Canadian Occupational Safety

August/September 2015 21 titans disciplinary hearings and dismissals for refusing to wear head protection and others were unable to follow their chosen professions because of the insistence of the need to wear head protection, according to the U.K.'s Health and Safety Executive. This legislative change is some- thing Stephen Garvey, the leader of the Democratic Advancement Party of Canada, would like to see imple- mented in this country. "We support safety but at the same time we support freedom of religious beliefs and freedom of expression. I don't think it's right for a bureaucrat or a politician to tell these people to go against their religion and their culture," says Garvey, who is based in Calgary. "Safety is important but who is a secular person, for example, to say it's more important than cultural and religious belief? By not allowing them to wear it, we're helping to erode their culture and identity." Singh would also like to see this leg- islation brought to Canada. Without the inclusion of a guideline on Sikh religion in the legislation, the safety aspects override the Sikh viewpoint, he says. The U.K. ammendment also extends limited liability provisions of the exemption to employers. This means if something happens to a Sikh who chose to wear his turban rather than hard hat, the employer cannot be liable. Another consideration to imple- menting this legislation in Canada is that turban-wearing Sikhs would need to take care of their own health-care costs related to any injuries from wear- ing a turban rather than a hard hat, says Garvey. And these stipulations would be well received by the Sikh commu- nity, says Singh. Ultimately, the legislation needs to be designed so the Sikh has free choice. "Sikhs themselves (need to) decide what risks they are willing to take on. If it's extremely high risk, I still think we need to come back to the Sikh person and let them decide, if we want to be consistent — but make it perfectly clear the risk," says Garvey. RESPIRATORS VS. BEARDS In July 2003, Devinder Wadhwa was hired as an electrician on an expan- sion project north of Fort McMurray, Alta., run by Syncrude. On his fi rst day of orientation, Wadhwa was asked to shave because there was a clean-shaven policy in effect for the work area. As a Sikh man, it is against Wadhwa's reli- gion to shave his beard, but when he told this to his supervisor, the supervi- sor said "No shave, no job." Wadhwa asked for accommodation and offered in writing to buy himself a issued a report in September 2014 that concluded there was no suitable respi- ratory protection available in North America. While powered air-purifying respirators (PAPR) are available for workers with beards, which seal at the neck and do not require fi t testing, these respirators cannot be used in oxy- gen-defi cient atmospheres or where contaminants in the atmosphere are at or greater than the IDLH values. The group did, however, fi nd one piece of equipment it was quite excited about: Cam Lock's FAST-cowl respira- tor. The FAST-cowl is currently used the Middle East and Central Asia. Shell is using it in its operations in Qatar. It is quick donning, provides auto- matic mask tensioning and is fi re resistant and H2S resistant, according to the manufacturer. "You pull it out of the escape bag, a head harness automatically opens up the cowl, you put the cowl over the head, you then offer the face mask por- tion up to the face. Once it detects the seal, the head harness contracts and it can be easily and reliably donned in fi ve to 10 seconds max," says Bob Acey, busi- ness director for Cam Lock in the U.K. It also does not require a fi t test. On behalf of the industrial study group sponsored by the OHS Division of the Alberta government, Proquares conducted a simulated workplace pro- tection factor (SWPF) test to see just how well the FAST-cowl 20 minute emergency escape breathing apparatus (EEBA) worked with bearded workers. Eighty-fi ve test subjects were involved, including women and clean-shaven men, men with three days' facial hair growth and those with full beards. Twenty males with full beards partici- pated, including eight Sikhs and eight Muslims. The longest beard was 295 mil- limetres long. The subjects were required to complete a variety of exercises includ- ing climbing stairs, descending a ramp and crawling on hands and knees in a high particulate area. The SWPF study concluded that regardless of facial hair, there was no impact on nominal duration of the FAST-cowl as all 85 test subjects recorded wearing durations of between 22 and 25 minutes. The SWPF was 493,000 for full beards. This compares to the assigned protection factor (APF) of 2,000 for full face mask, tight-fi tting, air-supplied respirators as per the European EN529 standard. "This evidence clearly endorses the safety of all workers to be permitted to enter and work in high toxic 'red zone' operational areas," says John Swat- ton, senior vice-president of Inspired Technologies International, the global commercial corporation for Cam Lock products and services. The eight Sikhs in the study wore small turbans during the testing. Sikhs have four sizes of turbans and they wore the smallest of the four, often used for sports. They were able to don the FAST-cowl without dif- fi culty in these small sized turbans, y titans Survivair Puma self-contained breath- ing apparatus (SCBA) respirator. While this hood-style respirator is certifi ed by NIOSH for entry into immediately dangerous to life or health (IDLH) environments, it cannot be used in the presence of high heat or direct fl ame and it does not have a fl ash fi re protec- tion rating. Wadhwa was told he could not be accommodated and was terminated. He fi led a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Com- mission (now called the Alberta Human Rights Commission) on the grounds that he was discriminated against on the basis of religion. The situation was eventually resolved between all parties behind closed doors. The situation prompted Syncrude and partners within the industry to look at what respiratory protection was avail- able for workers with beards in the oil and gas industry. Specifi cally, the group set out to determine whether there were any available devices to be used for pro- tection in IDLH work environments and where fl ash fi re is a risk. After months of research, the group health and safety live in harmony new products could help human rights, Legislative changes,

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