Vote for a government that will protect health and safety

Six years ago, PSAC and UNE commissioned the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) to prepare a thorough report on health and safety in the federal jurisdiction.  At the UNE Health and safety conference held in the fall of that year, we invited additional health and safety officers so that that they could be interviewed by the CCPA.  In 2010, the CCPA published a devastating report on the poor state of health and safety and the problems and pressures faced by the shrinking number of health and safety officers.

So, this year, one year after the recent changes to the law, PSAC and UNE again asked the CCPA to produce a report that would update its 2010 report.  That report was released in late September.  And what were the findings?

• In 10 years, the number of health and safety inspectors on the job has dropped by over 50%.
• From 151 inspectors in 2005, the numbers show no more than 67 working as of April, 2015. This far lower than the number claimed by the government.
• Between 2002 and 2013, 684 employees died as a result of workplace injury.
• There were nearly 21,000 disabling injuries in the federally regulated sector in 2012 alone.

John Anderson, the researcher who conducted the study, summarized things this way:

“The overall situation is a recipe for both potential dangerous occupational health and safety issues and injuries.  Inspection is absent  or so highly limited  it cannot create the safe workplace environment that is surely everybody’s goal and wish.”

The study also included several recommendations, including:

• Repealing the 2013 changes to the Canada Labour Code and increasing staffing levels for health and safety officers;
• Conducting regular field inspections, particularly in high-risk workplaces;
• Improving data collecting and making it more transparent;
• Developing a strategy for workplace safety on First Nations reserves;
• Reinstating fire inspectors, whose jobs had been eliminated from the federal Labour Program just a couple of years ago; and
• Covering all Parliament Hill employees under federal health and safety regulation.

We will continue the fight for health and safety.  Keeping workers safe has a direct impact on the safety of the Canadian public. The services we provide need to be health and safety regulated.

With just days to go before the federal election, we want to remind you to

• Vote for a government that will protect health and safety.
• Vote for a government that will protect labour and human rights.
• Vote for a government that will support public services – not self-service or no-service.
• Vote for a government that will respect Canadians.