On Mother's Day about seven years ago, Lisa Shirley was at her job cutting fruits for a grocery store. A couple of the machines weren't working, so she took on the task of cutting by hand even though they had a high quota to meet. The repetitive action eventually caused tendonitis, which soon morphed into complex regional pain syndrome.
"It's a debilitating disorder that causes excessive pain, sweating, and skin changes," said Shirley. "It's never gotten better and it's spread throughout the years. Now I work when my body says I can."
Shirley is one of many workers in Saskatchewan that have suffered from workplace injuries. With Saskatchewan having the second highest workplace injury rate as of 2010, she's just one more on a long list.
"We're constantly looking for causes and reasons, but like most things it's never that simple," said Jack Hardy, manager of prevention for the Workers' Compensation Board (WCB). "It could be training or the absence of it or not following procedures at the employee level. It's hard to nail down."
Even that is a simplification of things. When the WCB looks at workplace incidents, they have to take into consideration a variety of factors such as the quality of the equipment being used, the mental state of the injured worker at the time, the quality of investigation of the situation by the employee at site level, etc. It rarely boils down to anything simple, said Hardy.
"Youth is certainly an area we focus on; they're an at-risk group," he also said. "Workers in their teens and early 20s statistically represent a high risk group because they have a desire to please and less desire or security to ask questions that should be asked."
Given that there are so many potential causes to workplace injuries, various organizations have banded together to try and eliminate preventable injuries. These organizations include the WCB, Safe Saskatchewan, and the Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety. Their focus has become a project entitled Mission: Zero.
"We're developing strategies where there are none around injury prevention," said Gord Moker, CEO of Safe Saskatchewan. "If we can believe that all injuries are preventable and that we have to strive for no injuries, we'll be much better off."
Mission: Zero was established in 2008 as a call to action to end injuries in the workplace. Since then, it has been co-opted by Safe Saskatchewan and expanded to include all preventable injuries.
"What we've found is that injuries in the workplace have come down steadily and we're doing a lot better," said Moker, "but people don't value safety after 5 p.m. When they come home to mow the lawn, they'll put on shirts and sandals with no goggles or protection. We just can't do that anymore."
As part of this mission, the WCB recently held their annual Compensation Institute event, which brings together various speakers and best practices to educate participants. One of these speakers represented the Threads of Life organization, which helped Shirley.
"We work with families after they've experienced a tragedy in the workplace," said Susan Haldane, program manager of marketing and communications for Threads of Life. "In a lot of cases, that's a workplace fatality, but it's also dealing with effects of serious injury or occupational diseases."
According to Haldane, the organization believes that one injury, even one death, is too many and they need to be prevented. This belief falls right in line with Mission: Zero, which mandates that zero incidents are an attainable goal. The problem, however, is reaching and educating people.
"Geographically we're a large province with a lot of people," said Hardy. "We're trying to obtain the largest reach with the least consumption of resources. Reaching out and having frequent and ongoing contact is a challenge."
Saskatchewan has comparatively less employers that the larger provinces and many of them are small businesses.
Moreover, according to Moker, there's also the hindrance of the Saskatchewan attitude. Provincial residents have a history of not worrying about risks.
"A lot of what's gotten us to where we are today is the attitude that we have to get it done at any cost," he said. "Now we have to start looking after ourselves first."
So far, success has been dependent on the various safety organizations to spread the word. For example, Threads of Life sends out individuals and families that are trained to do public speaking to go out and tell their stories and build safety into those stories. Another milestone was the Saskatchewan health and safety leadership charter.
"It's a one-page charter with seven principles," said Moker. "There are 341 business, government, union, and community leaders that have signed the charter and are looking to extend health and safety past the workplaces and into the community."
In 2010, Mayor Malcolm Eaton along with various other businesses, gathered together to sign the charter and designate Humboldt as a safe community. According to Moker, the people in this community and the surrounding area are really starting to embrace Mission: Zero.
"We have another 75 leaders who said, 'We heard about the charter and Mission: Zero and we want to be a part of this,'" said Moker. "Every year on the second Thursday in June, we'll gather and grow this team of community leaders that will work together."
Aside from workplace training, Safe Saskatchewan is also working with the Ministry of Edcuation to develop a community safety education strategy. It will focus on the K-12 education system in a way that will enable youth to make injury prevention a habit.
"If we really want to make a cultural shift, it's only going to happen if it's led by our children and our youth," said Moker. "If we don't have the leadership of our children and youth, we can do all kinds of other things, but we're not going to be successful."
So far, despite having the second highest rate of workplace injuries, Saskatchewan has been doing well. According to Hardy, the numbers have been declining over the past eight years.
"Our prevention unit is still comparatively young, but our number are coming down and we're proud of that," said Hardy. "Now we're just trying to catch up."
In other words, while Saskatchewan is improving, so are the other provinces, which would explain why the rating order remain the same. Now it's just become a race to see who can lower their injury numbers the fastest.
Regardless, those kinds of efforts can only be healthy for Saskatchewan. Perhaps if the education and training process for safety in and out of the workplace is continuously improved, incidents like what happened to Shirley will no longer occur.
"My injuries happened at work," said Shirley. "I was compensated by the WCB and that was a true blessing because I don't know how I would've made it without knowing there was someone who was willing to work with me."
Since the onset of her disorder, Shirley has since gone back to school and now works as a substitute education assistant for the Saskatoon Public Schools division.
