Council Looks For More Info On Westray Resolution
Prince George, B.C. – Prince George City Council has side stepped signing on to support a resolution from the United Steelworkers .
The Steelworkers have launched a campaign called "Stop the Killing, and Enforce the Law" the law in question is the Westray Act. The Steelworkers were calling on Council to support the campaign.
The Act was passed in 2004, and was intended to hold corporate executives, directors and managers criminally responsible for workplace deaths. It was passed 12 years after the Westray Mine disaster in Nova Scotia which claimed the lives of 26 miners.
The Steelworkers say that since the Westray Act was brought into law, 10,000 Canadians have died on the job, and there has not been one conviction.While there was an attempt in B.C. the charges were stayed because there was no likelihood of conviction.
The resolution presented by the Steelworkers for Council endorsement reads:
Whereas it has been more than two decades since the Westray mine disaster in Nova Scotia and a decade since amendments were made to the Criminal Code of Canada to hold corporations, their directors and executives criminally accountable for the health and safety of workers: and
Whereas police and prosecutors are not utilizing the Westray amendments, and not investigating workplace fatalities through the lens of criminal accountability; and
Whereas more than 1,000 workers a year are killed at work
Therefore be it resolved that this Council support a campaign to urge our federal/provincial/territorial government to ensure that:
- Crown attorneys are educated, trained and directed to apply the Westray amendments;
- Dedicated prosecutors are given the responsibility for health and safety fatalities
- Police are educated, trained and directed to apply the Westray amendments
- There is greater coordination among regulators, police and Crown attorneys so that health and safety regulators are trained to reach out to police when there is a possibility that Westray amendment charges are warranted.
Instead of jumping on board and supporting the resolution, Council has sent the matter to the Resolutions Committee which will come back to Council with a recommendation.
Other B.C. cities which have already added their voices to the resolution are Nanaimo, Burnaby, Lake Cowichan, New Westminster, Port Alberni and Mission.
Comments
WE THE grunts, the man with the boots on are sick and tired of profitable companies taking advantage of the working man getting no support from govt enforcing a law and holding accountable these corporations whom deem safety only a word in the dictionary. WHEN is enough enough, 20, 30 thousand dead man, women, child? SAFETY might start with an S but begins with you.
It really makes me wonder why the city council balked at supporting a motion to uphold the law?? Perhaps the news report is lacking in detail, but this makes it look like the city of Prince George isn’t supportive of safe working conditions?
ice, if your tired of working for someone else, why not go start your own business.
WOW!! They could not make a decision to support and promote “The Law”!
The same no cost resolution that has been supported by other cities this council sends to a Committee but yet when it comes to a 50 million dollar decision on PAC they will not send that question to the tax payer to decide.
PG city council are a bunch of lame ducks! Time to ditch this useless gang. Get out and vote!!!
Order of importance.
1. Production.
2. Profit.
3. safety.
No..it’s
PROFIT
Production
safety
Rio tinto makes more money selling the cheap electricity back to the grid then making aluminum. We get hosed every second on the power deal we made with them.
This is a no brainer! The preservation of life trumps everything, including money and profits.
That they would have a committee study this before a decision is made to support the law is baffling!
maybe I will come work along side you broken spoke
No, it’s:
PROFIT
PROFIT
PROFIT
Uh . . . what was the question again?
WCB was formed by the government to provide the employers insurance from being sued on a personal level.
It is the responsibility of employers to provide a safe work conditions. It is the responsibility of employees to refuse unsafe work conditions. These are the basics of WCB.
Over the years, new approaches have been made to improve the conditions, however the principles remain the same. Government needs large industries to operate so resources can be extracted and exported, it can not happen with out instruments like Worksafe BC.
This does not exclude bad employers who acts negligently and refuse orders from Worksafe BC, and extort workers into unsafe practices.
What happens when an employee is told, written up and suspended from work on failing to work safely. Yet unions protect them, and this worker causes an accident which claims lives. Is it the employers fault or the individuals fault, or should the union take blame for not allowing this unsafe worker from being fired before hand.
He spoke,
Please provide backup to incidents where unions have protected unsafe workers that have eventually caused incidents that have claimed lives.
I know personally where the IWA,the union headed by a current city councillor, fought tooth and nail to have a millwright keep his position as a tradesman despite some serious injuries and near misses.
Unfortunately the man died in an industrial accident before the company got him into a job where he could do less harm to himself or others. His file was full of safety infractions, lock out violations that included suspensions and records of coaching by management to try to help the guy. The union fought it because he would have lost some money going back to a production job.Will not mention names but was on the front page of the paper.
There are also numerous cases where the unions have fought to have terminations overturned for repeated lock out violations, each and every one could have potential fatal results.
So what happens when an entire worksite blows-up? Not once, but twice!! Yeah, must be the workers or unions fault. Couldnt be the owners of the worksites fault, or the WorkSafe BS safety inspectors not enforcing safe work conditions now could it?
Yup, lets point our fingers of blame at the dead victims and blast survivors and say its their fault!!! Yeah we get it! *cynical sarcasm off*
Everyone has the right to refuse unsafe work and working conditions! So in the end it is the workers fault for not standing up for their rights. Before putting the blame on anyone or organization ask yourself what you could do to make it right the do it!
@peeps
dm asked for examples of where the union has protected unsafe workers and I provided examples one from personal experience and others easily confirmed by going through arbitration rulings. The union is far from an innocent bystander.
Every worker has the right to refuse work in unsafe conditions and obviously none of them considered it to be that bad, hindsight is always 20/20.
As for it being a no brainer, if anyone knows how to get by with no grey matter that would be you peeps. You admitted under your previous u/n that you had never been in a sawmill yet even went as far as posting clean up posters from decades ago. The mills of today are hospital operating rooms when compared with those from even 10 years ago. When you have no knowledge on a subject best keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt; props to Twain.
Is it cool under the bridge today?
Should read “then do it”. Sure wished there was an edit feature.
How many people bitched to themselves about the sawdust but did nothing about it? Look after yourself do not rely on someone else!
I sure hope there are a lot of new faces running for council this fall.
“Every worker has the right to refuse work in unsafe conditions and obviously none of them considered it to be that bad, hindsight is always 20/20.”
Sight should of been pretty clear after Babine blew up!
Natural gas was the suspected cause for quite some time when Babine exploded and many workers said they had smelled and reported it but nothing was done about it.
When you worked at Rustad NoWay did you disappear faster than Harry Houdini when the mill broke down or did you do what was expected of you and clean up until repairs were completed? Think the mindset is any different today?
Here is an article from the Working Forest Newspaper, this article is a reprint from an April 16, 2014 Globe and Mail article titled; Investigation finds sawmill owners invested in production, not safety.
http://workingforest.com/investigation-finds-sawmill-owners-invested-production-not-safety/
Same old, same old, as others here have already correctly commented; Production (Profits) over Safety every time!!! It seems the facts and the “truth”are well laid out here and speak for themselves, but go ahead and rant on anyway etwitt, even though the results of the official investigation says an owner emphasis on production over safety was a main contributing factor in the Lakeland Mill explosion.
Too bad all those worker testimonies could not be used in court because of the incompetence of WorkSafe BC investigators. Those survivor testimonies would undoubtedly state the same thing; at Lakeland Mill production came first, and safety came second IMHO of course!
people #1 -From the article
“The mills own safety committee overlooked the problems, the investigation found.”
These committees have minimum of 50% hourly union employees as members in most sawmills so they too must share some of the blame as they were chosen by all members of the union to look out for their best interests if it is simply a matter of looking for somewhere to pin the blame then they too have some skin in the game.
Before these explosions happened what went on inside the waste conveyor systems was never looked at as long as the waste got to where it was going without spilling out onto the floor. Since then any build up on beams or structural elements inside the conveyors is being addressed and rightfully so.
Any new equipment by design has newer and better safety design built right in to better contain dust and help prevent it from becoming airborne.
Its easy to say the worker always has a right to refuse work. Is that a way to let the employers off the hook?
A country needs laws and regulators to protect the rights of workers. These laws need to be enforced and the regulators need to be looking out for the workers… or the right to refuse work nonsense substitutes for real actual safe work places.
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