Canadian Occupational Safety

20 Canadian Occupational Safety | www.cos-mag.com A labourer was digging a sewer line at a residential infill pro- ject in Edmonton in 2015 when a wall of the trench collapsed, burying him under more than 1 metre of clay and dirt. After many hours, firefighters found the worker's body. He had been crushed to death. The 55 year old had been hired through a temporary labour agency. Over the last two decades, the number of temporary and precarious workers has risen drastically. Many of these workers find employment through temporar y staffing agen- cies. But while temp agencies once provided mostly short-term office or clerical workers, they now send a huge number of workers to industrial work sites. Where work is dangerous, employers have found that hiring workers through temp agencies not only cuts costs — including train- ing costs — but also limits liability when incidents occur. As a result, temp agency workers are far more likely to be injured on the job than permanent workers. Besides imple- menting stricter legal requirements on both agencies and client compan- ies, it may be difficult to find ways to increase safety for temp employment agency workers. It is difficult to know exactly how many temp agency workers there are because Statistics Canada does not iso- late numbers of temp agency workers — it combines all temporary workers. In 2012, of the 15 million employed workers in Canada, more than 13 per cent (about 1.9 million) were classified as having temporary employment. This represents a 12 per cent rise from 2009 figures and outpaces growth in perma- nent employment by almost double for the same period, according to a report co-authored by Ellen MacEachen, asso- ciate professor with the University of Waterloo's School of Public Health and Health Systems in Ontario. Moreover, the number of temp agencies has risen dramatically in the last decade (by 20 per cent in Ontario, for example). At the same time, the number is rising and the agencies have been shifting away from hiring out pri- marily clerical workers to hiring out staff for non-clerical jobs, such as indus- trial, manufacturing, construction and driving. Temp workers often have little or no experience for these jobs. Research done in many countries has shown temp agency workers also have higher accident rates, MacEachen says. Employers have financial incen- tives not only to hire temp workers but also to assign them the more danger- ous work being done at the work site. One of the main reasons companies hire temp agency workers is that they face lower penalties when these work- ers are injured on the job, compared to their permanent workers, although provincial legislation can vary. Since incidents involving temp agency workers do not show up on the record of the client company, even if it has a high rate of accidents, the company will evade Ministry of Labour (MOL) inspections, MacEachen says. "Part of what drives the MOL's inspection strategy is they look at companies that have a high rate of injuries, like workers' comp injuries. But a company that has a lot of tem- porary workers doing high-risk work will not have any record of a high rate of injuries. So even though it's not a safe workplace, there won't be any inspectors assigned to go there because they won't be showing up as priority workplaces to go to," she says. But in Ontario, for example, under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the client can be held responsible in the case of critical injuries, such as a broken leg, and fatalities. "If there has been a critical injury to or death of a temp worker and the MOL comes in and they find there has been a breach of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, they would charge the company where the work is taking place, not the temp agency, even though it's a temporary agency employee," says Geoff Ryans, partner at Filion Wakely Thorup Angeletti in Toronto. If convicted, the client com- pany could receive a fine, he adds. Except in the event of a serious injury or fatality, workers' compensation boards generally ascribe the incident and accident costs to the temp agency, as the worker's direct employer, rather than the employer who owns the work site where the incident occurred. This logic pertains to premiums, too. "In the normal course, the insur- ance premiums that go up are the temp agency's insurance premiums even if the workplace injur y has taken place on the client employer's site," Ryans says. PLENTY OF RISKS A lack of safety training is a serious concern for temporary workers as most temp agencies provide only generic, basic training before sending workers out to a site. "Workers would tell us they would watch a video on how to lift a box and they pass their WHMIS test. But in terms of the practical conditions, they come into workplaces and they don't know the lay of the land. Newness is a hazard in itself," says MacEachen. "There is a lot of research saying that being new on the job is associated with higher accidents. That's because you're fumbling around and you don't know what to do next." Her research, which involved inter- viewing owners and managers of temp agencies, as well as workers, showed why agency workers have higher accident rates. In addition to receiv- ing minimal training, they are always outsiders at work and don't benefit from the knowledge and support that comes from other workers' society. "Workers will often share tips and tricks with each other, but they may not share tips and tricks with temp workers either because they don't want the temp workers there or because they don't develop a social relationship with these people who are just going in and out of their workplace," says MacEachen. When a worker joins a company as a new, permanent employee, she explains, they have the advantage of people around them who, knowing they will be working with this new person for some time to come, will take the new person under their wing and perhaps have a buddy system. But workers coming in for a week or two remain isolated and are left to figure things out for themselves. Without a steady income, temp agency workers are less likely to be concerned with safety. "I saw was a lot of anxiety about that next dollar coming in and being able to keep the job. So temp workers talk about trying to work faster and harder to make sure they will be asked back the next day," says MacEachen. "Pic- ture someone. They're new on the job. They don't really know the techniques and strategies; they don't know where things are; they don't really have any buddies working beside them and they're trying to work harder and faster to keep that job. And all of that is a By Linda Johnson AVOID the TEMPTATION Workers hired through temporary staffing agencies are less educated on workplace safety, more afraid to speak up

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