Labour group, Opposition blast UCP changes to workplace health and safety committees
KENNEY KILLS ALBERTA WORKERS
ANY WORKPLACE FATALITY OR INJURY IS UCP'S FAULT
Alberta employers will no longer be required to have an occupational health and safety (OHS) committee at every worksite, come Jan. 31.
Workers sort recycling at Edmonton Waste Management Centre in December 2017.
Alberta employers will no longer be required to have an occupational health and safety (OHS) committee at every work site, come Jan. 31.
The United Conservative Party government said the change eliminates red tape for employers while upholding workers’ rights to have a say in health and safety on the job.
“We have heard that the current rules around health and safety committees are not working,” Labour and Immigration Minister Jason Copping said in a government news release on Friday. “Employers are still responsible for ensuring healthy and safe work sites and the new rules provide the flexibility to meet the unique needs of each workplace.”
Under the UCP’s changes, employers can now have one committee for all work sites, rather than one committee for each location.
“This is frustrating and disturbing because we’d finally gotten to the point of catching up with the rest of the country in terms of making these very important workplace health and safety committees mandatory,” Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said Saturday.
He said the change to the committee rules will “dramatically undermine” their effectiveness.
In Alberta, there were 18 workplace deaths in the first 10 months of 2018, and 21 people died at work in 2017, according to the most current report on the government website.
Alberta last to require OHS committees
At OHS committees, employee and employer representatives regularly meet to discuss potential workplace safety issues, and steps the employer could take to address them.
They’re important prevention mechanisms that provide workers with a safe venue to raise concerns, McGowan said.
NDP labour and immigration critic Christina Gray said Sunday the committees are also good value for the money, saving $3 for every dollar invested in training and meetings by preventing workplace injuries and deaths.
Alberta was the last Canadian jurisdiction with no committee requirement. The NDP’s changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act forced all employers with 20 or more workers to have joint OHS committees, while employers with between five and 19 employees had to have a health and safety representative.
Gray said the intent of legislation was for each work site to have a committee, and the former NDP government issued a director’s order in June 2018 requiring exactly that.
The UCP government rescinded the “burdensome” order on Friday, “returning to the system that worked well prior to the NDP’s unnecessary change,” said Brittany Baltimore, Copping’s press secretary, in a Saturday email.
Since June 2018, employers had complained about the administrative hassle of the site-based committees, she said. People submitting red tape reduction tips to government also flagged it.
OHS officers retain the ability to order an employer to form an OHS committee at any location where they think one is required, she said.
Unionized workplaces with committees written into their collective agreements will be unaffected until their agreements expire.
Rules in other provinces vary. Ontario requires each workplace with 20 or more workers to have a committee; Saskatchewan mandates them at workplaces with 10 or more employees.
The government is also immediately paring back required training for OHS committee members — they now need one training course instead of two. The change should save government $275,000 a year.
One committee, thousands of workers
In a Friday news release, the government quoted three school division superintendents as saying a single, division-wide OHS committee is a prudent change that still meets student and staff safety requirements.
McGowan said it could allow large employers with numerous locations, like a grocery store chain, to disband many committees.
UCP REDUCES EFFORTS TO PROTECT OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY; UNDERTAKERS SHOULD APPLAUD
[This Christmas story is a first in our series of "Scrooge Comes to Alberta in 2019."]
"We promised to create more jobs, and we are delivering for you," Premier Kenney is about to announce to a Christmas gathering of Alberta funeral home operators.
A copy of his speech shows that the premier will tell the undertakers that he expects his new policies to undermine workers' health and safety should lead to more deaths on the job, an area in which per capita Alberta is already the national leader, and of course more people being maimed and dying earlier than they might have expected. That will be a short-term boost for the funeral business.
"You add that to my cuts to the health system and I think your businesses are about to boom," the premier will tell the gathered business people in an effort to bring smiles to a group that normally is rather gloomy.
"My education policies should also help you," his speech will continue. "There's lots of evidence that more educated people live longer than the uneducated and that's no help to your business. So, please remember me as the undertakers' best political friend and contribute to the UCP, the Undertakers' Conservative Party."
And he'll conclude: "And a merry Christmas and productive New Year to you all."
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