2.5 Summary

This chapter outlined the legal framework the state has enacted to prevent and compensate work-related injuries.  To fully appreciate how injury prevention and compensation laws operate we have to be prepared to understand both the technical requirements of the laws and the political economy of their enforcement.

Canadian governments have made employers and workers jointly responsible for OHS via the IRS. In addition to OHS laws, governments have passed other legislation that makes workplaces safer, including fire and building codes and hazardous materials and environment protection regulations. It is essential that every employer understand the occupational health and safety legislation that applies to their workplace(s) and implements the essential components of a safety program including training, hazard identification, incident investigation and controls. 

Check Your Knowledge

Discussion Questions

  1. What are the occupational health and safety (OHS) rights and obligations of workers and employers?
  2. How does the internal responsibility system (IRS) operate? What challenges does the IRS face?
  3. How effective are state OHS enforcement efforts? What might states do to make enforcement more effective?

Exercise

Go online and find your jurisdiction’s rules around the workers’ right to refuse. Write a 500-word answer to the following questions:

  1. Explain the circumstances in which workers can refuse unsafe work or the tests applied to determine if work is unsafe.
  2. Outline the process by which workers refuse unsafe work.
  3. Explain what an employer must do when faced with a worker refusal.
  4. Identify the consequences if an employer coerces an employee to perform unsafe work.
  5. If you were a worker, why might you be reluctant to refuse unsafe work?

Notes

  1. (2012, September 20). Worker claims she was asked to pay for gas and dash. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/worker-claims-she-wasasked-to-pay-for-gas-and-dash-1.1128621
  2.  (2012, September 19). Ontario to probe gas-and-dash death: MPP to introduce ‘pay before you pump’ private member’s bill Thursday. http:// www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-to-probe-gas-and-dashdeath-1.1157251
  3.  610 CKTB News. (2015, June 16). The gas and dash, pre-pay at the pump debate. http://www.610cktb.com/news/2015/06/16/the-gas-and-dashpre-pay-at-the-pump-debate
  4.  For example, Section 3-8(a) of the Saskatchewan Employment Act (2013) states: “3‐8 Every employer shall: (a) ensure, insofar as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all of the employer’s workers;”
  5. Government of Canada, Labour Program. (1993). Labour Standards Interpretations, Policies and Guidelines 808/819-IPG 057, p. 4.
  6. Government of Alberta. (2005). Due diligence. Edmonton: Employment and Immigration.
  7. Nichols, T., & Walters, D. (2009). Worker representation on health and safety in the UK – Problems with the preferred model and beyond. In D. Walters & T. Nichols (Eds.), International perspectives on representing workers’ interests in health and safety (pp. 19–30). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  8. Johnstone, R. (2006). Regulating occupational health and safety in a changing labour market. In C. Arup, P. Gahan, J. Howe, R. Johnstone, R. Mitchell, & A. O’Donnell (Eds.), Labour law and labour market regulations (pp. 617–634). Sydney: Federation Press.
  9. Hall, A., Forrest, A., Sears, A., & Carlan, N. (2006). Making a difference: Knowledge activism and worker representation in joint OHS committees. Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, 61(3), 408–436.
  10. Bittle, S. (2012). Still dying for a living: Corporate criminal liability after the Westray mine disaster. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
  11.  Tombs, S., & Whyte, D. (2007). Safety Crimes. New York: Routledge.
  12. Braithwaite, J. (1989). Crime, shame and reintegration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 131.
  13. MacEachen, E., Lippel, K., Saunders, R., Kosny, A., Mansfield, E., Carrasco, C., & Pugliese, D. (2012). Workers’ compensation experience-rating rules and the danger to workers’ safety in the temporary work agency sector. Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, 10(1), 77–95.
  14. Barnetson, B. (2015). Worker safety in Alberta: Trading health for profit. In M. Shrivastava & L. Stefanick (Eds.), Alberta oil and the decline of democracy in Canada (pp. 225–248). Edmonton: Athabasca University Press.
  15. Morassaei, S., Breslin, C., Ibrahim, S., Smith, P., Mustard, C., Amick, B., Shankardass, K., & Petch, J. (2013). Geographic variation in work injuries: A multilevel analysis of individual-level data and area-level factors within Canada. Annals of Epidemiology, 23, 260–266.
  16. Industry Canada. (2015). SME Research and Statistics. Ottawa: Author. http:// www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/Home
  17. Weil, D. (2011). Enforcing labour standards in fissured workplaces: The US experience. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 22(2), 33–54.
  18. Hasle, P., & Limborg, H. (2006). A review of the literature on preventive occupational health and safety activities in small enterprises. Industrial Health, 44, 6–12.
  19. Morantz, A. (2014). The Elusive Union Safety Effect: Toward a New Empirical Research Agenda. Labour and Employment Relations Association 61st Annual Proceedings, 130–146.
  20. Yi, K. H., Cho, H. H., & Kim, J. (2011). An empirical analysis on labor unions and occupational safety and health committees’ activity, and their relation to the changes in occupational injury and illness rate. Safety and Health at Work, 2(4), 321–327.
  21. Hopkins, A. (1999). For whom does safety pay? The case of major accidents. Safety Science, 32, 143–153.
  22. Lepkowski, W. (1994). The restructuring of Union Carbide. In S. Jasanoff (Ed.), Learning from disaster: Risk management after Bhopal (pp. 22–43). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  23. Von Drehle, D. (2003). Triangle: The fire that changed America. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
  24. You can learn more about WHMIS at http://whmis.org/
  25. Tsai, P., & Hatfield, T. (2011). Global benefits from the phaseout of leaded fuel. Journal of Environmental Health, 74(5), 8–14.
  26. Rosner, D., & Markowitz, G. (1989). “A gift of God”?: The public health controversy over leaded gasoline during the 1920s. In D. Rosner & G. Markowitz (Eds.), Dying for work: Workers’ safety and health in twentiethcentury America (pp. 121–130). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
  27. Messing, K., Neis, B., & Dumais, L. (Eds.). (1995). Invisible: Issues in women’s occupational health. Charlottetown: Gynergy books.
  28. Messing, K. (1998). One-eyed science: Occupational health and women workers. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  29. Risk, R. (1983). This nuisance of litigation: The origins of workers’ compensation in Ontario. In D. Flaherty (Ed.), Essays in the history of Canadian law (Vol. 2, pp. 418–491). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
  30. The Meredith Report can be viewed at http://awcbc.org/wp-content/ uploads/2013/12/meredith_report.pdf
  31. Gilbert, D., & Liversidge, A. (2001). Workers’ compensation in Ontario: A guide to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act (3rd ed.). Aurora: Canada Law Book.
  32. Lippel, K. (2007). Workers describe the effect of the workers’ compensation process on their health: A Québec study. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 30, 427–443.
  33. Ballantyne, P., Casey, R., O’Hagan, F., & Vienneau, P. (2016). Poverty status of worker compensation claimants with permanent impairments. Critical Public Health, 26(2), 173–190. doi: 10.1080/09581596.2015.1010485
  34. Barnetson, B. (2010). The political economy of workplace injury in Canada. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press.
  35. Tompa, E., Hogg-Johnson, S., Amick, B., Wang, Y., Shen, E., Mustard, C., Robson, L., & Saunders, R. (2013). Financial incentives for experience rating in workers’ compensation: New evidence from a program change in Ontario, Canada. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 55(3), 292–304.
  36. MacEachen, E., Ferrier, S., Kosny, A., & Chambers, L. (2007). A deliberation on ‘hurt versus harm’ in early-return-to-work policy. Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, 5(2), 41–62.
  37. Tompa et al. (2013).

 

 

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