Just Another Day? - Collision Repair Magazine

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Volume 6

Just Another Day?

Written by Larry Crangle

Thursday, 11 October 2007

It was a normal day at the shop. Phones ringing constantly; customers and suppliers coming and going; workers going about their duties in the same way they had for years. Yet today was going to end differently and more dramatically than any other work day ever had. A new worker was going to end up in the hospital with serious burns to much of one side of his body. He would spend weeks in the hospital recovering from his injuries and more weeks at home suffering with the pain. He would never work again at the same job, but would have to be retrained to work at something else.

Things were never going to be the same at the shop either. The accident triggered a report to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), which in turn precipitated a visit by a Ministry of Labour investigator.

Massive Fines
The investigator’s report highlighted the lack of a safe work program as well as many outright contraventions of the law. That report would ultimately lead to a legal prosecution and the leveling of a fine that be counted in the tens of thousands of after-tax dollars.

The agency representing the provincial workman’s compensation board was also involved now. They were indicating that the shop must change its ways and implement a comprehensive safety system; and that the system must be up to a measured standard. Failure to achieve that standard in a year’s time would result in a doubling of the premiums – tens of thousands more in after-tax dollars.

The shop managers were in a state of shock. There was a company rule about not allowing flammable solvents out of a specific area and certainly everyone knew not to have it near a lit torch. But the rule was not formally written down in an employee manual. In fact there was no employee manual.

Due Diligence
The new worker had been cautioned by one of the older employees not to have the solvent at his bench, but no one ever followed up to see if the caution had been acted upon and the offending container removed. Clearly management could not be said to have fulfilled its duty of due diligence.

Would that lack of due diligence lead to further criminal charges under C-45? Quite aside from the legal questions, the managers also had to consider their own moral compasses. Had they done everything they could to ensure a safe workplace? Yes, the worker was wrong to have endangered himself in that way, but what responsibility did management share in this accident?

The law in Canada is very clear on this issue. It is the responsibility of the employer to ensure that a workplace is safe and has all the necessary policies and procedures in place.

Your Duty
It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure that supervisors are competent – that they understand their duty of due diligence and have the ability to ensure that all work carried out will be completed safely.

It is the responsibility of the employer to enforce safe work rules and take whatever corrective measures are necessary to ensure unsafe work practices do not occur. Finally, it is also important for management to be able to document that safe work practices have been continually practiced and each employee has been sufficiently trained.

Faced with these facts, the shop owner has a decision to make: either continue on as before and absorb huge increases in premiums or try to change the business model and adapt the workplace to a newer, safer way of working; a way that is in accordance with the statutory requirements of our modern society.

It is a task that is challenging, but clearly achievable. Businesses that will continue to grow and thrive will meet this challenge. Those that don’t will fall by the wayside.

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