farm animals keep cool by installing showers and air conditioning in cowsheds and pigsties, Reuters reported on July 16. As the mercury climbed up to as high as 40 degrees Celsius in the hottest July for more than a decade, Italian cows produced 50 million litres less milk than usual in the first 15 days of the month and chickens laid between five and 10 per cent fewer eggs. Perspiring pigs, who are eating up to 40 per cent less than usual, are also suffering. Drinking-trough systems are working overtime to give some of the thirsty beasts up to 140 litres of water a day, compared to the 70 litres they drink in cooler weather. Talk about climate change. Oink.

SEEING RED: You can call it road rage, British style. A

woman who filmed a bus driver running a red light in London was assaulted in broad daylight by the very driver who was caught red-handed. The video footage showed the driver leaving her empty double-decker bus in the middle of the road and taking the vigilante videographer to task by screaming and throttling her, demanding that she delete the damning footage. The driver walked away after the woman who filmed her collapsed on the road. A spokesman for the bus company to which the bus driver was contracted said it has terminated the driver’s contract and assisted the police with their investigation.

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

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3M™ E-A-Rfit™ Dual-Ear Validation System

The right fit test.

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Noise-induced hearing loss is 100% preventable.

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TimeOut J_A 2015.indd 52

3M, E-A-Rfit and 3M Science. Applied to Life. are trademarks of 3M. Used under license in Canada. © 2015, 3M. All rights reserved. 150803150 E BA-15-20453

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