Sticking up for yourself can be difficult — especially if it is your boss causing the grief. Workers who ignore being bullied will pay with their health, and employers will be left holding the tab. Bullying is simply bad for business.
Article from the OH&S Canada Magazine
By: Angela Stelmakowich
Excerpt from the OH&S Canada Magazine
By: Greg Burchell
The highest criminal fine for corporate negligence causing death in Canadian history was handed down on Friday, but Ontario’s Federation of Labour says it is not enough.
Metron Construction Ltd., the company responsible for the deaths of four workers and the critical injury of another after a swing stage collapsed in Toronto in 2009, was fined $200,000 plus an additional $30,000 victim fine surcharge – double the previous largest fine and the first corporate guilty plea in Ontario since Criminal Code revisions were made in 2004. All 30 Occupational Health and Safety Act charges against Metron were dropped as part of the guilty plea.
Excerpt from the Government of Ontario’s ‘Newsroom’
2026380 Ontario Limited, carrying on business as Able Concrete, a Kitchener construction company, was fined $95,000 yesterday for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act that caused a worker’s death. Bryan Cher, a supervisor with the company, was fined a total $15,000 in relation to the same incident.
It has been my sincere pleasure to bring all this important information to the readership. The research has been fun and is hard work, but if you love something, then it becomes easy to do.
There are still many more things needed to be said and I will continue to say them. There are still too many employers not understanding their responsibilities under the ACT and appropriate regulations. I see it every day. Just the other day, I had an employer come in for training on ‘Fall Protection’ and he allows his employees to use body belts as a travel restraint device when working on the roof. In fact, the workers tie off to the front ‘D’ ring. Could you picture someone falling with this set up? He/she would fall and land sideways and probably severely injure his/her back with possible long term complications. The proper way for ‘Fall and Travel Restraint is to attach to the back ‘D’ ring on a full body harness so as to end up in an upright position.