NATIONAL – In reaction to the tragedy in Argentina on March 9, when a helicopter crash killed 10 cast and crew members of the French reality-TV series Dropped, the Canadian Media Guild (CMG) has announced that it will organize with reality-TV employees across Canada to improve the latter group’s working conditions and occupational health and safety standards. “The Canadian Media Guild is sickened by the news,” the union stated in a press release on March 10, referring to the tragedy. CMG noted that 54 per cent of reality-TV employees in the country claimed to work in dangerous conditions, according to a poll that the union conducted in 2013. The Guild intends to publish a guidebook by the end of March, about how to keep safe on the job in reality TV; it also plans to negotiate with production companies about oh&s standards. More than 100 people had already joined CMG’s campaign, the release added.

OTTAWA, Ont. – The transportation committee for the Ottawa city council announced on March 4 that it would be investing $600,000 into hiring more safety officers for the city’s public-transit sector. The intention is to reduce the amount of traffic collisions involving city-owned buses and trucks, including OC Transpo vehicles, by increasing compliance visits with additional staff. The City plans to hire six new safety officers and to move two public-works employees over to the fleet, according to local media reports. Safety officers will now have the power to suspend a driver’s authority to operate any municipal vehicles or equipment, although the employee may still drive his or her own personal vehicles. Recent information from the federal Ministry of Transportation has said that buses and trucks owned by the City of Ottawa were involved in 942 collisions from 2013 to 2015. Most notably, a bus-train collision in the suburb of Barrhaven on Sept. 18, 2013 killed six people and injured 35 more (COHSN, Sept. 30, 2013).

Following recent violent assaults on taxi drivers in the Newfoundland and Labrador capital, the City of St. John’s has been holding meetings with representatives of the local taxi sector to discuss ways to improve safety for cabbies.

Since two separate incidents in the city involving violence against drivers occurred over the weekend of Jan. 31/Feb. 1, two of these meetings have taken place. Although the provincial government deals with occupational health and safety issues, the city’s municipal government has been trying to facilitate a dialogue between the industry and oh&s authorities, according to St. John’s deputy mayor Ron Ellsworth, who belongs to the City’s taxi committee.

“We had seven people in total show up, which may not seem like a lot, but we were encouraged by it because it’s about getting the message out,” said Ellsworth.

Stakeholders have been concerned about the potential financial costs of safety equipment, like security cameras or barriers between drivers and passengers, he added. “What we’re saying to the industry is that a lot of these things don’t require costs.” For example, driver education and training that focus on how to deescalate dangerous situations could go a long way. “A lot of the stuff is just cheat sheets with notes on it, or a sheet of paper with ‘10 Things to Do’ sort of thing, which is very low-cost, but could have a very high impact.”

Ellsworth noted that education would be most effective with younger and newer employees, as experienced drivers usually know enough to avoid confrontation with passengers. “Some newer drivers are getting out of their vehicles and trying to get that $20 fare to pay up. So straying around your life or endangering someone is not worth that $20 bill.” It’s better to drop the customer off and deal with it later, perhaps through the police, he said.

North West Taxi owner David Fleming, who had attended the meetings, acknowledged that the city’s taxi sector had seen recent violence, but wasn’t convinced that the situation was dire enough yet to require security cameras or barriers.

“Violence can happen at any place at any time,” said Fleming. “Violence can happen in school, it can happen at offices. You can’t be responsible for what an individual is going to do.” Compared to other types of workplaces like retail or service stations, where there is always the potential for robbery, the St. John’s taxi sector wasn’t especially bad, he added. “In my experience, you’re looking at, 90 to 95 per cent of your customers are good people.”

What bothered Fleming more was the lack of crime-enforcement representation at the meetings. “There was nobody in attendance from the Justice Department or the RNC,” he said, referring to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. “Absolutely no input from them. I mean, they’re your first line of communication when you have an incident.” Typically, St. John’s cab drivers have ended up looking out for each other in these situations, Fleming added, because when one calls the police, “you’re 14th on the priority list.”

Aside from violence, another safety issue that concerned Fleming was insufficient snow plowing on the streets in winter. Snow and ice had been causing taxi accidents in the city, he pointed out, “but nobody wants to hear that part of it.”

Although the St. John’s taxi committee generally deals more with issues involving cab meters and inspections, driver safety is an issue that it also takes seriously, Ellsworth explained.

“We’ve had a couple more severe ones over the last couple of years, where drivers have been badly hurt,” Ellsworth added, referring to assaults. “Safety’s always one of the issues on the agenda, just the point of view of trying to make sure drivers have a safe work environment.”

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – The City of St. John’s and the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Transportation and Works have each been ordered to pay a fine of $60,000 for breaking oh&s laws, violations that led to the death of a government inspector and injuries to two other workers on a St. John’s highway on July 5, 2011. That day, a group of employees of the City, the Department and Irving Oil Commercial GP were inspecting pavement on the TransCanada Highway when an SUV swerved into another lane, lost control and collided with the workers (COHSN, July 11, 2011). Department employee Joseph English, 51, was killed. On Sept. 2 of last year, a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officer testified in court that a lack of warning signs on the road was largely to blame for the accident (COHSN, Sept. 15). “The employers failed to establish that they had taken all reasonable care and that the defence of due diligence had not been proven on a balance of probabilities,” Provincial Court Judge Mark T. Linehan concluded in court documents from the trial, dated Dec. 9. The two $60,000 fines were announced on Feb. 27.

TORONTO, Ont. – A fine of $150,000 was handed down to Marmora Freezing Corporation, a firm that packages food for shipment, in response to the 2011 death of a security guard from a temp agency. The worker was performing a midnight shift on the early morning of Dec. 14 of that year, when he decided to go outside for a smoke break, according to a court bulletin from the Ontario Ministry of Labour. He was wearing dark clothing with no reflective components and would have been difficult to see at night. As the guard was walking along a travel way, a car driven by a departing co-worker hit him and knocked him to the ground; immediately afterwards, he became caught in the mud flap of a tractor-trailer, which pushed him approximately 100 metres. The temp worker died of crush asphyxia; his body was discovered afterwards under a rear wheel of the trailer. On Feb. 23, Judge Peter M. Gettlich fined Marmora for failing, as an employer, to take every reasonable precaution to protect a worker. The court also imposed a 25 per cent victim surcharge on the fine.

Unions across Canada are applauding the adoption of a bill that may lead to harsher sentences for assaults on public transit operators.

Bill S-221, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (assaults against public transit operators), passed third reading and was awaiting royal assent as of Feb. 16. The bill amended Section 269 of the Criminal Code to require judges to consider a transit driver’s occupation as an “aggravating circumstance” in sentencing. It applies to drivers of buses, paratransit vehicles, taxis, subways, streetcars and ferries.

The bill was introduced by Conservative Senator Bob Runciman, who was spurred to take action regarding violence against transit operators following an incident in 2013. A man assaulted an OC Transpo bus driver in Ottawa, then dragged him out onto the street and continued beating him (COHSN, Sept. 29, 2014). Although the driver did not return to work for months because of his injuries, the perpetrator escaped jail time and received a suspended sentence, despite having 17 previous assault convictions.

Unifor applauded the adoption of the bill, noting in a statement that the union had been working with all parties in the Senate and House of Commons to gain amendments to the Criminal Code to include options for stiffer penalties to those convicted of assaulting drivers. “Everybody should be safe at work,” said Jerry Dais, national president of Unifor, in the statement. “Bus and taxi drivers provide a very valuable public service, and they shouldn’t have to face violence in their workplace.”

Nathan Woods, a transit operator in Vancouver and president of Local 111 of Unifor, said that workplace safety is a non-partisan issue and that he was thrilled that every party could get behind Bill S-221. “Many operators have suffered horrible assaults,” he said. “We can do more to improve their safety, but this is an important step.” Woods testified to a Senate committee in 2014 that approximately 2,000 bus driver assaults are reported each year in Canada.

Unifor said in the statement that changes to the Criminal Code alone would not eliminate workplace assaults. Local 111 is working with the employer in Metro Vancouver to implement a trial period with a safety shield between drivers and passengers, combined with a violent incident prevention program to identify potentially volatile situations and strategies to defuse them.

Bob Kinnear, president of Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents over 10,000 transit workers in Toronto and York Region, was also pleased that Parliament had passed the bill unanimously. Kinnear, who said that there are hundreds of assaults every year against Toronto Transit Commission workers, noted that it took the union more than 10 years of efforts to get the bill passed.

Operators have been spat on, threatened and have had coffee and other liquids thrown at them. “Our members have been punched, slapped, kicked, strangled, stabbed and shot at, usually over a fare dispute,” Kinnear said. “We have had cases where bus drivers have been dragged out of their seats and viciously beaten, just for doing their jobs. Several of our members have been hurt so badly that they cannot return to work and are forced to live the rest of their lives on inadequate workers’ compensation payments. If there’s such a thing as injustice, this is it.”

Kinnear added that while the union welcomed the legislation, he did not understand why employees who do not operate vehicles, such as station collectors, were not covered. “Collectors have been threatened with guns and even shot and wounded,” he said. “We put ourselves out there to perform a public service, and we deserve to be better protected on the job.”