Canadian Occupational Safety (COS) magazine is the premier workplace health and safety publication in Canada. We cover a wide range of topics ranging from office to heavy industry, and from general safety management to specific workplace hazards.
Issue link: https://digital.thesafetymag.com/i/987410
JUNE/JULY 2018 21 recipe for higher risk." In Alberta, the recession had a big impact on the economy, especially on oil-related industries, and left many people desperate for work, says Jared Matsunaga-Turnbull, executive director of the Alberta Workers' Health Centre in Edmonton. Urban centres saw a rise in the number of temp agencies. "There's more of a market there. People who go to temp agencies tend to be those who are more vulnerable in society, people who are already dealing with systemic oppression, racism, sexism." Temp agency workers are at a dis- advantage also in that they exist outside the basis of many organ- izations' safety system, the internal responsibility system (IRS), Matsu- naga-Turnbull says. In that system, for occupational health and safety com- pliance to happen and workplaces to become safer, employers must know their responsibilities and work with their workers, who also have respon- sibilities and rights. Together, they solve safety problems internally. "But that system assumes that all parties involved have equal power and knowledge, that an employer will know the law, will be covered by the law and will do everything possible to make the workplace safe. It also assumes the worker has the knowledge and the rights and the power to act on these rights," he says. "That's problematic because if workers are accessing a temp agency, they're already in a precarious state and needing this job. Are they likely to complain about a health and safety issue? That is the mechanism that a worker is expected to trigger in the internal responsibility system that is supposed to protect them." The structure of temp agency work also makes temp agency workers more vulnerable to occupational illnesses, Matsunaga-Turnbull says. Working at many jobs for short periods of time puts these workers beyond legal exposure limits to hazards, from noise to carcinogens. An allowable limit applies only to a single work- place. When many sites are involved, it is difficult to monitor the limits. "If you're working for a particular employer and they're following the law, you do your manageable expos- ure limit. Then you go to your next job and it starts from zero again. So, in an eight-hour period, you could be exposed to toxic levels of something," he says. "The way your work is struc- tured is exposing you to multiple sites, and together that means you're going to get sick." IMPROVEMENTS COMING Some provinces are taking steps to increase safety for temp workers. In Alberta, new legislation that came into effect on June 1 requires temp agencies to: • ensure the worker is suited to the place of work • ensure the worker has, or will be provided by the client employer with, appropriate personal protec- tive equipment • ensure the employer can keep the worker safe. In April, the Ontario Ministry of Labour announced it intended to bring into force a section of Bill 18, the Stronger Workplaces for a Stronger Economy Act, 2014, that will require the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to attribute injuries and inci- dent costs to the client company rather than the temp agency. So client com- panies in Ontario may soon have to assume more liability for temp work- ers. But MacEachen says it is difficult to know how much it will actually change things. Once client employ- ers have to accept responsibility for safety incidents, she says, they will start contesting them. While it would be difficult to contest an injury such as a broken leg, there are many other injuries whose cause would be difficult to prove, especially for temp workers who are placed with an employer for short periods of time. "Lots of injuries are musculoskeletal claims and soft tissue injuries, back pain, that kind of thing. It will become very difficult for the workers to prove that the origin of the problem was in this workplace and not in the one where they worked last week," she says. "That's precisely what workers have faced with temp agencies anyway because when temp agencies are the employer of record, that's what they say to the workers, too. That's the chal- lenge when you're working workplace to workplace." Looking at more general ways to improve their safety on the job, MacEachen says the biggest challenge regarding temp agency workers is their isolation. Because of the way they work, it's difficult for them to have some kind of organization of other workers like them, a place where they can take advantage of common shared resources, such as access to health plans and information about what to do in different situations. "We need to adapt as a society to these newer types of workers who are more scattered and isolated, and to find ways to support them. We're still adjusting to that," MacEachen says. Matsunaga-Turnbull suggests temp agencies could provide some common resources for workers. "And maybe some civil society groups — poverty advocate groups or worker centres — would have the power to help either organize or advocate for temp workers or trigger inspections. So it's not that one worker putting himself or herself at risk. That's the challenge. Are there mechanisms to organize the unorganized?" All workers have a right to participate in their own health and safety, he adds. With temp agencies, because work is always short-term, the challenge is how to involve workers in safety. "We're looking at a disposal work- force. Many businesses are set up now to be dependent on short-term jobs with no permanent staffing. If your business plan is set up that way, you're not actually seeing people who can contribute to your company or organization. You're just seeing a piece of work," Matsunaga-Turnbull says. "I think we tend to look at what's happening in the workplace; we need to expand that out and ask, what's happening to people when they find themselves in these situations and how is the work itself being structured?" Linda Johnson is a freelance journalist based in Toronto who has been writing for COS for seven years. What are the consequences of precarious employment? Studies have shown that there are many negative consequences attributable to precarious employment and, specifically, temporary work. Workers experiencing precarious employment: • are more often exposed to hazardous work environments, stressful psychosocial working conditions, increased workload, including unpaid overtime • suffer a higher rate of occupational safety and health injuries • experience ill health effects • experience increased work-life conflict • are less likely to receive adequate training for the tasks they are required to perform • are less likely to be members of trade unions • have less protection due to limitations, loopholes and exclusive interpretations of legislation. Source: Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety