TORONTO, Ont. – The Institute for Work & Health (IWH) in Toronto has invited Dr. Linda M. Goldenhar, the director of research and evaluation at the Center for Construction Research and Training in Silver Spring, Md., to speak at the Institute’s annual Alf Nachemson Memorial Lecture this year. Dr. Goldenhar, an expert in health and safety in the construction sector, will use the Nov. 1 lecture at Toronto’s Design Exchange to share the results of her research, according to an IWH media release. The lecture will also explain tools that are now available to improve safety culture, climate and leadership in the industry. “Targeting high-hazard sectors is one of the strategic workplace health and safety priorities of the Ontario Ministry of Labour,” the release stated, calling Dr. Goldenhar’s upcoming appearance “timely.” Approximately 30 per cent of occupational fatalities in Ontario occur in construction, which represents about seven per cent of employment in the province, according to the IWH.
Vehicle collision, worker injury lead to $75,000 fine for logistics firm
WHITBY, Ont. – Aspect Retail Logistics Inc., an employer based in Pickering, Ont., has been convicted for a permanent injury that an employee suffered in a reach-truck accident last year. According to a court bulletin from the Ontario Ministry of Labour (MOL), the worker was driving the reach truck and lost control of the vehicle while trying to make a left turn at the end of an aisle on May 10, 2016. The reach truck collided with a wall, injuring the employee. Evidence suggested that the truck had slipped on water that had remained behind after the floor had been cleaned. In the Ontario Court of Justice in Whitby, Aspect Retail later pleaded guilty to failing to keep a floor clear of obstructions or hazards, a violation of the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act. Justice of the Peace Ronald Prestage sentenced the company to pay a $75,000 fine, plus a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge, on Sept. 21 of this year.
Husky Oil convicted, fined for 2015 truck accident in Saskatchewan
LLOYDMINSTER, Sask. – Husky Oil Operations Limited has been fined $100,000, including a $28,571 surcharge, for its role in an incident in which an employee was seriously injured by a truck on Aug. 24, 2015. A news release from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety stated that the accident had occurred at the Calgary-headquartered corporation’s sand-disposal facility in Lloydminster, Sask., where the worker was hit by a truck that day. In Lloydminster Provincial Court, Husky Oil later pleaded guilty to failing to develop and implement a traffic-control plan to protect workers where there was a traffic hazard other than a public highway, resulting in injury. An additional charge was dropped, and the employer was fined on Sept. 18 of this year. “All workplaces must identify and address potential risks and hazards,” the Ministry stated in the release. “Safety plans must be developed, and all employees must be provided with information and training to work safely.”
WorkSafeBC publishes new safety guide for pipeline construction
RICHMOND, B.C. – A new resource from the occupational health and safety authority for British Columbia aims to teach employers, employees and business owners the basic safety requirements in pipeline construction. Available both as a PDF document and as a pamphlet, the Pipeline Construction Inspection Guide details the obligations of owners, employers, contractors, suppliers and workers under the province’s regulatory jurisdiction over pipelines, according to a press release that WorkSafeBC sent out on Sept. 18. The guide also includes a glossary of terms and outlines relevant sections of B.C. workplace safety legislation, as well as the required personal protective equipment for pipeline construction. It deals with the safety requirements of the pre-construction, construction and post-construction phases of a project, from removal of timber and drilling to cleanup. The Pipeline Construction Inspection Guide is available as an info-flip hard copy for $12 from the WorkSafeBC online store, and the PDF version is available for free at https://www.worksafebc.com/en/resources/health-safety/books-guides/pipeline-construction-inspection-guide?lang=en.
Construction worker, 37, dies in road accident
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.
Electrical fire injures worker, damages oilsands plant
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.
WSIB to review previously rejected cancer claims by GE employees
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).
Worker’s arm injury nets substantial fine for Maple Leaf Foods
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.
Safety amendment violates rail workers’ privacy rights: Unifor
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.
Vancouver police conduct mass inspections of commercial vehicles
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.