The province pulled the flags down to fly at half-mast on April 28 in honour of all the workers who had lost their lives to illness or injury while on the job. It was another step in their ongoing campaign to prevent workplace incidents.
“The National Day of Mourning is a day that gives recognition to all those that have been injured, lost their ability or their lives due to a work-related injury or death,” said Mike Carr, deputy minister of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety. “The design and intention is to deal with awareness of occupational injury in our daily lives.”
According to a government news release, the names of 39 Saskatchewan workers who died last year were read into the records of the Legislature. The idea is to create a “very human understanding of the high price work-related injury causes,” said Carr.
Between 2013 and 2014, the injury rate has gone down almost a whole one per cent. It’s been decreasing since the province began focusing on it eight years ago. Unfortunately, the mortality rate due to workplace incidents hasn’t seen the same results.
“Fatalities have increased over the last year, but it’s down significantly from over two years ago,” said Carr. “When fatalities occur, we’re not able to understand what the trend is or what the impact of those fatalities are in terms of where to devote our focus. The causes change from year to year.”
That mortality rate also includes fatalities that have causes that are 30-40 years old, such as asbestos poisoning. While issues like that have been addressed in recent years, the initial consequences are still being felt.
Aside from those types of causes, there are also other reasons for workplace fatalities. Nowadays, it’s not industries and equipment that needs to be made safer; it’s the workers’ behaviour.
“We draw two lines: conditions of work and behaviours at work. If you look at the history of occupation of health and safety and the history of legislation in Canada, it’s been primarily focused on conditions at work, such as housekeeping, having protective equipment, putting guards on machinery, etc.,” said Andy Rauska, director of prevention for the Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB). “If we look at the evolution over the last few years, industries buy machines with guards already on them; they’re manufactured that way, so the conditions have worked out.”
Therefore, Rauska says 80 per cent of all injuries these days are due to “at risk behaviour.” In other words, despite the awareness campaigns and increased education, incidents are still happening because people are careless. Almost all incidents are preventable, which is why the WCB partnered with labour relations and is working with other safety associations to achieve Mission: Zero.
Mission: Zero is based on the belief that zero injuries and zero fatalities is attainable through greater education and awareness by employees and employers. It’s more than just understanding what the hazards are at work; it’s about changing the attitude about safe behaviour.
“Quite frankly, that’s fuzzy because there’s nothing hard and fast. When you get into the notion of behaviours, how do we ensure people are doing things in a safe manner? How do we sustain that?” asked Rauska. “Being able to repeat a good behaviour, that’s what it’s all about. Once you start repeating it, the attitude change occurs; the behaviours change, becomes a part of what you do. You just do it in a safe manner.”
Rauska says it’s all about leadership. Many companies and organizations have already signed the Mission: Zero leadership charter. Now, it’s about management taking on that role to reinforce safe behaviour. Last year, Carr said 87 per cent of workplaces achieved that injury-free target.
“The hope is to move to a point in which more workplaces can celebrate their injury-free rate and have attained Mission: Zero as their goal,” he said.
