All posts by Jeff Cottrill

Health & Safety, Transportation

Construction worker, 37, dies in road accident

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A highway accident claimed the life of a construction worker while he was on the job near Airdrie, Alta., on the evening of Sept. 12.

According to a news release from the Alberta RCMP, construction crews were working on Highway 2, about ten kilometres north of Airdrie, using an excavator to load steel girders onto a flat deck trailer. Northbound traffic on the highway was reduced to one lane during this work.

Early investigation of the incident suggested that a northbound semi tractor-trailer unit hit one of the girders, police said.

“The resulting impact struck a construction worker, and he was pronounced dead on scene,” the release stated. “No other injuries were reported.”

Alberta Labour spokesperson Trent Bancarz said that the construction crew had been using a small crane attached to the excavator to lift the steel girders from a truck and load them onto the trailer.

“Somehow, the barrier swung into the highway side accidentally, and it was struck by an oncoming tractor-trailer unit, which then put the barrier back towards the workers,” said Bancarz. “It struck one of them, and he died as a result of the injuries.”

He added that he had never heard of a similar accident with girders in a road work zone. “So it certainly isn’t common.”

The driver of the semi truck remained at the scene of the accident, police said.

Occupational health and safety officers from Alberta Labour attended the scene, and northbound traffic was shut down on the highway for about three hours as they investigated. By 10 a.m. the following day, one northbound lane had reopened.

Bancarz confirmed that Alberta Labour’s oh&s division would continue to investigate the fatality.

The RCMP does not plan to release the name of the victim publicly, but it confirmed that he had been 37 years old and had hailed from Red Deer.

Airdrie is located about 28 kilometres north of Calgary, in Rocky View County.

Hazmat, Health & Safety

Electrical fire injures worker, damages oilsands plant

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A fire sparked an evacuation and injured an employee at a Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) oilsands plant near Fort McMurray, Alta., on the evening of Sept. 11.

CNRL spokesperson Julie Woo said in a press statement that the corporation’s staff had responded immediately to an electrical building fire at its Horizon site that evening and that the onsite first responders had extinguished the blaze. Workers in the area of the fire were evacuated as a precautionary measure, she added.

“As a result of the incident, one individual was sent for medical evaluation and treatment for minor injuries,” said Woo.

The company notified the appropriate regulatory agencies. “The cause of the fire is being investigated,” said Woo, “and we are assessing to determine the extent of damage to the building.”

The Horizon plant had been fully shut down that day in preparation for a 45-day maintenance period. “Currently,” added Woo, “there has been no impact to our operations or production.”

Trent Bancarz, a spokesperson for Alberta Labour, told COHSN that occupational health and safety officials are also investigating the incident. “It’s mainly because it’s a fire,” he explained. “It would fall under the fire and explosion category.”

Bancarz added that nobody else had been injured in the incident and that the fire had been contained quickly.

“He was taken to a hospital, but apparently, his injuries are minor,” he said about the victim.

The CNRL Horizon site produces high-quality synthetic crude oil with an oilsands-mining and bitumen-extraction plant with onsite bitumen upgrading with associated infrastructure, according to information from the corporation’s website. The plant is located just north of Fort McMurray, in the Athabasca region.

Hazmat, Health & Safety, Health and Wellness, Workers Compensation

WSIB to review previously rejected cancer claims by GE employees

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TORONTO, Ont. – Ontario’s workers’ compensation board has announced that it is planning to re-examine more than 250 claims submitted by General Electric (GE) employees in Peterborough since 2004. A Sept. 18 news release from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) stated that a Dedicated Review Team would deal with both cancer- and non-cancer-related claims that had previously been rejected, reviewing them in the contexts of updated scientific research about links between chemical exposure and illness and of technical advances in identifying next of kin. “The Peterborough community has presented information that helps clarify the exposures people had to various chemicals and substances,” Armando Fatigati, the WSIB’s vice president of complex claims, said in a press statement. “We’ll be looking at what they were exposed to, how much of it they were exposed to and how long people were exposed to these chemicals and substances.” Fatigati added that the WSIB had made more than 2,400 decisions on claims from GE Peterborough employees since 1993, approving more than 80 per cent of them. Earlier this year, a report by the Advisory Committee on Retrospective Exposures concluded that workers had been exposed to more than 3,000 toxic chemicals for more than 50 years at the Peterborough facility (COHSN, May 23).

Compliance & Enforcement, Health & Safety

Worker’s arm injury nets substantial fine for Maple Leaf Foods

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HAMILTON, Ont. – Maple Leaf Foods Inc. has been fined $120,000, plus the standard victim fine surcharge, for its involvement in an incident in which an employee was injured at the company’s Hannon, Ont. facility on March 23, 2016. That day, the worker was dumping deboned chicken into a processing hopper when a box holding some of the chicken collapsed and the meat became stuck inside the hopper, according to a court bulletin from the Ontario Ministry of Labour (MOL). The employee lowered the box and then tried to correct its positioning in the hopper, but the pallet holding the box slid down and injured the worker’s arm. The MOL investigated the incident and found that there had been no safeguards in place to protect the employee and that the chicken had not been moved in a safe way. In the Ontario Court of Justice in Hamilton, Maple Leaf later pleaded guilty to violating section 25(1)(c) of the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act, and Justice of the Peace Kelly Visser imposed the fine on Sept. 11 of this year.

Compliance & Enforcement, Health & Safety, Legislation, Transportation

Safety amendment violates rail workers’ privacy rights: Unifor

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Canada’s largest private-sector union is warning that a recent amendment to the Canada Transportation Act, which would make locomotive voice and video recorders (LVVR) mandatory on trains, would be a violation of rail employees’ privacy rights and would not improve safety as intended.

A Sept. 11 media release from Unifor charged that Bill C-49, also known as the Transportation Modernization Act, would “constitute a landmark privacy violation.” The union added that the federal government had not provided sufficient evidence that LVVRs would improve upon the black-box data recorders that the rail sector currently uses.

“Recording workers on the job is not a safety tool, it is a surveillance tool,” Unifor national president Jerry Dias said in a press statement. “Managerial digital surveillance in the transportation industry is a dangerous precedent that will eventually spread to other sectors.

“This cannot become the government standard.”

Unifor rail director Bruce Snow said in his own statement that video and audio surveillance on trains would be “an invasive and unnecessary distraction” that might increase the stress and harm the performance of railway employees.

“Our members work onboard, so they have a unique and personal investment in railway safety,” said Snow. “But federal legislation must not furnish employers with surveillance powers outside the scope of public safety.”

Sponsored by federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau, Bill C-49 passed its second reading in the House of Commons on June 19. The proposed law “amends the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act to allow the use or communication of an onboard recording… if that use or communication is expressly authorized under the Aeronautics Act, the National Energy Board Act, the Railway Safety Act or the Canada Shipping Act, 2001,” the bill read.

Last year, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) published a report, Expanding the use of locomotive voice and video recorders in Canada, which concluded that the use of LVVRs on trains could potentially enhance rail safety and investigations of railway accidents. Involving numerous stakeholders in the industry, the study deemed that LVVR recordings would provide valuable information to TSB investigators, as well as help to prevent accidents by identifying and mitigating risks (COHSN, Sept. 20).

Unifor representatives met with senior Transport Canada officials on Sept. 5 to discuss the bill, according to the release. The Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities began hearings on Bill C-49 on Sept. 11.

Unifor represents more than 315,000 workers in every major industry across Canada.

Compliance & Enforcement, Health & Safety, Transportation

Vancouver police conduct mass inspections of commercial vehicles

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VANCOUVER, B.C. – The Commercial Vehicle Unit of the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) conducted safety inspections of commercial vehicles all over the city from Sept. 12 to 14, with the help of the Provincial Commercial Vehicle Safety Enforcement team and other local police services. According to a VPD media release, the inspections were part of an ongoing campaign to identify unsafe road vehicles and promote road safety. On Sept. 12, the inspectors examined 75 vehicles at five random locations and found that every one of them had at least one safety violation, while 40 of them met out-of-service criteria, the release noted. A total of $11,761 in fines was issued that day as a result. Among the areas that the inspectors targeted were mechanical deficiencies, load security, bald tires, brakes, windshields, suspension and steering components; they also flagged vehicles that were in a clear state of disrepair for further inspection.

Compliance & Enforcement, Health & Safety

Two Saskatchewan companies fined for lack of proper equipment

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REGINA, Sask. – Two employers in Saskatchewan have pleaded guilty to using insufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) in unrelated cases. A news release from the province’s Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety stated that Hilltop Construction Ltd., based in Balgonie, had been convicted in Regina Provincial Court for failing to ensure that employees were using a fall-protection system where one could fall at least three metres. The charge stemmed from a workplace inspection last Nov. 18, when an occupational health officer observed workers using no required PPE, according to the Ministry. Hilltop was fined $1,250, plus a $500 surcharge, on Sept. 6; an additional charge was dropped. In the other case, a June 15, 2016 inspection of a worksite of Canora-based employer Graham G. Lamb found that workers were not using the required PPE. Later, in Canora Provincial Court, Lamb was convicted of failing to ensure that employees were using fall-arrest gear and head protection when required. He was fined $2,800, including $800 in surcharges, on Sept. 7 of this year. No workers were injured in either incident, the Ministry stated.

Compliance & Enforcement, Hazmat, Health & Safety, Occupational Hygiene

Screamfest gets fine, probation after worker blinded in 2013

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CALGARY, Alta. – Screamworks Incorporated, the company behind the annual Halloween attraction Screamfest in Calgary, was recently convicted for an incident in which an employee was permanently blinded by a customer four years ago. The accident occurred during a Zombie Paintball event at the fest on Oct. 12, 2013, according to an undated announcement on the Alberta Labour website. A paying customer shot the worker with a paintball gun and caused irreversible blindness, the announcement read. On July 25 of this year, Screamworks was convicted of failing to handle equipment according to the manufacturer’s specifications, a violation of Section 12(d) of the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Code. Additional charges were dropped, and the company was fined $50,000 and ordered to serve 18 months of corporate probation, Alberta Labour said. Screamfest is Canada’s largest Halloween festival, running from Oct. 13 to 31 this year, according to its Facebook page.

Compliance & Enforcement, Health & Safety, Transportation

Driver, 47, charged for trying to run down parking officer

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TORONTO, Ont. – A 47-year-old Toronto man has been arrested for an incident in which he allegedly attempted to hit a parking enforcement officer with his car. According to a news release from the Toronto Police Service (TPS), a man became verbally aggressive with the parking officer at about 8:25 a.m. on Sept. 8. The officer was in the process of issuing parking tickets to vehicles in the Avenue Road and Cottingham Street area at the time and had asked the suspect to move his vehicle, but the man refused to do so, police said. The suspect then accelerated his vehicle through a school zone at high speed and swerved towards the officer. Later that day, the TPS arrested Mark Hayman, who is facing charges of assaulting a peace officer with a weapon, driving while under suspension and operating a motor vehicle dangerously. Hayman is expected to make a court appearance on the afternoon of Oct. 17, police said.

Compliance & Enforcement, Hazmat, Health & Safety, Health and Wellness, Occupational Hygiene, Transportation

Workers feel ill during reported “incident” at B.C. shipping terminal

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An unspecified incident at Fairview Container Terminal in Prince Rupert, B.C. sent 11 workers to the hospital for precautionary treatment on the morning of Sept. 3 – but all of the parties involved have stressed that the employees are fine.

While few specific details have been released, a press statement from DP World Prince Rupert, the company that runs the shipping terminal, said that employees in a certain area of the container yard had developed symptoms of respiratory and eye irritation. The workers received medical treatment at a local hospital at about 5 a.m. that morning.

“Two [of the employees] were initially kept for observation, and thankfully, all were discharged within hours of their arrival,” DP World said. “We continue to check on their well-being.”

The company added that the worksite had been evacuated and shut down temporarily after the workers had been treated. “Our incident command management team also brought an external industrial hygienist to conduct onsite assessments and air-quality monitoring,” the statement read.

DP World declared the worksite to be safe at 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 4, and normal work operations resumed on the following day.

“Our first priority is the safety and well-being of our employees, the local community and any others who may have been affected,” the company said.

A news release from the Port of Prince Rupert stated that DP World had based its response to the incident on proper emergency procedures.

“There is no inhalation hazard to the community of Prince Rupert, nor [a] hazard to the marine environment, as related to this incident,” the release stated, adding that the Port of Prince Rupert, other port partners and responding agencies were “fully aware of the situation” and supported DP World’s response.

Rob Ashton, president of International Longshore & Warehouse Union Canada, told COHSN that the safety committees with DP World and the union’s Local 505 are investigating the incident. “I believe they’d be looking at it and figuring out ways to prevent anything like this from ever happening again,” he explained, adding that he did not know whether WorkSafeBC is also investigating.

He said that all of the workers affected by the incident were fine as far as he was aware. “If there are any longstanding issues, I don’t know,” said Ashton.

DP World recently completed an expansion project, dubbed “Phase 2 North”, to increase Fairview Container Terminal’s handling capacity from 750,000 to 1.35 million 20-foot equivalent units, or TEU. The terminal upgrade was marked in a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Aug. 30, according to a media release from the company.

The Fairview Container Terminal was upgraded from a general cargo facility to a container-handling terminal in 2007, according to information from DP World’s website. The terminal is currently North America’s closest major port to Asia.

A leader in global trade specializing in container handling, DP World employs more than 36,500 people in 103 countries.