- Hello, welcome to Provoking Safety, the channel
where we think, talk and do safety with the intention
of provoking safety at home and in the workplace.
You've joined me today on seven minutes of safety.
I wanna try and fit in seven minutes,
the basic rights of workers in Canada.
So, you know what?
What we're gonna do is we're gonna put seven minutes
on the clock right here right now,
and we're gonna start right now.
So the very first thing, let's talk about the right to know.
Workers have the right to know about the hazards
in their workplace and how to control or eliminate them.
And these are not in any order of importance
but we're gonna start with the right to know.
This starts with the job hazard assessment.
I know I harp a lot about job hazard assessments
but for a good reason.
Hazard assessments are the foundation of health and safety,
and the right to know starts with job hazard assessments.
So workers should be reviewing the job hazard assessments
prior to any work taking place
and confirming they understand them by signing off on them.
There may need to be later date as work goes on,
observation to confirm that understanding,
and continued safe work, but that's later on.
Also this includes safe work procedures.
This includes inspections, pre-use procedures,
and of course the safety policies of the organization,
all of this should be reviewed prior to work taking place.
In addition to that, the workers should know
how to obtain first aid should they
or another coworker get hurt.
They should know about the emergency procedures
in the workplace including evacuation and muster areas.
Finally, one thing to consider,
if workers have been absent from the workplace
for an extended amount a time, for whatever reason,
parental leave, maternal leave, extended illness,
whatever the case may be,
when they get back a similar process
to all of the orientation onboarding process
should likely take place,
including a quick review of the hazards.
Okay, just a thought, just a consideration.
Workers also have the right to participate
in anything that affects how their job is being done
as far as health and safety goes.
Workers should know about the health and safety committee.
And that includes the composition,
the membership, who the members are,
how to submit items to the health and safety committee,
how to access the health and safety committee,
and knowing the business of the committee.
The same thing goes, if the work site or organization
doesn't require a health and safety committee,
then they should know who the worker representative is,
and how to contact them and go about the same process.
Given that not only is participation
with the health and safety committees
something that needs to be considered,
but also consideration should be given
to how these workers contribute to job hazard assessments,
safe work procedures, anything that has to do
with health and safety or creating documentation
for doing their job safely.
They should have the opportunity to contribute
or at least collaborate.
Okay, collaboration and contribution
are also part of the right to participate.
Just something to consider employers.
Finally, as I said, these aren't in the order of importance
but this one has a significant weight behind it.
And that's the right to refuse unsafe work,
or it is called dangerous work in some jurisdictions.
It's not a process to be taken lightly,
or used as a method to challenge workplace procedures,
or change workplace procedures,
unless of course they're unsafe.
So the things to consider,
and when you're informing the worker of their rights
is how is unsafe work refusal done in your workplace?
The process, how they go about it.
Keep in mind that every province in Canada
has written legislation and how unsafe work refusal is done.
I'm gonna include some links below that you can follow.
Keep in mind also too, is if you are a unionized workplace
and the union has something about it
written into their collective agreement
that should also be part of that onboarding process.
The workers should know who's involved
in the refusal process.
Usually it starts with the supervisor,
and travels along some different steps,
and they should know these steps,
whether they go to the supervisor first,
or the health and safety representative first,
or involve health and safety committee members,
contact their HSC personnel.
The workers should be aware of all of these things.
They should know what to expect
when the whole process occurs
and the timeframe for the roll-up.
Hey, you're still here, great.
You know what?
We've kind of finished with the seven minutes.
I wanna include for you some additional tips
on how you can put this into everyday business.
Number one is onboarding.
So whether you call it a new hire safety orientation
or safety onboarding, or whatever,
consider making it a priority.
Often then what happens is a new worker starts
on the job site and HR gets a hold
of them first if possible, if possible.
And they want all of their tax forms filled out,
and them to know about payroll, et cetera,
lots of things occur.
But maybe what you need to do is look at doing
the safety stuff first.
Now I know time is money
and I know schedules, conflict and everything.
So why don't you consider this?
What if you were to create packages for every position?
And I know that's time consuming,
but a little bit of time invested,
saves time in down the line.
So what if you were to create packages
that included all of the health and safety
policy and procedures, their job hazard assessments,
including also all of the stuff,
the information that pertains to those three rights
we talked about.
The right to know the hazards,
so the job hazard assessments.
The right to participate.
In other words a quick write-up
on who the health and safety committee is.
And of course finally the right to refuse unsafe work
and how that's done.
If you're to include that in the package
and email it to them.
If they have email, I'm hoping they do,
almost everybody on the planet does now.
Tell them that they have to digest all of this
prior to starting work or on the way to work,
whatever the case may be.
If that it's going to be covered
their very first day at work.
It does a couple of things.
Number one, it instills this notion that you really care
about their health and safety.
Number two is it covers a lot of the stuff
that you're gonna need to do, right off the bat,
and helps to fast forward if you want,
that learning process with onboarding and safety onboarding.
Finally, number three is,
they're gonna be hit with information overload day one.
So, you know, whatever you can give to them
in the beginning will likely be retained further on.
And I don't know about you, but I'd wanna make sure
that they know all about the stuff that's gonna
cause them to lose limbs or get hurt,
or what have you.
Now, HR folks, I know that there's a lot
of conflicting interests,
a lot of conflicting things going on here,
but let's consider prioritizing things
and see what we can do about getting really important stuff
like the health and safety and emergency procedures
covered at the beginning of the day.
And just towards the end of the day,
have the worker come in before they go home,
and sign all of those other forms, like the taxation forms,
the payroll forms and all of that stuff.
I understand that they're all important,
but really and truthfully,
we got to start prioritizing things here
or workers are gonna keep getting hurt.
Anyway, thanks for sticking around
for that extra little bit.
If you like the content, give me a favor.
Just hit that like button.
And if you didn't like it,
I know you can go ahead and clomber that unlike button,
but do me a favor and let me know why.
If you are new to the channel,
and you haven't done so already
you might wanna subscribe.
Just click the subscribe button
and ring that bell and you'll get notified a new content.
I'll look forward to the next seven minutes of safety.
In the meantime, do me a favor.
Think safety, talk safety, do safety
with the intention of provoking safety
at home and in the workplace.
Okay, that's it, take care.
Bye for now.