-Carola Mittag
Inspiration comes from the most unexpected places. I am the child of immigrant parents who came to Canada from Germany in the early 1950s. In this picture, you see an old-fashioned laundry basket that was actually used as a piece of luggage to carry some of the few worldly possessions my parents brought with them. Our final destination (seen on the basket’s address), after disembarking a converted troop ship in Quebec City and boarding a train, was Hollywood, Toronto.
With no English language skills, no one to go to for work, and a family to feed, Dad took any work to be found. His first job was as a dishwasher at a restaurant that he could walk to. As time went on, he found work in his area of expertise.
This blog is a tribute to my father, a tool and die maker by trade and finishing his working career as a machinist for Ontario Hydro. In his many years at his job he did come home with injuries of varying kinds and degrees, a puncture wound to his finger from a drill press, a cut while using the metal lathe, skin punctures from metal shavings that flew off the lathe, burns from welding projects, a head wound that required stitches from a falling object, and the last – a significant finger injury mere weeks before his retirement.
Having worked in the health and safety field now for 17 years, it boggles my mind when I think of all the near misses and potentially catastrophic things that almost happened to him.
Not once do I recall him talking about safety meetings, safety training, personal protective equipment (PPE) or anything remotely safety-related. He relied on his common sense and previous experience to do the best job possible while ensuring that his employer was happy with the output. And he often criticized his superiors for not understanding the work or the inherent dangers of that work.
My question is this: How many workers still do not receive the proper training, PPE, or supervision that are legally mandatory?
Health and Safety does not just happen and certainly never happens by accident! The Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) is built upon the principle that employees and employers must act together to ensure a healthy and safe workplace. This is the foundation of the Internal Responsibility System IRS).
Within the IRS, there is a hierarchy of responsibility. The concept and practice of supervision is based on the model that responsibility increases with the increase in hierarchical level. Everyone in the workplace, from the employer to the newest worker, has different but important duties to keep the workplace safe. Because employers have the most authority in the workplace, they have the greatest responsibility for the health and safety of workers. Supervisors are next in line.
The (OHSA) defines a supervisor as a person who has charge of a workplace or authority over a worker. In general, “charge of a workplace” refers to broad control over the planning of work and how it is carried out, while “authority over a worker” can be seen as a more specific power to ensure a worker’s compliance with directions.
What the OHSA requires
The specific duties of a supervisor under section 27 of the OHSA are to:
- make sure that workers work in compliance with the OHSA and its regulations;
- make sure that workers use any equipment, protective devices, or clothing the employer requires;
- tell workers about any workplace health and safety hazards that the supervisor is aware of;
- give workers written instructions on measures and procedures to be followed for their own protection, if prescribed by regulation; and
- take every precaution reasonable in the circumstances to protect workers.
The OHSA gives employers and workers duties that help support the role of the supervisor. When appointing a supervisor, the employer must ensure the person is competent. To be competent, a supervisor must have enough knowledge, training, and experience to organize the work and how it is to be performed. He or she must also be familiar with the OHSA and any regulations under it that apply to the workplace and know about any actual or potential health and safety hazards in the workplace.
While health and safety are not Hollywood fashionable, the legal and financial consequences of not training supervisors to be competent are avoidable. Training your supervisors makes good business sense!
Watch for next month’s Blog published in the first week of July.
Sincerely,
Carola Mittag
Consultant and Editor for Mentor Safety Consultants Inc.