July 29, 2010

VINCE VERSACE

Labour Minister Peter Fonseca hands out coffee and greets workers

Ontario launches construction workplace safety campaign

VINCE VERSACE

staff writer

Work Safe Today — Go Home Tonight. With those six words, the province has launched a construction workplace safety campaign it hopes will start a culture shift to improve worker safety.

“The message is crystal clear: be safe or that x-ray of a broken hand, limb or cracked skull, could be yours,” said labour minister Peter Fonseca as he pointed to campaign posters depicting x-rays of traumatic injuries.

The Ministry of Labour, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and the Infrastructure Health & Safety Association are sponsors of the campaign that targets construction sites to increase awareness of safety enforcement and rights.

From 2005 to 2009 construction has accounted for the largest percentage of workplace fatalities in Ontario at 25 per cent with 91 workers killed.

The campaign is just one part of Ontario’s attack plan to improve safety after a labour ministry blitz, earlier this year, visited nearly Ontario 3,000 construction sites and discovered that 63 per cent of them had fall-related hazards.

Fonseca said this blitz revealed “an alarming disregard for safety” just months after the Christmas Eve tragedy that claimed four worker lives when their swing stage came apart, plunging them 13 storeys to their deaths.

“Those blitz results were unacceptable and really difficult to comprehend,” said Fonseca. “We have rules and regulations in this province, knowledge of dangers and some of the best safety equipment in the world. However, what we do not seem to have is an everyday commitment to protection and prevention.”

Barry Stevens of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 353 said he appreciates that Ontario has a labour minister who “takes a real interest in the health and safety side of labour law” and that though the campaign is a positive new step, a lot more still needs to be done to improve workplace safety.

“It is a worker’s right to go to work and come home safe, it is the ultimate worker right,” said Stevens. “All the money in the world will not bring back your life. There has to be the ability to go after unscrupulous contractors who defy health and safety and make them work within the law. They have to protect their workers.”

The safety campaign includes a workplace safety toll-free phone number (1-877-202-0008) that public and workers can call to report labour practices or work conditions that appear unsafe.

Fonseca said provincial inspectors cannot be everywhere at all times and that is why the province is “enlisting the assistance of the general population” with the toll free number to help people anonymously report safety concerns.

Pat Dillon, business manager of the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, said a culture shift is indeed needed to improve safety but the campaign will not make that happen.

“A worker on a construction site who raises a safety concern issue, his incentive is to not get laid off because no one wants a rabble-rouser around. There is a disincentive for the worker to say something,” said Dillon.

“If you want a culture shift, health and safety representatives need total protection. Workers should get an incentive for being forward about a safety issue that is in everyone’s best interest.”

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