Canadian Injured Workers Society - Workers compensation articles. WCB.

SCOTT HARRIS / [email protected]

The number of workplace fatalities in the province climbed 24 per cent in 2007, making it the deadliest year for Alberta workers since 1982.

The 154 workplace deaths accepted by the Workers Compensation Board last year, up from 124 in 2006, occurred at the same time as the lost-time claim rate, which the province uses to measure workplace injuries, continued the downward trend it has followed since 2000, dropping 6.7 per cent compared to 2006.

It’s a mix of good and bad news that has Barrie Harrison, a spokesperson with Alberta Employment and Immigration, feeling frustrated with what he’s seeing.

“To know that our fatality rate has gone up from the year prior is disheartening for sure,” he admits. “The fact is that the number of injuries continues to go down in this province and that’s going to be part of longer-term trend, but still, the number of fatalities of 154 is just way too many and we need to continue to step up our efforts to make our workplaces safer.”

Of the 154 fatalities recorded, 47 were the result of workplace incidents, 44 were motor vehicle accidents and 63 were the result of deaths from occupational disease.

Harrison says he is all to familiar with the tragic circumstances surrounding the workplace deaths.

“You know, I carry what we call the ‘duty phone’ that rings every time there’s a workplace fatality and when I hear about the circumstances surrounding these fatalities you give your head a shake. And you know that every one of these fatalities is absolutely preventable,” he says.

“We’re not going to sit here as a government and look through rose-coloured glasses and suggest that things are good if they’re not and right now we’re not happy with these numbers.”

Harrison says part of the explanation for the increase in fatalities is that there are more workers in the province, but he admits that even when the growth in the workforce is factored in there hasn’t been any significant change in the fatality rate for more than a decade.

Kevin Flaherty, executive director of the Alberta Worker’s Health Centre, a not-for-profit society that focusses on workplace health and safety, says that means that Alberta workplaces just aren’t getting safer.

“We should be able to measure success in [reducing fatalities] and it’s not success if we’re looking at a flat line for the fatality rate. We should not be happy with the fact that we have not improved the health and safety of Alberta’s workplaces over the last 15 to 20 years.”

Unlike Employment Minister Hector Goudreau, who was quoted last week as saying “we really don’t know” why fatalities are going up while the lost-time claim rate is going down, Flaherty says there’s a simple explanation for the seeming contradiction.

“The basic reason is that the lost time claim rate is artificially contrived. For example, in order to have a claim and to be recognized as a claim, someone has to file that claim,” he explains. “And for the past 15 years the WCB has, in collaboration with the province, set up a series of mechanisms that discourage people from filing claims. So there’s a whole variety of those, but one of those is the whole return-to-work piece.

People if they file a WCB claim now have a lot of chance that they’ll just be put back to work on modified duties, so a lot of times they don’t even bother filing a claim.

“Another piece is what a lot of workers call ‘scared safe,’ the threat of drug testing, whether you’re guilty or not, whether you’re a drug user or not—because companies are allowed to test anybody who might be associated with a health and safety incident. So you might be one of 10 workers working in an area where a minor accident happens and someone gets a minor injury. Well, if everyone in that room is going to get drug tested, even if you’re totally innocent why would you say anything?”

Harrison concedes that the lost-time claim rate has been criticized in the past, which is why the province has introduced a new measure—the disabling injury claim rate, which includes both injuries requiring time off work and injuries that allowed the worker to perform modified duties without missing work—to more accurately illustrate what is happening in Alberta workplaces.

“There was a time when these types of injuries weren’t counted, but we believe they should be counted, even if [the worker] didn’t lose any time. So, the nice thing about these statistics is that even though they are counted—and certainly there is more modified work than ever going on and as you see they did go up by 2.7 per cent last year—at least the overall disabling claim continued to go down and that’s a good sign.”

But Flaherty argues that even with the new measures, too much emphasis is put on the lost-time claim rate.

“I give them credit, they finally stopped using the lost-time claim rate by itself, but for the most part they still use it as the main measurement and they still reward companies for driving that down. And you can drive that down by just having people not file claims, period. Counting the bodies on a long term basis is a better indication of the health and safety of workplaces than the lost-time claim rate, for sure.

“But on the other hand it’s that same old thing: what are we counting? We’re only counting the people as defined by Workers Comp, so it’s underestimated. Just workplace-related cancers alone would push fatalities over 500 a year in Alberta. So there needs to be a much better, more serious look at all those statistics.”

Harrison says that the government continues to work on improving workplace safety. He points to three new e-learning courses that are being launched, along with plans to step up government education and awareness programs, especially those aimed at young workers.

“Probably bigger than all that is our continued work with the safety associations and with labour groups and with industry because it’s not just government’s responsibility to make our workplaces safer,” he says. “Our biggest priority is to make the laws and to make sure that those laws are being followed, and that’s why we have our officers who do conduct over 13 000 inspections annually.”

He also points to the strong messages that are being sent to employers who ignore health and safety through increased fines for violations. In the first three months of 2008, fines against seven companies totalling over $1.9 million have already surpassed the $1.72 million in fines handed out in all of 2007.

But Flaherty says there needs to be “much more sustained effort and resources” if the province truly wants to improve workplace health and safety.

“The unannounced spot inspections and enforcement need to be massively increased. There has to be a real threat in the workplace that someone is going to actually pop in the door and see how poor the health and safety is. And I’m not just talking about are the workers wearing their hearing protection, it’s more like how is the work structured, how safe are the work processes?”

Flaherty argues that any initiatives are bound to fail unless they involve those most impacted by poor workplace health and safety.

“There’s not one way workplaces are going to be made safer, there’s a whole bunch of ways, including giving workers more rights on the job.

Alberta still doesn’t have joint occupational health and safety committee legislation. In Alberta, workers are still not a legislated, active part of health and safety. The attitude still tends to be, ‘We’ll tell you what’s good for you and how to do the job safely and you just go and do it.’ So you’re cutting out the key players in the whole health and safety equation. All workers are told is to work safe but they have very few channels to actually be involved in actually making the workplaces safer.”

Lost Time Claim Rate Artificially Contrived

Alberta workplaces claimed 154 lives in 2007, up 24 per cent