Employer and Supervisor fined after Co-op Student Injured

News Release

CRS Specialties Inc. and Supervisor Fined $59,000 After Co-op Student Injured

April 9, 2013 4:20 pm  Ministry of Labour

St. Catharines, ON - CRS Specialties Inc., a Welland manufacturer of rebar bending equipment, was fined $55,000 for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act after a student, working there as a co-operative education placement, was injured. A further fine of $4,000 was imposed on a supervisor for a similar violation of the act during the investigation of the incident.

On March 23, 2011, at the company's Welland workplace, the student was taking apart a fan and washing it in a Varsol bath. When finished, the student was told to start a welding task. When beginning the task, the young worker was wearing a polyester-blend sweatshirt over overalls. Polyester materials are susceptible to ignition and should not be worn while welding. The student was not supplied with a welding jacket, welding sleeves, neck shroud or flame-retardant clothing. The supervisor did not intervene to make sure the student removed the sweatshirt and had sufficient apparel to prevent injury.

While the student was welding, the sweatshirt ignited and caught fire. The student suffered second degree burns.

Later, on March 28, 2011, while the Ministry of Labour was investigating that incident, an inspector saw another worker in the same workplace not wearing apparel sufficient to prevent injury while welding. The worker was wearing a polyester-blend sweatshirt and only one welding sleeve.

CRS Specialties Inc. pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that a competent person was appointed as supervisor.

Supervisor Chad Corriveau pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that a worker was wearing apparel sufficient to protect the worker from injury while welding.


The fines were imposed by Justice of the Peace B. Phillips. In addition to the fine, the court imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge, as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.


Court Information at a Glance

Location:                      Ontario Court of Justice
                                      71 King St.
                                      St. Catharines, ON

Judge:                          Justice of the Peace B. Phillips

Date of Sentencing:     April 4, 2013

Defendant:                   CRS Specialties Inc.

Matter:                         Occupational Health and Safety

Conviction:                  Ontario Regulation 851, Section 84
                                      Occupational Health and Safety Act,
                                      Section 25(2)(c), Section 27(1)(a)

Crown Counsel:           Daniel Kleiman

New Ontario Requirement as of January 1, 2014: Provide Safety Awareness Training Using Ministry's Materials or Equivalent

New Ontario Requirement as of January 1, 2014: Provide Safety Awareness Training Using Ministry's Materials or Equivalent

By Adrian Miedema, partner, and Saba Zia, associate. © Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, Toronto, www.fmc-law.com.

Ontario's new mandatory safety awareness requirement is set to come into effect on January 1, 2014. This is a "do nothing and you will be in violation" obligation; employers who fail to take the active step of ensuring that all new and current workers receive the safety awareness training — using the Ministry of Labour's new materials or equivalent — will be in violation and will be subject to compliance orders, charges, and fines.

The government has said that it intends to file a regulation on or before July 1, 2013 making the safety awareness training mandatory and imposing the January 1, 2014 deadline.

Mandatory for all Workplaces Covered by OHSA

At this point, it appears that almost all Ontario workplaces will be affected. The Ontario Ministry of Labour says, on its website, that the training will be mandatory for all workplaces currently covered by the Occupational Health and Safety Act ("OHSA"), regardless of sector, including industrial establishments, construction projects, health care and residential facilities, mines and mining plants, and farming operations. Even employees in jobs that are thought to have a low safety risk — such as many office jobs — must be given the safety orientation.

New Employees

The regulation will also require that any new employees receive the worker safety training as soon as practicable after commencing work duties, and that new supervisors complete the supervisory safety awareness training within the first week of commencing supervisory duties. New employees or supervisors who can prove that they received the safety awareness training at a previous employer will not be required to retake that training.

Ministry's Worker Training Materials

The Ministry has finalized and released worker safety awareness training materials that employers can use. The materials include a worker workbook, "Worker Health and Safety Awareness in 4 Steps", and an employer guide to that workbook. Employers who train workers using the Ministry materials will automatically comply with the new mandatory safety awareness training requirement. Note that the new requirement is for basic safety awareness training only; employers will, depending on the employee's job, also be required to provide additional safety training, developed by the employer, tailored to the job.

Ministry's Supervisor Training Materials

The Ministry's supervisor safety awareness training materials have not yet been finalized. A version of the supervisor training materials is being piloted, along with an employer guide to the supervisor training program. The final version should be released shortly.

Required Content of Training

Employers who opt to use their own training materials instead of the Ministry's must, according to the Ministry, ensure that the training covers, at a minimum, the following topics:

Worker Awareness Training

• Rights and responsibilities of workers and supervisors under the OHSA.
• Roles of workplace parties, health and safety representatives, and joint health and safety committees.
• Roles of the Ministry of Labour, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, and Health and safety partners.
• Hazard recognition.
• Right to be informed of hazards.
• Reference to an employer's obligations to provide information and instruction to workers about controlled products as required under Regulation 860 (WHMIS) of the OHSA.
• Latency and illness related to occupational disease.

Supervisor Awareness Training

• Rights and responsibilities of workers and supervisors under the OHSA.
• Roles of workplace parties, health and safety representatives, and joint health and safety committees.
• Roles of the Ministry of Labour, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, and health and safety partners.
• Recognition, assessment, control, and evaluation of hazards.
• Where resources and assistance are available.

Previous Training May Not Be Sufficient

Although many employers will have already provided safety awareness training to workers and supervisors, if that training did not include all of the above topics and was not "equivalent" to the training program developed by the Ministry, then the training will not meet the new legal requirement.

What if you Miss the Deadline?

Employers who fail to ensure that all employees receive the safety awareness training before January 1, 2014 could be ordered by a Ministry inspector to comply — meaning, they will have to scramble to complete the training in short order — or, in a worst-case scenario, they could be charged and fined.

 

What Should Employers Do

Ontario employers should, in the near future, do the following:

• Review existing worker and supervisor safety awareness and orientation programs and consider whether they contain the content required by the Ministry's "Worker Health and Safety Awareness in 4 Steps" and "Supervisor Health and Safety Awareness in 5 Steps".
• If there are training gaps — that is, if your company's current program is missing content required by the new Ministry requirements — the company must ensure that the gaps are filled by the end of 2013. Occupational health and safety legal counsel can assist in determining whether there are gaps.
• Decide how the training will be provided: in person, by webinar, etc. The Ministry says that it intends to make an e-learning program available, at no charge, for employers to use.
• Review your existing training documentation: are you able to prove that your employees have received the safety awareness or orientation training that you have already done?
• Consider how you will document that employees and supervisors have received the new mandatory training. If the training is not properly documented, or you cannot adequately prove that a person received the training, the Ministry could still lay orders or charges.

The new requirement of safety awareness training is a sweeping requirement that all Ontario employers must be aware of. Ministry inspectors who visit an employer's workplace in 2013 may ask whether the employer is making progress towards completing the training. In 2014, inspectors will want to see proof that the training has been completed.

Original Article web-link

February 4, 2013

1648133 Ontario Ltd. and Employee Fined $156,000 After Worker Injured

November 15, 2012 2:30 pm    Ministry of Labour

 

Brampton, ON - 1648133 Ontario Ltd., operator of Furmar Dixie Road, a Mississauga facility that produces asphalt, was fined $150,000 for violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act after a worker was injured. An employee of the company, Colin Martin, was fined $6,000 in relation to the same incident.

On June 3, 2011, a truck driver arrived at Furmar Dixie Road to pick up six tons of asphalt. The driver asked about the pickup procedure at the main office and was told to drive under a silo and a horn would indicate when to load up. The driver stopped the truck after hearing the horn, believing that the truck was correctly lined up to receive the asphalt. There were no signals to indicate that the truck was in the wrong position, and the asphalt began releasing onto the cab of the truck, caving it in. The driver yelled for help, was pulled from the truck and suffered severe injuries.

1648133 Ontario Ltd. plead guilty to failing to ensure that the silo was guarded or shielded to prevent its asphalt from endangering a worker. The company also plead guilty to failing to provide the driver with adequate information, instruction and supervision regarding the asphalt loading process. It was fined $75,000 for each offence.

When Ministry of Labour personnel went to investigate the incident they tested the system of photo sensors intended to prevent the release of asphalt if a truck was not lined up correctly. The testing, done in the control tower, showed the sensors for one of the silos were not working. Mr. Martin, who was in the control tower with the ministry personnel, left the room, returned and asked that they test the silo again. This time it worked. When questioned, Mr. Martin told the inspector for the first time that there was a control box that would allow the sensors to be bypassed. He had turned off the sensor bypass to the silo without the inspector's knowledge or permission.

Colin Martin plead guilty to altering the scene without the inspector's permission to do so.
The fines were imposed by Justice of the Peace Michael Barnes. In addition to the fines, the court imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge, as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

Court Information at a Glance
Location:                    Ontario Court of Justice
                                    5 Ray Lawson Blvd.
                                    Brampton, ON

Judge:                         Justice of the Peace Michael Barnes

Date of Sentencing:     November 13, 2012

Defendants:                 1648133 Ontario Ltd.
                                    Colin Martin

Matter:                         Occupational Health and Safety

Convictions:                 Ontario Regulation 851, Section 26
                                    Occupational Health and Safety Act, Section 25(2)(a)
                                    Occupational Health and Safety Act, Section 51(2)

Crown Counsel:           Catherine Glaister

Safety is ultimately employer’s responsibility, not committee’s: Arbitrator

This is an interesting decision - the union grieved extra PPE protection for its' members.

Joint health and safety committee had power to prescribe safety equipment but employer could still do so without committee’s recommendation

November 2, 2012

The health and safety of employees is ultimately the responsibility of the employer and can’t be delegated to a joint health and safety committee, an Ontario arbitrator has ruled.

Gerdau Ameristeel, a steel manufacturing company, introduced a policy in its Whitby, Ont., plant requiring employees to wear chin straps on their safety headgear. The union grieved the policy, noting that the collective agreement required Gerdau to take all reasonable precautions for the safety of employees — in line with health and safety legislation — and to provide all personal protective equipment prescribed by the joint health and safety committee. The union argued this gave the power to approve safety equipment to the joint committee, not the company.

The arbitrator found that the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act placed the main responsibility for employee health and safety with the employer, including the assigning of personal protective equipment. This legal responsibility did not diminish with the existence of a joint health and safety committee and a collective agreement allowing the committee to recommend safety equipment, said the arbitrator. If the employer didn’t have the ability to dictate equipment, then it would be susceptible to being charged and prosecuted for safety conditions over which it had no control.

The arbitrator ruled that Gerdau was entitled to prescribe personal protective equipment for employees, independent of the joint health and safety committee, regardless of the collective agreement provision giving the committee a say in prescribing equipment. The greivance was dimissed.

“Although I do not doubt this union’s commitment to the safety of its members, I do not believe that the employer can avoid its legal obligation, even when acting in good faith, to take every precaution reasonable in the circumstances for theprotection of a worker,” said the arbitrator.

For more information see:

•Gerdau Ameristeel v. U.S.W., Local 6571, 2012 CarswellOnt 9066 (Ont. Arb. Bd.).

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http://www.employmentlawtoday.com/articleview/16594-safety-is-ultimately-employers-responsibility-not-committees-arbitrator