WCB Bows to Corporate Lobby - Erodes Late-Night Violence Safety Regulations

WorkSafe BC "more concerned with the bottom line for business than it is with providing workers with greater protections."

WCB bowed to pressure

Dear Editor,

Last year the Workers Compensation Board (WCB) implemented important new regulations to protect workers from violence when working alone in late-night retail stores and gas stations.

The regulations were the strongest in North America and included provisions for physical barriers or the requirement that two people work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Donna Freeman from the WCB failed to mention [Barriers blocked weapon-wielding thug, Mar. 20, Langley Advance] that these requirements have been put on hold as a result of the quiet lobbying efforts of some companies.

The WCB bowed to those pressures and formed an Industry Committee to design barriers which will be piloted in several locations. There are no worker representatives on the committee.

Luckily for the workers, the Langley station is the site of a piloted barrier, and they would have been protected, if the armed man had managed to get inside.

The WCB is further watering down the regulation by changing late-night retail hours from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m., in order to satisfy the private liquor store owners.

The WCB's decision to erode these regulations shows that it is more concerned with the bottom line for business than it is with providing workers with greater protections.

Sheila Moir, B.C. Federation of Labour