‘A smooth transitional year’ for the province’s new occupational safety act

In its first year of operation, enforcement of the act has been ‘relatively non-confrontational,’ but there are concerns that small farms are too complacent about on-the-job safety

It’s been a little over a year since farming operations were placed under Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act and Dean Anderson, president and CEO of the Farm Safety Association (FSA), thinks that the move was “a good thing.”

“It’s raised awareness,” he says.

“[The Act] gives a structure that safety can be measured on. Its goal is to have safe workplaces and farming should be part of that.”  

Anderson considers the past year “a smooth transitional year” and “relatively non-confrontational” in terms of interactions between farmers and the Ministry of Labour, which enforces the Act. He notes that ministry staff has so far operated solely in a “reactive mode” towards farms, only responding to injuries and complaints with no surprise inspections. “They’re giving people a chance to incorporate [the Act] into their operations,” he says.

The FSA is the provincial body responsible for delivering education and awareness campaigns about the Act to farmers. Anderson says that, for six months before and after the act was introduced on June 30, 2006, the FSA held 13 sessions to educate farmers on complying.

Their emphasis has now shifted to filling requests for specific and general safety training made by farm safety supervisors and health and safety reps. Anderson says that these requests are mostly coming from large farms with more than 50 employees (greenhouses and mushroom farming), but farms with 20 to 50 employees are also calling. These tend to be fruit and vegetable operations with many offshore workers who don’t speak English.

Anderson adds that they are also receiving a good number of calls from farms with five to 20 employees. However, he finds the lack of requests from small farming operations (with fewer than five employees) disturbing. “The mindset is, ‘I’m safe. I don’t need to change anything,’” he says. “In general, they’re operating with a false sense of security because they haven’t had an accident or many accidents. But they’ve been more lucky than safe.”

He adds that, in terms of small farms especially, “safety’s not the first concern when people are stressed and stress in small business is a given. They should be doing something – getting material from our website or other websites for a start.”

Anderson is quick to add, however, that “small farming operations are not unique in this way. Safety is done differently [in small business settings] and not formalized.”

Examples which Anderson sees as requiring safety training include eye protection when grinding metal, use of ladders and movement around power take-offs. “Some will say ‘We’ve done it that way forever,’” he notes. “Complacency is our biggest killer.”

From July 30, 2006 until July 4, 2007, the Ministry of Labour issued 173 orders and two prosecutions under the act (see page 27). Wayne De L’Orme, the ministry’s industrial programs co-ordinator, says that these violations did not generally involve farming sectors with large numbers of foreign workers. However, putting these numbers into context is difficult because it’s the first year farming operations have been included. De L’Orme says, “I really don’t know if [173 orders] is a lot or a little, or if it’ll go up or down.”

De L’Orme says that the ministry is not looking to shut anyone down, but rather to ensure that workers are safe, and this may include surprise inspections of farms. “We are trying to figure out where best to put our resources,” he says.

Anderson notes that an improvement in a farm’s accident record can provide a rebate in Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) premiums, and a bad record can result in a surcharge. Over the last few years, premiums per $100 paid to each worker for poultry operations have increased from $2.13 in 2004 to $2.49 in 2008. Those for field crop, fruit and vegetable farming increased from $2.21 to $2.72, tobacco and mushroom farming from $3.29 to $4 and livestock farming from $6.45 to $6.78.

WSIB spokesperson Peter McGee says that the premiums in each category are based on accident frequency and severity for that type of work, and the overall amounts for all categories reflect the economy and WSIB’s financial position.

Anderson stresses, however, that while lower WSIB rates and the avoidance of fines and lawsuits do serve as legal and financial motivators for people to pay attention to safety, “Morals should be the real motivators.” BF

Health and safety violations on farms – July 30, 2006 to July 4, 2007

In all, 173 orders have been issued. They break down as follows:
•           Section 25. Duties of employers: 90
•           Section 9. Establishment of committee: 23
•           Section 8. Selection of a health and safety representative: 19
•           Section 26. Additional duties of employers: 6
•           Section 28. Duties of workers: 4
•           Stop orders issued (relating to any section of the act): 31

There have been two prosecutions during the course of the year. In the first, Trend-Floral Inc. of Niagara-On-The-Lake was charged with failing to take every precaution reasonable to protect a worker, and failing to provide information, supervision and instruction to a worker. This case is still in court.

In the second, Douglas Stockwell was fined $5,000 in August 2007 in connection with an accident on his tomato farm in Leamington in late September 2006. Stockwell pleaded guilty to failing to take every precaution reasonable to protect a worker, and to failing to take the reasonable precaution of developing and implementing a procedure for the cleaning, maintenance and operation of a tomato harvester.

One of Stockwell’s employees received a broken ankle when Stockwell moved the harvester without checking to see if all workers were in a safe position.BF