Disaster responses, OHS and COVID

One of many tasks of OHS practitioners is to plan organizational responses to disasters. The most common kind of workplace disaster we develop plans for are building fires. In fact, the laws passed in the wake of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire are some of the earliest forms of OHS regulation.

In planning a response to a fire (hint: get out), it can be useful to know how people respond to rapidly evolving, high-stress, low-frequency events and why they respond that way. Last week, I ran across a 2004 article entitled “Why people freeze in an emergency: Temporal and cognitive constrains on survival responses”

Basically, the author looked at the literature, examined disaster inquiry reports, and interviewed a bunch of disaster survivors to verify the existence of freezing behaviour in disasters and quantify it. He concluded:

Responses to unfolding disaster can be divided broadly into three groups.

In the first group, between 10‐15% of people will remain relatively calm. They will be able to collect their thoughts quickly, their awareness of the situation will be intact, and their judgment and reasoning abilities will remain relatively unimpaired. They will be able to assess the situation, make a plan, and act on it.

The second group, comprising approximately 75% of the population, will be stunned and bewildered, showing impaired reasoning and sluggish thinking. They will behave in a reflexive, almost automatic manner.

The third group, comprising 10‐15% of the population, will tend to show a high degree of counterproductive behavior adding to their danger, such as uncontrolled weeping, confusion, screaming, and paralyzing anxiety (Leach, 2004).

This finding is important because, generally speaking, the mechanisms we create to allow people to protect or save themselves in such situations requires them to take immediate and sensible action (e.g., use fire exits, put in a life vest, open an emergency exit on a plane). If only 10-15% of people can be relied upon to do so, then these mechanisms likely won’t achieve their desired result (i.e., nobody dies).

The author attempts to explain maladaptive emergency behaviour by conjecturing that sub-optimal responses are related to our brains’ information-processing limitations. He asserts that, when faced with a novel event, our brain requires time to assess it, develop a plan, and execute it.

Disasters, which are novel and complex and involve significant stress, often unfold too quickly for us to meaningfully react. However, he says, since your brain can select among a pre-existing behaviours much faster than it can design new behaviours, training on how to respond can attenuate this effect. (This is why we do fire drills and why you get a safety briefing before every time a plane takes off.)

The explanation advanced by this article has intuitive appeal (i.e., it sounds plausible on first blush), but the question is whether the explanation is correct. Recall that the conclusion (i.e., brain too slow) is conjecture, rather than the results of any empirical testing. I spent some time looking for evidence that this conjecture was correct and didn’t find much (although this isn’t my field and maybe I looked in the wrong places; I also ran into a bunch of paywalls that I could not get past).

What I found was:

• An article entitled Executive Dysfunction in a Survival Environment (2010) saw the author explore in more detail which aspects of executive functioning were impaired by novel and stressful conditions. It finds some support for the conjecture.
• An paper entitled Startle, Freeze and Denial: An analysis of Pathological Pilot Reactions during Unexpected Events (2012) explored multiple potential explanations for maladaptive behaviour, suggesting more complex dynamics. 

So maybe there is something to the original author’s explanation for this well documented phenomenon but YMMV. An important barrier to proving it is simulating the necessary degree of stress in an experiment.

The reason this article came up in my feed (I think on Bluesky but maybe Twitter) is that someone was likening the three-group typology to explain people’s reactions to Covid. Basically the asserted that the calm, muddled, and counterproductive groups in the 2004 disaster study are analogous to active avoiders, passive avoiders, and minimizers.

This analogy was intuitively appealing, bolstered by the seeming authority of the original study. It is useful, though, to deliberate a bit about whether the disasters that the original article looked at (e.g., a ferry sinking or a plane catching fire) is similar enough to Covid for conjectured explanation to apply. A key difference that jumps almost immediately to mind is the time scale.

Contemporary Covid behaviours are the result of a lengthy process. While Covid is a novel event, the time-scale is not the same as the disasters that the original author explored (where the speed of the disaster may have outpaced decision making).

So, while the proportion of active avoiders, passive avoiders, and minimizers may (or may not) mirror the groupings in the disaster study, the similarities between disasters and Covid are likely superficial and coincidental. Thus, we ought not put much stock in the claim that the 2004 study is in any was applicable or instructive to understanding Covid responses.

-- Bob Barnetson

Cargill as a teaching case

A friend and I were chatting the other day about the ongoing occupational health and safety (OHS) problems at the Cargill meat-processing plant in High River. More than half of the 2000 workers at the plant have contracted COVID-19 and, subsequently, spread it to family members. One worker and one family member have died.

Cargill would make an interesting teaching case for an OHS class because it exemplifies so many of the tensions and trends that OHS practitioners have to grapple with. In no particular order and off the top of my head:

1. Hazard control: Workplace design is an important factor in this outbreak (close proximity) and the employer had chosen controls (basically PPE) that are at the bottom of the hierarchy of controls (cheapo and less effective) to avoid having to redesign the work.

2. Internal responsibility system: Workers flagged COVID concerns to the employer early in the pandemic and the employer under-responded, resulting in worker injury. This is evidence of the limited effectiveness of the IRS.

3. State inspection: Alberta’s inspection (via FaceTime) of the plant in response to complaints was inadequate and green-lit the employer for continued operations when the plant wasn’t safe. This is evidence that Alberta’s inspection regime is basically ineffective (this pattern is evident elsewhere in Canada).

4. Refusals: While Cargill workers are not yet refusing unsafe work, refusals in COVID are being denied in several jurisdictions. This demonstrate the practical weakness of workers’ safety rights, which are individual. The right to collective action (including mid-term strikes) might be much more effective at protecting workers.

5. Penalties: We’ll have to see how the government’s investigation plays out, but I would bet Cargill gets off with effectively no sanctions. Creating a law that fails to punish likely contributes to employer’s disregarding the law.

6. Injury recognition and disease: Some forms of injury have greater recognition than other. Employer responses to COVID have been inadequate, in part because injury causation is a bit murky (did you get it at work or in the community?). WCB compensation is also going to be interesting to watch.

7. Precarious work: Broadly speaking, employment precarity appears to increase workers’ exposure to COVID. Cargill’s workers, although unionized and eligible for CERB during the shut down, face profound economic pressure to return to work.

8. Precarious citizenship: The Cargill workers who are temporary foreign workers have effectively no choice but to go back to work for Cargill because of their restricted labour mobility. This is a good example of intersectionality where precarious employment and precarious citizenship compound workers’ vulnerability to employer misbehaviour.

9. Racialized workers: Most Cargill workers are either new resident or temporary foreign workers. Some of the discourse around this outbreak has been racist, with efforts to blame cultural practices (which are really just rational responses to economic exploitation) for the spread of the disease.

10. Public health: There isn’t a bright line between occupational and public health hazards. COVID caught at work has spread into the community and into other workplaces. But the linkages between OHS and public health have been limited. And public health’s engagement with employers has seemed naïve.

11. Profit: The underlying driver of Cargill’s behaviour has been maintaining production (and thus profit-making). Some of the costs of this are being externalized onto workers in the form of ill health.

This case would make a fascinating teaching case to carry through an entire OHS course. It also suggests that things at Cargill are so bad that it reveals Alberta’s OHS system as a sham.

-- Bob Barnetson

Budget 2019: Bad news for labour market training in Alberta

There has been much written about the Kenney government’s attack on organized labour in its 2019 budget (which include layoffs and wage freezes, as well as interfering in ongoing arbitrations and future collective bargaining). Alberta’s 2019 budget also purports to improve labour-market training opportunities in order to get Albertans back to work:

“Supporting a highly skilled labour force and a competitive business environment will make lasting contributions to Alberta’s economy. Alberta will once again become the destination of choice for investors and skilled workers.” Travis Toews, Minister of Finance

A closer examination of the labour-market training pieces of the budget suggests this is mostly smoke and mirrors. The government is reducing its funding of post-secondary institutions (which do most of the training) by 5 per cent this year. The institution-specific cuts are unevenly distributed with no suggestion that the cuts reflect anything other than capacity to absorb the cuts. 

These cuts hamstring institution’s ability to deliver the education and skills training alleged desired by the government. Even more concerning is analysis that suggests that additional cuts of 20 to 25% are planned by 2022/23.

These cuts are to be offset, in part, by rapid tuition increases, with institutions allowed to increase tuition by 7% per year for the next three years. Tuition increases, combined with eliminating the tuition tax credit, reducing the teen minimum wage, and closing the Summer Temporary Employment Program (STEP), will make it much harder for students to afford to enroll in post-secondary education and training.

So, if you are playing along at home, your bingo card now shows fewer training opportunities that are less accessible to future workers. Sounds promising, so far!

While governments frequently talk about addressing skills shortages, the evidence that skills shortages actually exist is weak to non-existent (there is a long line of research suggesting that a great many workers are actually under-employed). When there are skills shortages (which tend to be industry specific and geographically localized), such shortages are often difficult to predict and almost impossible for institutions to react to (because mounting and delivering training takes time and the labour tends to adjust). 

A new post-secondary funding mechanism (likely with labour market metrics) is to be introduced in the coming months. This was tried in the mid-1990s and basically didn't work. Meh.

Expected skill shortages in the skilled trades are a recurring UCP talking point. The key barrier to qualifying more trades people lies with employers’ unwillingness to offer adequate apprenticeship opportunities. The last data I saw showed that only 19% of employers that use qualified trades people participate in training apprentices. More money (or more directive finding mechanisms) for post-secondary institutions won’t alleviate that bottle neck.

The government also announced an additional $4 million to expand work experience and apprenticeship programs for elementary (!!!), junior and senior high-school students. The current Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) provides a useful pathway for students interested in the trades. But there are issues.

Research suggests that Alberta students sometimes struggle to find apprenticeships and the female participants struggle against long-standing gender discrimination. One in five students reports an occupational injury during a RAP apprenticeship. One in twenty RAP participants (whom we should remember, are kids) is injured so severely that they cannot work in the field.

Overall, there is little reason to believe that the Kenney government is serious about enhancing labour market training opportunities. Rather, this appears to be an elaborate rhetorical offensive to distract Albertans from the profound damage that public-sector cuts will do post-secondary education. These cuts, of course, are necessary only because the Kenney government gave away $4.5 billion in corporate tax breaks. (Which, as predicted, corporations pocketed, instead of creating jobs).

-- Bob Barnetson

Athabasca U's new worker safety training is terrible

On June 1, 2018, changes to Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Act took effect. A key change was the requirement for employers with 20 or more workers to have an OHS program. The OHS program must include a safety orientation and training for workers (s.37(1)(g)).

The content of this training is not specified beyond the requirement in ss.3(1)(b) and 3(2) that workers must be aware of their rights and duties and of any health and safety issues arising from the work being conducted.

Athabasca University failed to comply with this training requirement and received a compliance order in late 2018. In late July of 2019 (i.e., 14 months late), the university rolled out its new OHS training. Basically, AU bought access to an online self-paced training product and demanded all employees complete it within 10 days.

Hilariously, the rollout by HR looked like a phishing attack. So, as they’ve been trained, many staff deleted the email unread, and IT immediately blocked access to the website. But at least we know the IT security training is working!

When things eventually shook out, I took the training offered by AU. It is basically a online powerpoint with 118 screens, a few simple activities, and a 10-question multiple-choice test at the end. It took me about 20 minutes to read everything and complete the test (10/10!).

There are numerous shortcomings with this training. Most obviously, this training lacks any applicability to most AU employees, with lengthy sections early on about due diligence (an employer topic, focused on reducing liability for injury) and hand tools and machinery (relevant to about 3 employees). Providing clearly irrelevant training is a sure-fire way to trigger learner disengagement. You’d think this is a dynamic Canada’s leader in distance education might be aware of.

Not surprisingly, I have heard multiple reports of people getting fed up and clicking through the slides as fast as possible and just doing the activities and tests based upon common sense. Given the generic and largely irrelevant nature of the content, I don’t imagine AU cares about this. This training is clearly about making AU minimally (and finally!) compliant with the OHS Act, rather than actually improving safety or giving workers useful information or skills.

There are several places where the training clearly blames the workers for injuries and prescribes injury-prevention techniques that completely ignore the root cause of injury and the hierarchy of controls. For example, the slide below (used under fair dealing provisions) notes that equipment can cause hand injuries but the most common cause is employee error (boredom, inattentiveness, distraction).



While it is easy to identify the proximate (i.e., immediate) cause of injury, to reduce injury we have to look at the root cause. Specifically, why are employees bored, distracted or inattentive? The answer here is found in the way the employer has designed the job to make it boring, overwhelming, or disengaging. But fixing the root cause (i.e., eliminating the hazard by designing better jobs) is way harder and more expensive than simply blaming the employees.

The training then goes on to say cuts and lacerations are among the most common injuries. “This is even true of secretaries, who can be cut by paper edges and punctured by staplers, scissors and thumbtacks.” Setting aside the anachronistic term for administrative assistants, suggesting “even secretaries” can get hurt is deeply insulting.

Administrative staff are some of the most at-risk for injuries due to the repetitive nature of their work (e.g., RSIs and other ergonomic-related injuries) and their relative lack of power (e.g., leading to harassment by coworkers). This part of the training was profoundly tone deaf to the realities of Athabasca University.

The training contains a number of elements that several staff have found objectionable. For example, the slide below shows a man forcing a female to photocopy her face (I think—that’s the consensus, anyways).



This is (1) a ridiculous example of violence that (2) both obscures and trivializes actual forms of harassment and violence faced by AU employees and that (3) several workers have found extremely triggering. Is this seriously the best imagery that a professional training organization could come up with?

Similarly, the section on workplace violence is headlined by this image:



Now, I expect that many AU employees have idly fantasized about doing this. But it is not representative of the actual issues faced by AU employees. The most likely kind of violence at AU is verbal and directed at front-line and support staff (who are mostly women). I’m not suggesting that physical violence should be ignored or that women can’t act violently. The point is that this cartoonish representation of violence trivializes the issue by showing us an uncommon and frankly unlikely example.

The training does touch on the issue of working alone, which is important, as half of AU 1100 employees work from home offices. It recommends some sort of check-in procedure. Alberta’s OHS Code actually requires more than that when workers work by themselves and cannot be seen or heard by people capable of rendering help (which is the case for many AU home workers). AU is, in fact, probably in violation of this requirement. The irony of flagging working alone as a risk but AU doing nothing about it is not lost on home workers.

Moving on, the OHS Act requires employers to make employees aware of both their rights and obligations. There is a fair bit of information on employee obligations but only really two screens that deal with employee OHS rights. One lists the rights and the other briefly discusses how employees go about refusing unsafe work.

I expect this meets the minimal requirements under the Code, but it really does little to empower workers. That makes sense since employers generally don't want workers asking questions like “why is the fire hose missing?” The desire to keep workers subservient also likely explains why there is no mention of unions in the training.

The training ends with three slides addressing injury and return to work. The role of AU’s various unions in return to work (as set out in policy) is absent in the training. Further, the training mentioned requirements for communication set out in Bill C-99. I have no idea what is in reference to.

The only thing I could find was some 1996 legislation in Ontario (Bill 99, the Workers’ Compensation Reform Act). This has no application in Alberta or to Athabasca University (although recent changes to Alberta’s Workers’ Compensation Act may be relevant). You’d kinda think a professional training firm or AU’s own OHS staff might have caught such a basic error?

The activities and test in the training were insulting and poorly designed. Consider this activity to test whether trainees have understood the section on personal protective equipment (PPE):



Even if you have never taken any OHS training, surely you could figure out which piece of PPE is best way to protect your HAND when you handle a hot item. (Hint: it is not the boot). The question itself is deeply insulting: a grade 2 student could answer this correctly so asking adults to do it tells them that the trainer thinks they are morons. As a way to self-test workers’ knowledge, this activity provides only the most superficial indication of whether workers understand the requirement for and use of PPE.

Similarly, the test questions include things like:

• True or false: you should check the back seat for creepy dudes before getting in your car. 
• If the ladder is missing a rung you should: (a) fix with duct tape, (b) step-over the missing rung carefully, or (c) get it fixed.
• True or false: It’s cool to climb up shelves if you can't find a ladder.

These questions provide (at best) a superficial assessment of worker knowledge about their rights and how to handle safety issues. Any rando at the mall could pass this test without ever having seen the training. And, indeed, that is basically what is happening with employees—people are ignoring the training because it sucks.

No one really benefits from superficial compliance with the law. Workers remain at risk and the employer will see disengagement continue to rise (negatively affecting productivity). The lousy training is just the latest issue in HR with OHS and return to work. It is probably time to clean house and bring in new staff.

-- Bob Barnetson

UCP platform will drive down wages

This post original appears on the Parkland Institute blog on April 3, 2019.

(NOTE: On April 5, 2019, after this blog was originally published, the United Conservative Party amended its platform, including changes to overtime. The revised platform indicates that the UCP would: “Reverse the change in 2018 that eliminated the option for workers and employers to develop straight time banked hours arrangements (this has no impact on overtime pay).” (p.21). Essentially, the UCP is now proposing that banked OT could be taken as straight time off, instead of at 1.5 times (as is the case now). In this way, the revised UCP proposal reduces the time workers could take off by one-third. Under the amended policy overtime that is paid out instead of taken in lieu would still be paid out at 1.5.)

The United Conservative Party (UCP) election platform contains several planks affecting employment law, labour law, and training. These changes are framed as “bring balance back to Alberta’s labour laws, restore workplace democracy, and incentivize the creation of youth employment” (p. 21). The overall effect of the UCP platform is, however, to directly or indirectly reduce workers’ wages in order to benefit employers.

Employment Law

The UCP platform promises a number of changes to Alberta’s employment laws. Employment laws are the primary source of workplace rights for the 75% of Albertans who are not covered by a collective agreement.

The most significant change is related to over-time (OT) pay. At present, workers who are required to work more than 8 hours in a day or 44 hours in a week must receive 1.5 times their normal pay for this OT work. Over-time pay is designed to dis-incentivize employers from requiring long working hours (which create a fatigue hazard) and, instead, hire more workers.

The current OT rules allow employers and workers to enter into agreements where OT is “banked”. In practice, employers can impose such “agreements” at their discretion by denying workers OT if they don’t agree to the employer’s terms. Banked OT can then be taken as paid time off or as pay calculated at 1.5 times workers’ normal rate of pay. Employers can deny employees time off in lieu of pay, thus forcing workers to take a pay out.

The UCP indicates it will allow employers to pay out banked over-time hours at “straight” time, instead of at the OT rate. This will allow employers to evade OT premiums by denying worker requests to use banked OT. Instead, employers will be able to simply pay out the OT as straight time. The result will be a significant cost savings for employers, and a significant pay reduction for workers.

For example, a minimum-wage worker (earning $15 per hour) being asked to work five 12-hour shifts, would have gross monthly earnings of $4200 under the current OT rules. Under the UCP proposal, an employer could impose an OT agreement and reduce the worker’s gross earnings to $3600 per month. This nets the employer a $600 savings per worker per month. Consequently, the UCP proposal will encourage employers to work existing workers harder, rather than hiring additional staff.

The UCP has also promised to reduce the earnings of workers who are under the age of 18 to $13/hour (from $15/hour). This plank is intended to incentivize employers to hire young workers. There is no compelling evidence that such a policy would result in employers creating additional jobs for young teens. It may, however, incentivize employers to hire young teens in lieu of older workers (who comprise the vast majority of minimum wage earners in Alberta).

Implementing a lower youth wage benefits employers. For example, assuming a 40-hour work week, an employer who replaces an older worker with someone under 18, will save $320 per worker per month. The UCP also promises to discuss reducing the minimum wage of workers who serve alcohol. This suggests a return to the two-tier minimum-wage for alcohol servers that existed under past Conservative governments.

Finally, the UCP has also promised to replace Alberta’s present laws about farmworker rights. As previously reported, this proposal will deny 70% of paid farmworkers basic employment rights as well as reducing worker access to injury compensation.

Labour Law

At present, Alberta workers are free to decide whether or not they wish to join a union, free from employer interference. If a union has the support of 65% or more of workers, they can apply for immediate certification (this is called card-check certification). If the union has the support of at least 40% but less than 65% of workers, then the Labour Board holds a vote and the majority decides whether or not to unionize. If the employer interferes in the workers’ decision, the Labour Board can automatically certify the union.

The UCP platform promises to eliminate card-check certification and make every union certification application subject to a vote. The delay inherent in mandatory votes gives employers the opportunity to pressure workers into rejecting unionization, and employer intimidation of workers during union drives is commonplace. One Canadian study found that 80% of employers oppose certification drives, 60% do so overtly, and 20% take action that is illegal (e.g., threatening or dismissing workers). Not surprisingly, card-check certification provisions dramatically increase the success rate of union drives.

The UCP platform frames eliminating card-check certifications as “restor[ing] workplace democracy” (p. 21). This attempt to equate certification votes with the electoral process ignores the fact that, when we cast a vote in a federal or provincial election, the government doesn’t spend the campaign period threatening to fire us if we vote for a different party.

Such claims also ignore that elections and union drives are fundamentally different. Government policies profoundly affect every aspect of our lives and can’t be avoided (unless we abandon our country and citizenship). By contrast, the selection of a bargaining agent affects only certain aspects of our employment and the effects (typically higher wages and greater job security) can be avoided by changing jobs.

The UCP platform is silent on two other important changes to Alberta’s labour laws implemented by the Notley government: remedial certification when employers interfere in union drives, and first-contract arbitration when employers stall collective bargaining to try and break new unions.

The UCP platform also promises to continue to require public-sector unions to provide essential services during a work stoppage in order to protect the health, safety or life of others or public order. In many cases, this entails forcing a significant portion of a union’s membership to continue to work. The UCP proposes, however, allowing public-sector employers to hire replacement workers to cover the jobs of those workers that are able to strike. This promise would fundamentally undermine public-sector union’s power to make contractual gains. Unions will probably respond to such a change by resorting to
illegal strikes.

Overall, these platform planks appear designed to reduce workers’ ability to join a union and limit the strike power of public-sector unions. These planks benefit both employers (who typically seek to avoid unions) and a UCP government (which would likely be keen to drive down public-sector wages).

Labour-Market Training

The UCP platform contends there is a need for more apprenticeship training due to retirements among skilled workers. Alberta’s occupational demand and supply model (forecasting to 2025) does not support this assertion. Instead, it predicts a surplus ofworkers in most skilled trades.

Increasing the number of qualified workers will, however, further loosen the labour market, likely driving down wages. While he was the federal Minister of Immigration, Kenney used fears of labour shortages to flood Alberta with temporary foreign workers. This, in turn, meant employers did not have to increase wages or improve working conditions in order to attract workers.

The UCP proposes to “solve” this imaginary skill shortage by expanding trades training opportunities, including for high-school students. This promise ignores that:

• high-school students in Alberta’s current Registered Apprenticeship Program face high levels of injury and low levels of retention, and
• there is high attrition among apprentices, in part because only 1 in 5 employers that use skilled trades people offer apprenticeship opportunities.

Overall, the UCP’s platform attempts to solve a non-problem by increasing training capacity. This approach has been demonstrably ineffective for decades because it ignores the barrier posed by employers’ unwillingness to provide apprentices workplace experience. If successful, the main beneficiary of the UCP’s training planks will be employers, who will be able to pit surplus workers against one another and drive down wages.

Conclusion

The UCP’s claim that it will “bring balance back to Alberta’s labour laws, restore workplace democracy, and incentivize the creation of youth employment” (p. 21) is false. Instead, the UCP’s platform will increase employer profitability by lowering wages.

Specifically, the UCP’s platform will:

• Directly reduce the wages of young workers and workers who are required to work over time.
• Increase employer interference in workers’ decisions about unionization in order to reduce unionization rates and thereby, indirectly, drive down wages.
• Flood the labour market with skilled workers (in response to an imaginary skill shortage) and thereby, indirectly, drive down wages.

-- Bob Barnetson

New book: Canada's labour market training system

If you're looking for a last-minute Christmas present, I’ve just released a new book entitled Canada’s Labour Market Training System. You can buy the book for $30 or download a pdf version for free.

The book examines how the labour market training occurs in Canada and whose interests it serves. We often hear complaints that the system—post-secondary institution, government policies, community agencies and workplace training—is failing at producing the right number of workers with the right skills.

The book suggests that the “system” is not one in the sense of it being a machine that turns out widgets. But, rather, it is a system in the political sense, where different stakeholder groups seek to advance their interests. The outcome of the system tend to reflect the relative balance of power between stakeholders.

This book is the main text in a new course that we’ll be opening in January: EDUC 210: The Canadian Training System. The course should also be available as an open course (i.e., you can learn the material without doing the assessments or receiving credit) shortly. We’ve done something similar with IDRL 308: Occupational Health and Safety that Jason Foster and I wrote Health and Safety in Canadian Workplaces.

-- Bob Barnetson

Free joint health and safety committee e-course

Alberta's new OHS legislation has (finally) made joint health and safety committees (JHSCs) mandatory for employers with more than 20 employers. The legislation requires employers must allow 16 hours (or two shifts) of work time for JHSC members to be trained.

The legislation empowers the Minister to establish training criteria. At present, these criteria and approved providers are under development. 

Private training providers are, however, already offering courses, such as this one (for $499) from the Occupational Safety Group Inc or this one for $199 from Online Learning Enterprises Inc.

Earlier this summer, Alberta partnered with the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety to offer a free (to Alberta residents) two-hour e-course on how joint health and safety committees are supposed to operate.

You can sign up for the course here and, if you can score 80% (in three tries) on the exam, you get a spiffy certificate like this one on the right.

My understanding is that completing this course will be considered a part of the required training for JHSC members. I found the course to be a decent introduction to JHSCs and their duties.

I wouldn't say it was hard (I quickly clicked through the slides and did the quiz while in a phone meeting and got 87% on my first try). But it is a decent start for new JHSC members.

-- Bob Barnetson

New labour market training agreements announced

In late June, the federal government announced it had signed new labour market training agreements with Alberta worth $1.7 billion over the next six years. There are two main funding streams:

The Labour Market Development Agreements (LMDA) address Type 2 Employment Insurance (EI) training benefits. EI claimants as well as some EI premium payers can receive training under this program. It looks like Alberta gets about $154m per year to provide thee benefits to Albertans.

The Workforce Development Agreements (WDAs) replace the Canada Jobs Grant Fund (CJGF) as well as the Labour Market Agreements for Persons with Disabilities and the Trageted Initiatives for Older Workers (both of which re now defunct and subsumed by the WDA). The WDA funds training that is not eligible to be covered under LMDA and Alberta gets about $91m per year under WDAs.

Interestingly, it appears that Alberta will continue to operate the Canada-Alberta Job Grant. This grant was the brain child of Jason Kenney when he was the federal employment minister. Kenney promised that the grant would see employers select unemployed people, offer then training and then hire them. Specifically, Kenney said

The whole point of the job grant is it will involve employers in selecting employees who they believe will have the propensity to work, getting them specific training, and the employers offer them a job at the end of it.

The mechanics of the CJG were that employers could spend up to $5000 for training and seek matching funds at a 1:2 ratio (i.e., up to $10,000) from the government to offset training costs. In effect, the CJG transferred the power to determine what kind of labour market training would by funded to employers.

Even a few years into the grant, it was apparent that things were going poorly. British Columbia reported that, after two years of operating the Canada-BC Job Grant, 99% of participants were drawn from the ranks of the already employed. This finding reveals that the CJG is not meeting its goal of increasing labour-market attachment among unemployed British Columbians.

Additionally, the majority of participants already had some PSE and most saw no wage-increase following the training. Less than 4% of employer applications identified participants as a youth, a person with a disability, Indigenous, or a new immigrant. Only 30% of participants were women. Finally, only a minority of employers used the CJG to pay for new or additional training. Most employers used CJG funding to offset existing training costs.

Alberta reported a very similar experience, noting that the Canada-Alberta Job Grant is being used to mostly train employed men with PSE in skilled management and non-management occupations. Manitoba concluded:

No evidence was found the Grant increased the supply of skilled labour, increased participation of underrepresented groups, or developed the long term human resource capacity of employers. Over the short term, training did not increase labour market attachment, as very few participants obtained or retained jobs as a direct result of the training. The vast majority of training participants were employed before receiving training (99%). (p.51)

The Northwest Territories was particularly critical of the impact of the CJG on existing labour-market training programs:

The cost sharing element of the Job Grant also negatively impacted funding for existing employment and training programs, particularly those targeted for unemployed, and under-employed individuals who do not have a job offer, and for individuals entering or re-entering the labour force. These impacts will increase as the Job Grant is fully phased in to reach 60% of the Job Fund. (pp. 65-66).

While there are exceptions to this general pattern (as well as data gaps in the evaluations), the CJG appeared to redirect federal training dollars towards already employed men in high-status and high-wage occupations. The CJG funding model also shifts federal funding away from assisting unemployed workers to become job-ready. In these ways, the CJG replicates existing patterns of advantage (and disadvantage).

In terms of access, control and benefit, the CJG privileged the interests of employers. Employers determined which employees received what kind of training under the CJG because employers made applications for the funding. Employers were the main beneficiaries of the CJG, receiving taxpayer-subsidized training for their employees.

Workers may benefit from this training, if it leads to more satisfying or remunerative work, either with their current employer or another employer in the future. The workers who received the most benefit from CJG were largely well-educated men who were already employed in skilled occupations and who didn't identify as Indigenous, immigrant, or disabled. Further, the CJG focuses training dollars on workers who are essentially job-ready, thereby disadvantaging Canadians with little prospect of labour-force attachment.

Basically, the Canada Job Grant was a terrible, terrible idea (which is what most practitioners said when Kenney proposed it). Why any province would retain a training program that yields such inequitable results is beyond me.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Welcome to the Boomtown

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Welcome to the Boomtown” by David & David. The song recounts the mid-80s excess found in Los Angeles and how a boomtown plays out for the rich and for the poor.

Alberta is no stranger to booms and busts and there is interesting research going on about how this affects labour. For example, foreign live-in caregivers (more commonly known as “nannies”) play an important role in the economy of Fort McMurray. Their often-grueling conditions of work allow their employers to meet the demands of their own employers.

Sara Dorow (from the U of A) and her colleagues have been studying this phenomenon. They note that the boom entails a cascading of social reproductive costs onto this vulnerable group. That is to say, the oil sands couldn’t function without these almost invisible workers managing home and hearth issues for workers. Yet these workers are often treated as disposable.

With the boom also comes the bust. Since 2014, Alberta has struggled economically. It appears that the worst of this recession is passing but the recovery is uneven.

For example, in a recent CBC article, U of C economist Trevor Tombe notes that the economic recovery Alberta is experiencing is evident in employment rates (which are bouncing back up. But as Tombe’s graph (below) shows, young men appear to be excluded from this recovery.

This pattern is understandable given that, in the past, young men could secure well paying jobs in the oil patch with not much more than a strong back. This employment strategy appears to no longer be as effective as it once was. One solution is to provide displaced workers with opportunities to return to school.



Ms. Cristina drives a 944
Satisfaction oozes from her pores
She keeps rings on her fingers

Marble on her floor, cocaine on her dresser
Bars on her doors, she keeps her back against the wall
She keeps her back against the wall

So I say, I say welcome, welcome to the Boomtown
Pick a habit, we got plenty to go around
Welcome, welcome to the Boomtown
All that money makes such a succulent sound
Welcome to the Boomtown

Handsome Kevin got a little off track
Took a year off of college and he never went back
Now he smokes too much, he's got a permanent hack

Deals dope out of Denny's, keeps a table in the back
He always listens to the ground
Always listens to the ground

So I say, I say welcome, welcome to the Boomtown
Pick a habit, we got plenty to go around
Welcome, welcome to the Boomtown
All that money makes such a succulent sound
Welcome to the Boomtown

Well, the ambulance arrived too late
I guess, she didn't want to wait

-- Bob Barnetson

Research: Making Alberta workplaces safer

Last week, the Parkland Institute and the Alberta Workers’ Health Centre jointly published as report entitled Safer by design: How Alberta can improve workplace safety. This report was based upon a 2000-worker survey funded by the Government of Alberta OHS Futures Grant program.

The crux of the report is this:

1. Most workplace injuries in Alberta are not reported. For example, 69% of respondents who experienced a disabling injury did not report it to the WCB. This suggests Alberta’s injury statistics are skewed radically low.

For example, in 2016, Alberta reported 44,543 serious (disabling) injuries. Our study suggests that true number is ~170,700. Overall, it is likely there are over 400,000 workplace injuries in Alberta each year.

2. Most employers violate Alberta’s safety laws. Only half had hazard assessments (which identify hazards and set out controls). Less than half involved workers in hazard identification. Only 59% told their workers about hazards and how to control them.

3. Many workers are scared to exercise their health and safety rights. Between 10 and 23% of workers feared negative consequences if they exercised their rights—such as asking for safety information or refusing unsafe work. In workplaces where workers are routinely exposed to many dangers (i.e., the workplaces where workers get hurt the most), fears levels were up to four times higher.

This suggests that there is a fundamental problem with the internal responsibility system that underlies workplace safety in Alberta. Employers often don’t hold up their end of the bargain (controlling hazards). Workers are fearful of exercising their safety rights. And government enforcement is virtually non-existent. This creates a vicious circle that helps explain high injury rates.

While Alberta did make significant changes to its health and safety legislation, legislative change alone will not be sufficient to alter the behaviour of employers. The report makes 13 recommendations that should make workplace safer.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Safety Training

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture looks at the recent Superstore episode entitled “Safety Training”. This episode centres on a minor workplace injury to a worker (Mateo). There were three main subplots of note.

First, the store is keen to get Mateo to accept a small monetary payment in exchange for waiving his right to sue. The waiver includes a background check on Mateo (who is undocumented) so he declines the initial offer of $1000. This triggers an escalating series of offers that eventually reaches $50k.

This fear-of-litigation dynamic speaks to a key reason why Canadian employers typically support workers’ compensation system: it limits employer liability for injuries. The historic trade-off in workers’ comp is that workers (usually) get stable, immediate and predictable compensation but give up their right to sue.

Second, the series of safety incidents in the store results in the employer offering a refresher course in workplace safety. The training (e.g., how to mop) is completely demeaning to the workers. It also has no relationship to the incidents that caused the incidents. This kind of biting commentary of corporate training is one of the reasons Superstore is worthwhile watching.

Third, there is a darker subplot wherein a previously injured worker finds out the employer lowballed him on its settlement for cutting off his finger. Seeing the potential for financial gain, the worker then commences trying to re-injury himself. In the end, the insanity of this behaviour becomes clear even to the dim-witted worker. This sub-plot is a sharp critique of the notion that workers will malinger on compensation.

I couldn’t find a link to any on-point clips of the episode. But I did find this digital exclusive where Garrett developed a VR training simulation of how to close up the store. It is worth a watch.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Oh, the boss is coming!

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture features “Oh, the boss is coming!” by the Arkells. The song talks about how the profit imperative shapes the nature of work:

The boss is comin'!
You Better look busy....
They're not paying, you for nothing

The premise of the video is that the band/workers have to make a safety video (on their own time) for the boss. The most interesting part is that the list of safety precautions are behaviour-based safety precautions:

Always use protection
Rules must be followed
Keep alert
Eye protection must be worn
Lift with your legs
Leave your work area tidy
Safety first?

Ignoring the acrostic, these rules all place responsibility on the worker for avoiding injury instead of on the employer for controlling hazards. I’m not sure if this subtext was intentional or not but it certainly fits with the overall theme of class-conflict in the lyrics.



OOAWWWOOHHh, The boss is comin'!
You Better look busy....
They're not paying, you for nothing

There's no time for loving!
In the summer, in the city
There's only room for the sweaty,
There's only room for the sweaty.
HO!

Oh oh oh!?
Oh oh oh,
Oh oh oh!!

There's no room for error,
So beware, when your ass is on the line,
I have yet to witness, much forgiveness
In this business.

Oh, you better not be sittin'!

Or punch in early!...
But be prepared to stay in late.!!.

Oh you know they're not kidding!
When they're talking the talk,
Well they're talking the talk,
Well they're talking the talk,

This ones for you
oh well this ones for you

OH.

Oh oh oh!
Oh oh oh?
Oh oh oh..

There's no room for error,
So beware, when your ass is on the line,
I have yet to witness, much forgiveness
In this business.

I'm Punching in,
I'm Punchin out,
I'm Punchin in,
I'm punchin out!

Punch'n in,
Punch'n out,
Punch'n in!

I'm punch'n out!
I'm punch'n out!

There's no room for error!
So beware, when your ass is on the line,
I have yet to witness, much forgiveness
In this business.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Superstore on staff meetings

To start the new year of Labour & Pop Culture, we return to NBC’s comedy Superstore. Last year they had an interesting storyline about strikes. This year, there is a recurring bit about staff meetings that is just a touch too real. Here are some clips:

Staff made training videos about improving efficiency during bathroom breaks.

Staff debrief a workplace tornado.

Staff debrief a workplace robbery.

Honestly, it is hard to watch stuff that so bitingly accurate.

-- Bob Barnetson

Bill 6 OHS recommendations

In late October, Alberta released for public comment the reports of four working groups that examined the application of occupational health and safety rules for paid employees in the farm and ranch sector. The reports are available here. Feedback is due January 15.

The reports make a large number of recommendations (mostly to adopt the existing rules in the OHS Code). There has been some media coverage of the recommendations, mostly centering on seatbelts, subsidies and bathrooms.

I think there are two really interesting issues that are, so far, below the radar. The first is the recommendation (across all Working groups reports but especially group 6) that the government established an industry safety association. My understanding is that the AgCoalition (perhaps through a separate society) is positioning itself to be this association. Whether the AgCoalition (which finds most of its support among large producers) would be successful in engaging smaller operators is an open question. Another interesting question is the degree to which farm workers would have any meaningful involvement in such an association.

The recommendation also suggests that the association be government funded. One effect of government funding is that often constrains the desire and ability of the funded group to act in a partisan manner. This happens through a couple of mechanism. First, the group becomes dependent on government largesse (as well as subject to regulation) so open opposition entails more risk. Second, individuals within the organization start to buy into the goals and norms of workplace safety, particularly over time as the safety keeners tend to persist and eventually dominate the organization.

It will be fascinating to see if a political saw-off emerges, wherein the Ag Coalition gets government funding and, in turn, basically accepts Bill 6 as a done deal. There was a very interesting interview on Alberta Primetime a few weeks back where Lynn Jacobsen (President of the Alberta Federation of Agriculture) was asked about the UCP’s pledge to repeal Bill 6:

I guess I’m getting tired of everybody playing politics around this issue. I think that statement is directed related to politics and is not related to some facts and what is actually going on in the agricultural community.

…What we have found out… before we had this legislation, farms in Alberta didn’t have a lot of coverage for their workers. We did some straw polls… and it seemed like maybe 30-35% of producers had any type of protection for anybody working for there. That is a huge issue that we don’t want to go back to.

People without coverage and basic legislation they have to follow and rules and workmen’s comps—people lose their farms over accidents and that. We don’t want to go back to that era.

…I think it is a little foolish of the opposition parties to say we’re just going to cancel it because it is an attack on farmers. Really it isn’t an attack on farmers. It is maybe bringing labour on our farms up into the 20th century.

The AFA has always been a bit more reasonable on farm safety than other groups, but this still seemed like a real softening of resistance among a key producer group.

The other issue will be around legacy equipment. Both Working Groups 3 and 4 are recommending that farm equipment in operation one year after any change to the OHS Code is made (so-called legacy equipment) should be exempt from certain requirements. The key requirements are around equipment being operated, modified or otherwise used in compliance with manufacturer’s specification (although this legacy issue comes up in a couple of places, such as having adequate roll-over and falling object protections and safeguards).

This is a complicated issue because farms operate equipment that may not have manufacturers specs, may have been modified contrary to them, may be used in ways not anticipated by the manufacturer (similar to off-label use of drugs), may be home built, or may be subject to “emergency repairs” in the field during a busy season. There is also a sense that manufacturer specs are often very conservative because they are a means by which manufacturers avoid liability if something goes wrong.

Particularly worrisome was Working Group 4’s recommendation for legacy exemptions on roll-over protections and falling objects protections on mobile powered equipment (e.g., tractors) as well as safeguards on equipment. Basically, this recommendation would mean farms could continue to use equipment of questionable safety until it breaks down.

The death of Stephen Murray Gibson illustrates the consequences of a permanent exemption around meeting manufacturer specs and other standards. Gibson was killed in 2015 after getting entangled in an unshielded power take off (PTO). (A PTO is a drive-shaft that spins at high speed to transfers power from an engine to some other equipment.)

Fatigue was probably an issue in this fatality (he had been working 28 straight days). But an important root cause was the unguarded PTO. According to the fatality inquiry:

Mr. Hamilton bought from a neighbour a 40- or 50-year old grain roller and PTO. The roller had three safety shields on it; the PTO, although it would originally have had a safety shield, at the time Mr. Hamilton acquired it, did not. No manual came with the equipment, either.

Given that farm equipment can often stay in use for decades, recommendations allowing continued non-compliance around legacy equipment are a recipe for exposing generations of farm workers to unremediated hazards that will kill some of them. I can’t imagine the government going for that. Yet, bringing unsafe equipment up to code (or replacing it) will entail significant costs. If the government declines this recommendation, I suspect there will be a lot of complaining.

One option it to create a grace period (to spread costs over time). Another is to provide some sort of safety subsidy programs to help offset the cost of compliance (Working Group 5 suggests this for roll over protection). Subsidies are common in agriculture (e.g., crop insurance) but, like government funding of ag associations, they often have other implications. For example, they (at least implicitly) require farmers to recognize the government’s authority over matters of farm safety. And they give governments leverage that may moderate farmers’ behaviour.

It will be very interesting to watch these two issues play out over time.

-- Bob Barnetson