Employers and their employees across Alberta will be seeing changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OH&S).
“What they’re doing is updating our OH&S legislation. They creating a new set of regulations, which are meant to more or less, bring basic rights back to workers,” explained Bonnyville-Cold Lake MLA Scott Cyr.
To be more specific, the changes mean employees will have the right to refuse dangerous work, the right to know about all of the hazards of the work site, and the right to participate in creating health and safety discussion groups and committees.
As of June 1, the new OH&S Act will define harassment and violence in all its forms, including sexual and domestic, require workers to refrain from causing or participating in harassment and violence, have an appeal process for workers disciplined for bringing harassment and violence issues forward, and entails a worker health and safety representative for work sites with five to 19 employees, among others.
Although Cyr believes the province has the best intentions when it comes to these changes, “the government is looking to fix something that wasn’t broken.”
Executive director of the Bonnyville and District Chamber of Commerce Tanya Oliver said these amendments could have major impacts on local business owners.
“Overall, there are a lot of substantial changes throughout the whole act. Our concern is the time it’s going to take for employers to update themselves on the changes they have to comply with.”
Their major concern is the financial burden it could have on local businesses, whether that comes in the form of hiring additional staff in order to comply with safety regulations, create a safety committee, or take part in specific training courses.
“They probably should have considered the fact that our small businesses are already bogged down by so many new policies and costs that they have to comply with, and the fact that our economy is still recovering from the recession. Small businesses just don’t have the resources necessary to comply,” Oliver expressed.
As president of the Cold Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, and local business owner, Ben Fadeyiw is intrigued by the adjustments to the OH&S Act.
“It’s pretty exciting to see something on paper as far as an employee not having to worry about doing the job unsafe. That’s my biggest take of this. If they see something unsafe, they don’t have to worry about doing the job and worry about getting fired or whatever the case may be,” he said. “From what I have read into, we’re one of the only provinces who is lacking in these areas.”
Cyr said by making these additions, “it appears as though the minister is insinuating that we didn’t have protections in place for people who were harassing or being violent against fellow workers. This is categorically untrue.”
These amendments require all employers and supervisors to take reasonable steps to protect their employees from harassment.
“I would argue that every employer and supervisor is out there to protect their workers and themselves,” expressed Cyr. “More or less, they’re going in and putting in some significant amounts of red tape to help prevent some potential concerns that I would say have already been dealt with. People are very happy with the direction, does that mean we can always improve? Absolutely. Nobody wants to see unhealthy work spaces or harassment happening.”
The province is accepting written submissions in regards to the OH&S Act until April 9, but regardless of whether a business owner will put pen to paper, local chambers and the MLA recommend taking a moment to read over the changes.
“This is a regulation consultation, and they’re asking for input before April 9. I encourage people to read over what it is and put their thoughts in,” Cyr said.
