Tag Archives: 28 april

2019, 2019 Canada, Events listing, News

Canada: Un seul, c’est un de trop : personne ne devrait mourir au travail – AFPC

Qui effectue un suivi?

Le 28 avril, Jour de deuil national, nous rendons hommage aux personnes décédées, blessées ou devenues malades en raison de leur travail.

Nous avons au quotidien l’occasion de prévenir les blessures et les décès en milieu de travail, mais nous ne pouvons le faire que si nous disposons des données nécessaires pour prendre nos décisions.

Au Canada, nous recueillons des statistiques sur de nombreux sujets, dont la météo, mais nous ne consignons pas avec précision les statistiques sur le nombre de personnes qui sont décédées en raison de leur travail. Par conséquent, nous ne tirons pas les leçons qui nous permettraient de prévenir de telles tragédies.

Aucun ministère ou organisme au Canada ne recense les cas de décès et d’accidents en milieu de travail; seule la Commission des accidents du travail compile ces données. Les 951 décès largement cités dans les statistiques de 2017 (la plus récente année disponible) de l’Association des commissions des accidents du travail du Canada (ACATC) ne devraient pas être le seul indice de référence pour déterminer le nombre de décès ou de blessures liés au travail. Les statistiques de l’ACATC tiennent uniquement compte des demandes d’indemnisation approuvées, et non du total réel des blessures et des décès survenus au cours d’une année donnée. Des recherches récemment effectuées au pays démontrent que le nombre de décès liés au travail pourrait être jusqu’à 10 à 13 fois plus élevé que celui indiqué dans les données officielles.

On peut conclure en l’absence de rapports que des milliers de cas de blessures et de décès ne figurent pas dans les statistiques sur la santé et la sécurité au travail. Il s’agit notamment de ceux des travailleuses et travailleurs sans couverture (les travailleurs autonomes, le personnel des banques, les travailleuses et travailleurs domestiques, de nombreux fermiers et travailleurs agricoles), des personnes décédées sur la route alors qu’elles se rendaient au travail ou en revenaient, des personnes qui se suicident à cause du stress, des cas de maladies professionnelles non approuvées, du personnel des clubs privés et des travailleurs temporaires ou sans papiers.

De plus, dans le secteur fédéral, lorsqu’une personne décède après avoir été exposée à un danger particulier, la commission d’indemnisation ne fournit pas l’analyse des causes fondamentales aux employeurs. Le coroner ne donne pas d’avis de décès à l’employeur, et la cause fondamentale de la blessure ou du décès n’est pas nécessairement prise en compte dans le programme de prévention des risques, ce qui est contraire à l’exigence. C’est comme si tout décès était un « accident ».

Mettons tout en œuvre pour que cette année 2019, le gouvernement du Canada commence à documenter et à utiliser avec précision les données probantes pour prévenir les blessures au travail et sauver des vies. Un seul, c’est un de trop : personne ne devrait mourir au travail!

http://syndicatafpc.ca/seul-cest-trop-personne-ne-devrait-mourir-travail

2019, 2019 Global, Events listing, News

Global: International Workers’ Memorial Day – making technology work for us, not against us

By Victor Figueroa, ITF strategic researcher

Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) are crucial issues for workers everywhere in the world. Over decades workers in different countries have won recognition for their right to work in safer environments. In some countries OSH regulations are a key tool in defending workers’ rights.

The 28 April is a day for workers everywhere to remember the struggles of the past, but also to project these struggles forward. For example, new technologies and work practices based on them are creating new challenges to worker health and safety, and new technologies also offer new opportunities to protect existing rights.

Amazon’s high-tech carrot and stick

This week I was in Spain discussing how new technology affects workers in Amazon facilities there and I was horrified at the level of control and the complete lack of consideration of worker well-being evident in the way tech is used in the warehouses. As a tech leader and a growing company, Amazon is a worrying example of the challenges that increasing numbers of workers will face in future, as monitoring and benchmarking technologies become more widespread.

Workers described to me how technology is being combined with company culture and intimidation to create a high-pressure environment rife with injuries and stress. ‘Power hours’ and ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ systems are combined with positive exhortations (‘the kids won’t get their presents if we don’t smash this target!’) provide the carrots, while technology provides the stick to create a working environment where people are labouring at the limit of their endurance for hours and days at an end. The physical and mental toll is severe.

The Amazon workers spoke of operating under the supervision of algorithms that set the pace of work, with no-one knowing what the criteria being used were, or who had decided they were possible or reasonable. The actual work rate and the target work rate used to be displayed above some work stations, but managers found workers would slow down a bit if they were above the target rate, and so the indicator was removed. Workers work harder if they have no idea if they are meeting their targets. It helps to beat targets if managers and supervisors chivvy people along with the dreaded ‘estas flojo’ (you’re behind).

Over monitored, overworked

On top of this, chipped ID cards tell the system where workers are, and track them around the facility. Workers’ every movement is followed and team ‘leads’ or managers jump on the smallest infraction. Workers can lose two or three days’ pay for leaving a door ajar, for example. Workers also reported surveillance cameras in the changing rooms, but nobody knows who has access to the footage or what it is used for. It is another example of tech not being transparent to workers.

But technology does not just track the Amazon workers’ around the facility, it also conditions their work rate. Screens at workstations show where workers should put items, and scanners scan items as they are moved about. The algorithms decide what goes where when, and how long it should take you. The same movements are carried out again and again. One worker said, “it turns you into a robot and you are left numbed”. Workers in some workstations are literally in a cage for eight hours at a time with no social contact at all, in order to keep them away from the robots that bring them the shelves. “You could collapse in there and nobody would know” they said. One worker spent two months in the cages. “I wanted to die at the end of each shift”, they said.

The workers are carrying out hundreds, sometimes thousands of repetitions of the same movement in every shift, causing high rates of injury over time. The most common injuries are to wrists, hands and knees, although in some workstations it is back injuries. The company refuses to accept the injuries happen on the job, with managers accompanying workers reporting injuries while union reps are kept away. ‘You don’t want to work?’, some are asked by the managers. Workers say that they are utterly exhausted at the end of a shift, laughing bitterly at a question about whether they cycle to and from work: “I tell you, nobody wants to ride a bike after eight hours of that work.”

High-tech occupational health, safety and humanity

In this environment, technology is used to push people to the limits of their physical and emotional endurance. As such technology becomes more common it is vital that workers everywhere are defended by Occupational Safety and Health measures that prevent technology from applying arbitrary and inhumane work rates. Workers need to know what the rates are, and they should be able to change them. Workers need proper rest periods, particularly if they are working with screens and in isolation from others. And workers should have access to the data produced by monitoring and surveillance equipment so that they know what the tech is doing and what for.

Just as tech is used to monitor workers and force them to work harder, it could be used to monitor working conditions and protect workers from abuse. It all depends on who controls the tech and what it is used for.

Workers do not want digital overseers, we want tech that augments our capacities, that enables us to work better, not just harder. Amazon, are you listening?

https://www.itfglobal.org/en/news/international-workers-memorial-day-making-technology-work-us-not-against-us

2019, 2019 UK, Events listing, News

United Kingdom: “Everyone deserves to be safe at work” – UNISON

Everyone deserves to be safe at work. Everyone deserves to work in an environment where there health and wellbeing is protected. No-one expects to lose their life whilst going about their job.

I’m proud that UNISON has always made health and safety a priority – especially on this important day, International Workers Memorial Day. This is the day when we remember the dead and the injured, and recommit ourselves to fight for the living and for safe and healthy work for all.

So on behalf of our union, I promise that we will continue to challenge any threats to undermine the safety of our members at work and continue to expand and improve our campaigns on stress, mental health and musculoskeletal injuries.

Yet we know that he bedrock of our work on health and safety are our safety activists. Workplaces with safety activists are twice as safe as those without – making a real differences to the lives of our members, and in some cases, saving the lives of UNISON members.

Tackling in work stress. Promoting fire safety. Preventing Carbon monoxide poisoning. Vital tasks undertaken by UNISON activists each and every day – and on this most important day, we thank them.

Keeping our members safe at work is one of the most important tasks that trade unions can do. Today, let’s remember how far we’ve come in that fight – and how much more there is to do.

Unison statement

2019, 2019 Canada, Events listing, News

Canada: 951 fatalities in Canada in one year – HEU

Every worker should be able to return home, at the end of the shift, healthy and safe.

But the most recent statistics from the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada show that in 2017, there were 951 workplace fatalities in Canada, 46 more than the previous year.

And among these deaths, 23 were young workers aged 15-24.

In addition to the fatalities, there were 251,508 accepted claims for lost time due to a work-related injury or disease, including 31,441 claims from young workers. These statistics only include what’s reported and accepted by the compensation boards, and doesn’t reflect the total number of injuries that go unreported.

But statistics don’t tell the whole story. Loved ones, family members, friends and co-workers are also directly affected.

Health care workers now have the highest injury rate of any sector in the province. And in long-term care, the injury rate is four times higher than the provincial average.

Across the health system, workers are rushed off their feet – coping with extreme workloads, short-staffing and hospitals that are routinely admitting more patients than they are designed to accommodate.

All this puts health care workers at a heightened risk for injury and illness. That’s why safer, healthier workplaces are a top priority in all unionized work sectors.

But developing and enforcing health and safety programs in a health care system fragmented by privatization and reorganization is an ongoing challenge.

In the recent round of bargaining, the Facilities Bargaining Association, led by HEU, negotiated new language to tackle the unacceptable high injury rates that deal directly with workload, violence, and the ability of OH&S stewards to enforce members’ rights to safe workplaces.

The FBA secured $8.5 million to establish a new Provincial Occupational Health and Safety agency that will benefit all health care workers. And they bargained measures to address workload, establish regional workload committees, strengthen OH&S representation, fund OH&S stewards to work on pilot projects focused on injury prevention, create an MSI prevention project, and more.

As we mark this year’s National Day of Mourning, we renew our commitment to hold all employers accountable for ensuring safe and healthy workplaces, and strengthen our resolve to use every tool we have to make health care a safer, healthier work place for all our members.

To learn more about Day of Mourning events in your community, check with your local labour council or visit the Day of Mourning BC website.

HEU news release

2018, 2019 Canada, Events listing, News

Canada: Governments are “largely ignoring” the Westray safety law – IAM

Day of MourningApril 28 is a Day of Mourning for thousands of Canadian workers killed or injured on the job each year, or who die from work-related diseases. On this day, we mourn, but it is also a time to insist that all levels of government do more to enforce existing health and safety laws and vigorously prosecute violations when a worker is killed or seriously injured.
The labour movement worked for years to get changes to the Criminal Code so that corporations who kill are held criminally liable. This amended law, often called the Westray law, holds employers accountable if they fail to take steps to protect the lives of their employees.
Unfortunately that law is largely being ignored by governments. There have been only a handful of prosecutions for criminal negligence and only one conviction.
It is time for fair and equal treatment before the law for workplace injuries and deaths. We have made progress protecting workers’ health and safety, but together we have to keep fighting for safer workplaces for everyone.

 

2019, 2019 Canada, Events listing, News

Canada: PIPSA calls for more action to stop workplace fatalities

Worker's Day of Mourning

Each year, on the National Day of Mourning, we commemorate those who lost their lives, were injured or became ill due to a work accident or occupational exposure.

Join PIPSC members and labour activists across the country in ceremonies this Sunday, April 28.

ATTEND A CEREMONY

We continue to call on employers and governments to do more to prevent such fatalities from happening in the first place. Take action with workers in Canada and email your labour minister to demand:

  • proactive inspections, a robust enforcement regime, strong health and safety committees, and a systemic approach to prevention,
  • a strong, effective workplace health and safety committee,
  • ensure consequences when employers do not fulfill their duty to ensure a safe workplace, and
  • call on your federal counterpart to reinstate the previous, stronger definition of danger in the Canada Labour Code. The right to refuse unsafe work is one of the three basic rights at work in Canada.
SEND AN EMAIL

Take the time to discuss occupational health and safety issues with your co-workers, as well as about how accidents could affect their lives.

Accidents happen so fast! Yet many are avoidable.

2019, 2019 Canada, Events listing, News

Canada: OFL statement for the Day of Mourning: One is too many. No one should die on the job.

On the National Day of Mourning we remember workers killed or injured on the job and commit to continuing the fight for laws that improve and enhance worker health and safety across Ontario and Canada.

“Workplace injuries and deaths are fully preventable, and the Ontario government must put health and safety first by putting worker safety at the forefront,” said Ontario Federation of Labour President Chris Buckley.

Precarious jobs are dangerous jobs, and the PC government took away decent work laws with Bill 148, and cancelled the $15 minimum wage, leaving millions of workers trapped in precarious work.

Workplace injuries are on the rise in Ontario. In March it was reported that lost time injuries have increased by 33 per cent since 2015 and in 2018 work-related fatalities rose to 228.

The OFL’s enduring theme for April 28 is “Mourn for the Dead. Fight for the Living.” As part of its campaign, the OFL continues to ensure that criminal investigations are held whenever a worker dies on the job.

The labour movement has won victories by pushing for criminal investigations into worker injuries and deaths, demanding that criminal charges are laid when it is appropriate. The “Kill a Worker, Go to Jail” campaign was instrumental in the conviction of a construction manager after four workers were killed and one injured at Metron Construction.

“Every worker should come home safe to their family at the end of the day,” said Buckley.

This April 28, the OFL joins the Canadian Labour Congress in calling on provincial and federal governments to make the changes that will improve workplace health and safety across Ontario and Canada

  • Enforcing the laws that keep workers safe, including Occupational Safety and Health requirements in every jurisdiction and the Westray provisions in the Criminal Code of Canada.
  • Focusing on prevention. Investing in prevention the best way to save lives. Proactive inspections, a robust enforcement regime, strong health and safety committees, and a systemic approach to prevention are needed.
  • Ensuring meaningful worker participation in developing and monitoring the systems that will make workplaces safer. A strong, effective health and safety committee is a powerful tool for making workplaces safer and protecting the lives and health of workers.
  • Punishing the bad actors. When employers do not fulfill their duty to ensure a safe workplace, there must be consequences.
  • Calling on the Federal government to strengthen the definition of danger in the Canada Labour Code.

You can take action by writing to the Minister of Labour in favor of these changes for worker health and safety.

The OFL Power of Many is a campaign by the Ontario Federation of Labour and its allies in communities across Ontario, working together to protect and win decent work laws, strong public services, along with equality and justice, as well as safe and healthy workplaces and communities for all.

The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario. For information, visit www.OFL.ca and follow the OFL on Facebook and Twitter: @OFLabour.

2019, 2019 USA, Events listing, News

USA: Remembering the American workplace’s victims

Writing in Jacobin, Joe Allen says ” on Workers Memorial Day, we should remember that thousands die on the job every year — deaths made all the more tragic because they could have been prevented by bosses who valued workers’ lives.” Read the full story here

2019, 2019 Canada, Events listing, News

Canada: PSAC- One is too many: No one should die on the job

Who’s counting?

April 28 is the National Day of Mourning when we remember those who have lost their lives or suffered injury and illness because of their work.

Every day there are opportunities to prevent workplace injury and death, but we can’t do it without the data we need to drive our decision-making.

In Canada, we collect statistics on many things including the weather, but we fail to accurately record the number of individuals who have died as a result of their work. Because of this, we do not learn the lessons that would allow us to prevent future tragedies.

Apart from data compiled by Workers’ Compensation on workplace injuries and fatalities, no Canadian department or agency is actually counting occupational fatalities and injuries.  The widely quoted 951 fatalities in the 2017 statistics (the most recent year available) from the Association of Workers’ Compensation Board of Canada (AWCBC) should not be used as the sole benchmark for work-related fatalities or injuries.  The AWCBC figures only account for approved compensation claims, not the actual total of injuries and fatalities that occurred in any given year. Recent Canadian research demonstrates that work-related fatalities could be as much as 10 to 13 times higher than official data indicates.

This lack of reporting means thousands of injuries and deaths are missing from occupational health and safety statistics. These include workers exempt from coverage like the self-employed, banking employees, domestic workers, many farmers and agricultural workers, commuting fatalities, stress-induced suicides, unapproved occupational diseases, employees of private clubs, and temporary or undocumented workers.

In addition, in the federal sector, when a person dies due to a particular hazard, the compensation board does not provide the root cause analysis to employers. The Coroner does not give employers a notice of death, nor is the root cause of the injury or fatality necessarily considered in the required hazard prevention program – as though every fatality is “an accident.”

Let’s push to make 2019 the year that the government of Canada begins to accurately document and use evidence-based recording to prevent workplace injuries and save lives.  One is too many — no one should die on the job.

News release

2019, 2019 Canada, Events listing, News

Canada: Teamsters Canada – “Nobody should expect or accept so many tragedies “

Facebook

Today is the National Day of Mourning, a day to remember those who died, or were injured or made ill, from their work. It is also a day people are asked to recommit to improving health and safety and preventing tragedies in the workplace.

Since November 2017, we have lost eight of our sisters and brothers to a range of accidents and derailments in the rail industry.

Their names are Dimitrios Bakertzis, Melissa Heins, Kevin Anderson, Tony Nenasheff, Pierre-Luc Levesque, Andrew Dockrell, Dylan Paradis and Daniel Robert Waldenberger-Bulmer.

Nobody should expect or accept so many tragedies in such a short amount of time. The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) published its own letter to commemorate the Day of Mourning, which includes more details and information on how railroaders are remembering.

Our other affiliates are doing their part, too. Today and tomorrow, Local Union 419 will be paying tribute to Virgilio Bernardino, a warehouse worker at Versacold in Toronto who died after being crushed by falling debris in 2003. Follow their Facebook page for pictures of the commemoration.

Work-related tragedies are on the rise in Canada. According to the latest statistics, the number of workplace fatalities rose from 905 in 2016 to 951 in 2017. Close to half of these fatalities occurred the transportation, construction and manufacturing industries, which collectively employ the bulk of our members.

Beyond the statistics and the individual lives lost, we must never forget that these tragedies affect scores of family members, friends and co-workers.

Many people are still unaware of the significance of April 28. I invite everyone to raise awareness about the National Day of Mourning by sharing this post or the countless others you will come across today. You can also light a candle or wear a black ribbon in honour of those we lost, or attend one of the many Day of Mourning ceremonies held across the country.

But most importantly, you can honour the memory of those we lost by fighting for safety of the living. That means getting involved in health and safety committees, focusing on prevention, and never being afraid to speak up when you see something dangerous at work.

All accidents are preventable, and our union will always be there for those who stick up for safety.

In solidarity,

François Laporte
President
Teamsters Canada