May 5, 2009

Construction Safety Association of Ontario

CSAO provides template for realignment of provincial safety groups

VINCE VERSACE

staff writer

The realignment of 12 provincial safety associations aims to achieve what is best about the Construction Safety Association of Ontario, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board’s chair recently told association members.

“I have no qualms about saying this, the template, the model, for what we want to do is the CSAO and I do not say that to the other 11,” said Steve Mahoney, chair of the WSIB. “The biggest thing is that you have labour and management, workers and employers all pulling on the same rope together.”

Mahoney spoke recently at CSAO’s 80th annual general meeting.

He said that he has seen “no room for partisanship or that left-right attitude at the CSAO” and when it comes to health and safety, its level of service is clear and beneficial to its members with no extra charges.

“We want the CSAO to flour ish and to carry on delivering that service in the workplace. We are not looking to eliminate a brand,” he said.

There currently are 12 safety associations across Ontario that are being realigned into four bodies.

The associations being merged have some natural links, the WSIB has stated. CSAO is being realigned with the transportation and electrical utility safety associations.

Of the $90 million in WSIB funding to safety associations, Mahoney said that 50 per cent of that is currently going to the “backroom,” leaving 50 per cent to go to the shop floor and work site. WSIB wants that to change so that 80 per cent of that funding is going to the front-line, geared towards training, equipment and services needed “so that our workers come home safe”, said Mahoney.

The current safety association transition is at the point of establishing an interim board of directors, which will include two people from each association being realigned.

This interim board will be looking at creating bylaws and then search for a new chief executive officer.

“There are a number of transition issues, CSAO has an in-house union and the other two associations do not. There are also different salary levels and working conditions,” said Roy O’Rourke, general manager of CSAO.

The new structure of the body being created by the realigned associations is still not apparent. It is not clear if each association will be division of a larger entity or whether they will all be mixed together as one larger body, he added.

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