HEALTH, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT

September 20, 2023

BURTON, N.B. – A three-year prison sentence imposed today on a construction supervisor for criminal negligence in a young worker’s death is a message to all Canadian employers, the United Steelworkers union (USW) says.

In the first such case in New Brunswick, a prison term was imposed on Jason King, who was a supervisor at Springhill Construction Ltd. on Aug. 16, 2018, when 18-year-old worker Michael Anthony Henderson was killed on the job.

“This sentence should send a strong message to employers across the country that all workplace parties, including supervisors and managers who direct work, must fulfill their obligations under the Criminal Code and workplace health and safety legislation,” said Myles Sullivan, USW Director for Ontario and Atlantic Canada.

“The sentence must serve as a deterrent to employers who continue to evade or minimize their responsibilities, to the detriment of worker safety,” Sullivan said.

Several members of the USW and other unions were in the courtroom today and yesterday to support Michael Henderson’s family during the sentencing hearing for King.

In June of this year, at the end of his trial in Court of King’s Bench, King was found guilty of criminal negligence causing Henderson’s death. The judge ruled that King’s actions showed “a wanton and reckless disregard” for Henderson’s safety while the teenager was working on a construction project at Fredericton’s wastewater treatment plant.

Henderson died while he was in a four-foot-wide utility hole and a plug holding back water slid out. He was pinned to a wall as the water rushed in, well above his head.

Evidence and testimony during King’s trial showed he had failed to read his company’s safety manuals or the manual setting out his duties and responsibilities as a supervisor. He failed to follow obvious safety direction of the plug’s manufacturer and failed to comply with the legislative requirements for confined-space work.

There has yet to be full accountability for Henderson’s death, as a trial is pending for Springhill Construction on the criminal negligence charge it faces, said Daniel Légère, President of the New Brunswick Federation of Labour.

“We do not believe this matter has come to an end with today’s sentencing of the supervisor,” said Légère, who was in the courtroom over the last two days to support Henderson’s family.

“The evidence already accepted in court demonstrates that the company employed a supervisor who was not sufficiently trained on critical health and safety issues,” he said. “The company’s role in this tragedy has not been resolved and we expect a vigorous prosecution on the criminal negligence charge.”

The charge against Springhill Construction for criminal negligence in a worker’s death is the first of its kind in New Brunswick history, according to WorkSafeNB, the province’s workplace health and safety agency.

“Our hearts go out to Michael Henderson’s family and friends,” said USW National Director Marty Warren.

“The tragedy of Michael’s death is that it was entirely and easily preventable. We believe it never would have happened if those responsible for workplace health and safety had lived up to their legal obligations,” Warren said.

“The case reaffirms the necessity for more frequent and forceful prosecution of employers who fail in their responsibility to protect workers and prevent workplace injuries and death,” he added.

Despite nearly 1,000 workplace-related deaths in Canada each year, there are incredibly few criminal prosecutions of employers, Warren noted. For example, of the thousands of workplace deaths across the country between 2004 and 2022, there have been only nine successful prosecutions under the Westray provisions of the Criminal Code, and sentences have been relatively minor.

May 30, 2023

The USW welcomes the decision of Quebec’s Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions to pursue criminal charges related to the Sept. 20, 2021, explosion at the Bois ouvré Beauceville wood-processing facility that killed three workers.

“Our thoughts are with the families of the victims, as this decision must certainly be stirring up deep emotions,” said François Cardinal, a staff representative with the USW, which represents the workers.

Mario Morin, Jean Lachance and Martin Roy tried to extinguish a fire that broke out while work was being done on the facility’s roof. An explosion occurred, taking their lives and injuring five other workers. Beauceville is located approximately 85 km south of Quebec City.

Learn more about the triple fatality and the criminal negligence proceedings under the Criminal Code of Canada, also known as the Westray Law: USW welcomes criminal prosecution in triple fatality at Bois ouvré Beauceville

ATTENTION:

All hazards / injury prevention suggestions should be documented on this form with copies (white, yellow, gold and green) given directly to your immediate supervisor. Retain the pink copy for your records. 

All hazards / suggestions should be corrected immediately or within 24 hours. When this is not possible, the supervisor will then retain the white copy for their records; post the Green copy at the related area of the hazard / suggestion; give the Yellow copy to the employee who reported the hazard / suggestion; and make two photocopies and give one to the Safety Representative and one copy to the Personnel Department. 

If the employee reporting the hazard / suggestion is not satisfied with the response, a copy of the report should be given to your OH&S representative to be discussed at the next OH&S Committee meeting.

Report forms are located in the production office

Fear and underreporting
Safety incentives create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in the work¬place. If workers or groups of workers are competing for safety awards they often experience peer pressure not to report an injury. The implications for not reporting an injury can be serious for the worker involved. Any injury such as a back injury, which has the possibility of recurring, is especially important to report.

In some cases injured workers have taken their sick pay or holiday pay rather than accept loss time payments from the Workers Compensation (WCB, WSIB) and ruin their crew’s chances for the company’s safety award. Not reporting injuries artificially lowers a company’s accident frequency rate. The company is then able to show to their head office that their safety perfor¬mance has improved while the true accident figures have been driven underground.

Injury discipline programs are the flipside of a safety incentive program. When a worker is injured he or she is “blamed” for not working carefully enough. Discipline can then become some management’s preferred response to worker injury. These programs/policies advocate negative conse¬quences such as automatic drug testing, counseling sessions, verbal and written warnings, suspension or unpaid time off work and even termination, when workers become injured on the job.

Like safety awards, injury discipline programs do nothing to improve work¬place health and safety. They primarily discourage workers from reporting work injuries or filing workers compensation claims. When these injuries aren’t reported, workers may not get the medical care they need, and the hazards that caused the injuries are not identified and corrected.

An injury discipline program that is popular in the U.S. is the “Accident Repeaters Program.” This program identifies workers who have had a certain number of injuries (usually one or two in a 12 or 24 month period) and sends them for counseling if they report another injury, hands out a written warning for the next injury, suspends them for the next injury and terminates them if they report yet another injury after that.

Another popular discipline program assigns a point system to injuries reported and/or workers compensation claims filed. An injury requiring only medical care and no days away from work is assigned one point, and a lost-time accident is worth five points. When a worker reaches 30 points, he or she is fired.

Hazards left unabated
While proponents of BBS may have seen some success in reducing minor injuries the “blame the worker” approach does nothing to address critical injuries. Nor does it address in particular, occupational disease and environmental degradation.
Those injuries and illnesses are caused by worker exposure to hazards present in the workplace.  Workplace hazards may be eliminated or reduced by identifying, assessing and controlling worker exposure. The method of selecting the most effective control measures is embodied in what is commonly called the hierarchy of controls. The hierarchy is as follows:

• Elimination or substitution;
• Engineering;
• Warnings;
• Training and procedures; and
• Personal protective equipment.

Controls may also be described in terms of where they are applied:

• At the source (elimination, substitution, engineering);
• Along the path (warnings, ventilation, barriers); and
• At the worker (PPE, work organization; training and procedures).

Eliminating hazards is seen as the most effective way of addressing an occupational health and safety problem. Personal protective equipment is viewed as the least effective method. Proponents of behaviour-based safety programs do not support the hierarchy of controls to reduce or eliminate hazards because it contradicts their theory that 95 per cent of incidents are caused by unsafe acts of workers.

Instead these programs turn the hierarchy upside down, implementing the least effective, lowest level controls such as safety procedures and PPE, rather than controlling hazards at the source. For example, “staying out of the line of fire” replaces effective safe¬guarding and design. Proper body position has become a replacement for a good ergonomics program, and ergonomically designed tools, work¬stations and jobs. And PPE becomes a substitute for noise control, chemical enclosures, ventilation, and toxic use reduction.

Behaviour-based safety programs weaken hard-won protections and discourage workers from taking a more active role in the union. A number of unions in Canada including UFCW and the United States have issued policy positions opposing “blame the worker” approaches to health and safety.The policy resolution stated, “These programs and policies have a chilling effect on workers’ reporting of symptoms, injuries and illnesses which can leave workers’ health and safety problems untreated and underlying hazards uncorrected. Moreover, these programs frequently are implemented unilaterally by employers, pitting worker against worker and undermining the Joint Health and Safety Committees in the workplaces as well as the union efforts to address hazardous conditions through concerted action.”

In order to combat BBS programs unions are advising their members to do the following:

• Use their health and safety bargaining rights to negotiate against use of incentive programs;
• Draft policies and position papers against BBS programs;
• Communicate to their members (workshops, leaflets, brochures, buttons etc.) the hazards of BBS and the real sources of injury and illness thus helping to dispel myth of “careless worker”; and
• Press government for improved health and safety laws and enforcement of existing legislation.

Joint health and safety committees are being encouraged to:

• Exercise their right to regularly inspect the workplace;
• Recommend establishment of a health and safety program (exercise right to monitor program and make recommendations);
• Press for hazard awareness training for all workers; and
• Press for certification training for all committee members. Workers and their representatives are also advised to:
• Report all workplace hazards;
• Report injuries and illnesses;
• Refuse unsafe or unhealthy work; and
• Refuse to participate in bingo games and other safety games introduced by the employer.