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Province blasted over safety

Failing to enforce rules to protect workers: MFL

By: Larry Kusch

Thursday, May. 31, 2012 at 8:20 AM | Comments: 0

The province is failing to hold employers accountable for violating workplace safety rules, Manitoba's largest labour group charged on Wednesday.

Kevin Rebeck, president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour, said the government has introduced strong rules to protect workers, but it fails to enforce them. The potential consequence, he said, is a more dangerous workplace for everyone.

"When employers refuse to remedy safety violations, they're supposed to face consequences... Unfortunately, this isn't happening in Manitoba workplaces," Rebeck told a news conference.

As part of its Working Families Manitoba initiative, the MFL requested a series of documents under the province's freedom-of-information legislation. The labour group didn't like what it saw. It released its findings on Wednesday, assigning the province letter grades ranging from A- (quality of regulations) to D- (enforcement).

The MFL noted the province increased workplace-safety inspections by 12 per cent last year. But it still issued no fines -- even after 965 employers failed to comply with safety orders. Under Manitoba law, the Labour Department can fine offending employers up to $5,000 without taking them to court. For serious violations -- normally those involving serious injury to an employee or death -- fines can range as high as $500,000.

Last year, the department issued no administrative penalties. However, one business in the Interlake was prosecuted and fined $15,000. In the past decade, an average of 14 fines have been levied each year.

Rebeck said Manitoba employers already "get a free pass" when they're first caught for a safety violation. The law requires the government to issue an improvement order first, giving business owners the opportunity to fix a safety problem to avoid a fine. He said he could not understand why the province is so reluctant to impose penalties.

Some typical violations involve failure to follow procedures to guard against falls for people working on roofs, inadequate ventilation in places with potentially toxic fumes or failure to install patient lifts for those who work in personal-care homes.

Family Services and Labour Minister Jennifer Howard admitted Wednesday the government "can do better" when it comes to laying down the law. She agreed administrative fines and prosecutions "are important tools" in making workplaces safer.

Howard said her department this year has stepped up prosecutions for serious offences, resulting in four employers being fined between $15,000 and $50,000.

She also pointed out government inspectors have another effective tool they've not been shy about using to address safety concerns -- a stop-work order.

That's where an inspector shuts down a workplace until a safety concern is dealt with. Some 300 of these orders were issued last year, Howard said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

A look at the numbers

31,707 -- number of workplace injuries reported in Manitoba last year

18 -- number of Manitobans who died on the job

11,741 -- number of safety-improvement orders issued to employers last year

965 -- number of warning letters sent to employers after they failed to comply with safety-improvement orders

0 -- number of fines levied directly by the provincial Labour Department to employers for failing to follow workplace safety rules

1 -- the number of prosecutions carried out against employers for safety violations

-- source: Manitoba Federation of Labour

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