Canadian Occupational Safety

6 Canadian Occupational Safety | www.cos-mag.com WORKPLACE NEWS Transportation Safety Board urges update of rail employee training By Allison Lampert (Reuters) T he Transportation Safety Board (TSB) is urging the regulator to update rules for training railway employees after an investigation into the 2016 case of a Toronto runaway train found employees lacked the know-how to stop it. "This investigation identified gaps between what is mandated by the regulations and what is required for some employees to do the job safely," said TSB board member Faye Ackermans. "Transport Canada has been promising a regulatory update for years, as far back as 2003. Now is the time for action." The TSB's recommendation to Transport Canada followed efforts between 2003 and 2009 that did not result in new rules for training because the 1987 regulations were never rescinded, Ackermans said. Transport Canada spokeswoman Annie Joannette said that the regulator was "looking at ways to strengthen the railway employee qualification and training regime to reflect changes in an evolving railway industry." Transport Canada will respond to the TSB, as required, within 90 days. Incidents of uncontrolled train movements in Canada have risen 10 per cent, on average, over the last five years, since the 2013 explosion of a runaway train carrying crude that killed 47 people in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Que. While the majority of incidents involving uncontrolled trains take place in rail yards, they are a concern for the TSB. "They are low-frequency, but high-risk events," said Rob Johnston, manager, railway investigations at the TSB. In the 2016 incident, two conductors were trying to move a 9,000-ton train with 74 freight cars from a switching yard to an industrial yard. The train ran uncontrolled for about 4.8 kilometres and reached almost 48 kilometres per hour before stopping on its own without causing injuries or releasing dangerous cargo. Many employers still concerned about cannabis legalization, finds survey By Marcel Vander Wier N ow that Canadians have an official date — Oct. 17 — when they will be able to legally purchase and consume recreational marijuana, employers should be preparing for the potential impact on issues such as occupational health and safety, pro- ductivity and attendance management. But a strong majority (85 per cent) remains con- cerned about the implications for the workplace, according to the Conference Board of Canada report Blazing the Trail: What the Legalization of Cannabis Means for Canadian Employers. Twenty-five per cent are very concerned, 27 per cent are concerned and 33 per cent are slightly concerned, found the survey of 198 employers. The top five concerns for employers include workplace safety (57 per cent) — especially in safety- sensitive roles — impairment or intoxication at work (39 per cent), increased usage of cannabis inside and outside work (21 per cent), testing (20 per cent), accommodation and disclosure, and cost (both 15 per cent), said the report. "Where most organizations are worried right now is sort of (if) the social, casual person who hasn't been participating or partaking may start in this new realm," said Bryan Benjamin, vice-president of leadership and human resources research at the Conference Board of Canada in Ottawa. "Employers are just recognizing that they've got to be comfortable not actually having all the answers going into this." The rapid shift in cannabis legalization has occurred absent of an appropriate educational journey for Canadians, according to Reva Seth, CEO of Business of Cannabis in Toronto. "We're going from employers seeing this as a drug to 'Maybe it's a medicine, maybe it's a recreational drug,'" she said. "It's a giant void right now… It's a giant shift that people aren't fully prepared for — not employers and not employees. It's going to take a lot of iterations before we get there… (and) there's a lot for industry to do in terms of educating employers." Modern cannabis is different from most people's understanding in terms of products, strains and ingestion methods, she said. "This is all new for most Canadians," said Seth. "Most Canadians are not actually cannabis users." Employers should become educated on cannabis, starting with medical cannabis and concluding with how the organization treats it going forward, she said. A thorough risk assessment of individual organi- zations is a recommended action — understanding current policy and identifying potential exposure or loopholes, said Benjamin. Once educated, managers and employees must be brought up to speed through group sessions or pamphlet materials. "As much broad education as companies can pro- vide to their employees, the better service they are doing just to make them better-equipped overall," he said. "It will help them at work, but also outside of work." It's important to remember many organizations are already dealing with recreational cannabis users — just not officially, said Benjamin, adding employers should ensure they have an appropriate alcohol and drug policy in place. "There is a lot of concern around policy: 'Do we have the right policies in place? If we don't, do we have enough time to build new policies? If we build new policies and then find out new things post-Oct. 17, can we revise them again?'" The University of Toronto recently enacted a Fit- ness for Work guideline as part of its commitment to providing a safe workplace, updating a long-standing expectation that employees arrive at work sober and remain that way throughout the workday. "While the guideline is new, it mostly serves to reaffirm employee responsibilities surrounding impairment in the workplace," said Kelly Hannah-Moffat, the university's vice-president of HR and equity. But fitness-for-work policies that include random- ized drug testing conflict with privacy rights in terms of Canadian law, said Benjamin. "In Canada, for the vast majority of organizations, that's just not something that they can't even con- sider right now." While medicinal marijuana usage may require accommodation by employers, the approach towards recreational marijuana will be specific to individual employers, said Lori Casselman, chief health advisor at League, a digital health insurance provider in Toronto. "Zero tolerance would typically apply as it relates to any type of substance abuse in a workplace that could impair judgment or ability to perform." This article originally appeared in Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business.

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