Canadian Occupational Safety

DECEMBER/JANUARY 2018 7 6 Canadian organizations sign global OHS commitment I n early September, more than 40 organizations from around the globe — including six from Canada — signed the Singapore Accord, a historic first step in the shift to a global standard in the field of health and safety, conceived by the International Network of Safety and Health Practitioner Organisations (INSHPO). The Singapore Accord represents a commitment to continued co-operation and collaboration in developing global standards of practice for improving the skills of occupational health and safety professionals. These standards, known as the Global Capabilities Framework, were conceptualized by INSHPO and aim to lead the way towards creating universally safer workplaces. "The global framework represents the most significant initiative ever produced on the international stage by the health and safety profession across multiple countries and jurisdictions," said INSHPO president Eldeen Pozniak, who is also director of Saskatoon-based Pozniak Safety Associates. "It displays for the first time a common commitment to define the critical roles which are taken up by practitioners and professionals to prevent workplace injury, illness and fatalities, in a language to be used commonly throughout the world." The Canadian signatories are the Board of Canadian Registered Safety Profes- sionals, the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering, the Manufacturing Safety Alliance of BC, Minerva Canada Safety Management Education, the University of Fredericton and the University of New Brunswick. Currently, differing standards of practice exist between jurisdictions globally on matters of OHS. Conditions such as these have resulted in appalling human suffering and severe economic burden. The objective of the Singapore Accord is to use evidenced-based, scientifically-proven concepts from a variety of profes- sionals to develop preventative measures and standards of practice. "Our goal is to ensure that a mother working in a factory in Bangalore will have a healthy and safe work environment just as a mother in Ottawa can expect. That she will return home to her family at the end of the day," said University of Fredericton president Don Roy, who was in Singapore to sign the accord. WSIB rolling out new rate framework By Sarah Dobson A fter lengthy consultations and negotiations, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) in Ontario is catching up to other provinces in rolling out a new rate framework that's set to debut in 2020. The impetus behind the change was to create a very transparent way of setting rates, and to make it easier and simpler for employers to understand, according to Sean Baird, vice-president of employer services at the WSIB. "Under the old model, there were different experi- ence programs, depending upon how big of an employer you were or what industry you were in. Under the new program, everybody follows the same model, so the rules are the same for everybody. The variables are the same for everyone." The rates under the new model will also be much more reflective of the risk individual employers and industries actually bring to the system, he said. The classification structure is also being simplified as the WSIB moves from the Standard Industrial Clas- sification (SIC) to one based on the North American Industry Classification Structure (NAICS) system. This new system is a welcomed change since employers are already using the NAICS code, said David Marchione, an occupational health and safety specialist at Fasken Martineau in Toronto. "For consistency purposes for employers, especially who operate across different provinces, that will help as far as their classification. It does allow for a more standardized type of system." Employers will be assigned to a predominant class, which is generally based on the class that represents their largest percentage of insurable earnings. WSIB's current 155 rate groups will drop down to 34 classes or subclasses. The "class projected premium rate" will represent the collective experience of all of the employers within that class or subclass. Classes will have a premium rate them- selves, so a hospital, for example, will have an industry rate and then an employer rate. If the number of claims and cost of claims for hospitals spike over a few years, the base rate for that class is going to go up, and if the experience rating goes down, the base rate should go down, Mar- chione said. The new rate framework also takes a prospective rate setting approach with "projected premium rates." In addition to annual rates, employers will be given the future direction their premium rate is going (up or down) and the changes will be capped so they are spread over time. Having projected rates in advance of the actual rate is meant to help mitigate future risk early on, said the WSIB. Risk bands are an element of the system, putting employers into a series of categories, Baird said. The central band is the midpoint for a particular indus- try, with employers moving up or down the bands depending on their claims experience. "We built some stability measures into the model," said Baird. "One area of concern we've had in the past from employers is it's not always easy to predict when they're going to get a rebate or a surcharge, or how much that's going to be. Whereas under the new model, we're limiting the amount that an employer's rate can move year over year — they're only allowed to move up to three risk bands per year. So I think it helps in providing a bit of stability to employers and predictability about where their rates are going to be in the coming years." Currently, the WSIB uses three experience rating programs: the new experimental experience rating program (NEER), the merit adjusted pre- mium (MAP) program for smaller employers and the CAD-7 (council amendment to draft number 7) for construction employers. With the new chan- ges, all three programs will disappear, which is going to be hard for many employers to wrap their heads around, said Anna Aceto-Guerin, president and owner of Clear Path Employer Services in Cambridge, Ont. "If you've finally figured out NEER, it's now going to go, which is unfortunate for a lot of employers." Employers will need to understand the triggers under the new system, and return to work is a big one, she said. "The less time off someone has, so that reduced severity of accidents, is going to be really important for employers. That length of time someone's off, that's really what (the WSIB is) focusing on with this new system." As part of the changes, the experience rating window used to set premium rates will be six years, instead of three or four. "We wanted it to be long enough that it showed a sustained improvement over time," said Baird. "You don't want an employer to have one good year, one bad year and have that dramatically reflect their rate going forward. If an employer is outperforming their peers, we want them to show us that that is sustained and they can maintain that over the long-term." In 2018, the WSIB will be communicating projected rates for every individual employer, said Baird. And in 2019, the WSIB will convey the actual rates for imple- mentation purposes in anticipation of the launch on Jan. 1, 2020. π SHIPPING SUPPLY SPECIALISTS COMPLETE CATALOG 1-800-295-5510 ORDER BY 6 PM FOR SAME DAY SHIPPING OVER 2,000 SAFETY PRODUCTS IN STOCK

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