The Recurring Nightmare

I had a job interview this past Tuesday for the first time in a lot of years. I didn’t think I was stressed, wasn’t feeling it at all, and yet somehow I managed to get a bit wound up and had a fitful sleep. I don’t often dream anymore because I’m usually too damned tired but I had a vivid technicolour blowout in which Toronto’s CN Tower collapsed like one of the Twin Towers but I felt totally safe because I had my workplace Personal Protective Clothing on. I didn’t think much of it until I got home that day and found out that there had been two large workplace accidents; one involved a pile driver toppling over which killed an apprentice in different machine and another where a two story high film stage came crashing down resulting in many broken bones amongst a dozen people. I wouldn’t say that I was a seer by any means but it got me thinking as to why such events keep happening. Also on this same day in my town, there was a close call at a community centre with an electrician letting a panel cover slip which contacted live feeders and blew up. The worker had burns to 50% of his body which would indicate he wasn’t wearing the protective clothing required for live work. The community centre has been closed for days with many thousands of dollars damage to repair and clean up. The only hint from the local media as to what had happened was the statement “generators will be running while the damaged electrical panels are being fixed” The worker would only have been mentioned in the media if he had died so I thought what we know of his story needed to be told here. I hope he is okay but it’s hard to find out solid details in a cover up.

(this photo is an example of an arc flash, not the actual incident)

At the interview I was asked: what are a worker’s responsibilities under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and I balked on responding right away. Not because I didn’t have an answer but in that split second I realized that the onus is already being dumped on the worker who doesn’t have the job yet. If something happens, it will be “he was well aware of what he was supposed to know under the OHSA….” The job I applied for is less dangerous than my current duties, no fire retardant clothing required but it’s not without some risk. All employment carries a risk. Yet not 20 minutes before I was giving my answer about protective clothing and not working live unless it is absolutely unavoidable, a fellow worker in the trade was getting burned. Was he taking this risk to “save time” or was he instructed to do what he did? Who is responsible for what happened? Did somebody tell him to take the action or was it self driven? There are always more questions than answers in a situation like this and that’s why it takes so long to find out what actually happened. One of the duties of a worker which I forgot to mention while I was being grilled is that a worker is responsible, according to the OHSA, for pointing out unsafe conditions or situations to a supervisor. This is how a former co-worker weaseled his way into a bureaucratic position in H&S – rather than approaching someone and making a suggestion directly, he kept a little notebook and reported infractions (mostly minor) to the top. Everyone likes to be safe and to be able to go home at the end of the day but no one likes a rat. I have given co-workers shit to their faces more than once on safety issues as they have to me on occasion I’ll admit. Yet it should be no surprise though when we have mandatory “safety classes” where a squealer is the “expert” that some workers will find any excuse to miss class, myself included. And in the event of a future incident, the comment will be “well, he didn’t participate in the mandatory health and safety courses…”

There have been two crane accidents at my workplace in the past few years. One fell over and landed right where many of the workers would normally take their lunch. Thankfully, it was the weekend and the cab unoccupied when it came crashing down but there was no outcry because there was no reporting or announcements about the incident except for what we heard from other workers much later. Construction where I work is considered to be a separate entity, nothing to do with myself or my employer - anything behind a hoarding is considered a no man’s land, not part of the institution. This myth will prevail until the shit really hits one day, no doubt. The second incident was on another build which had a massively scabby crew; some steel plates were being lowered down and somehow pinched a worker’s leg, taking it clean off. I mentioned the scabbiness of the site because the workers belonged to something called the Christian Labour Association of Canada, whose likely reaction to the injury was that it was God’s will that a limb was lost. Checking up on completely different constructor, having a notion in my head I had heard the name before, it turned out they were served with a record fine for safety violations on other sites. But of course, I’m not to worry. Look away, it’s not your concern we are tacitly told. So no one bothers. Not because we don’t care but because the heavy hand of bureaucracy smothers all comers every time. How is it not our concern?

Any time there is a workplace fatality in this province that is considered newsworthy by the media, our national broadcaster gets in touch with Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour. He sends regrets, recites statistics about how many deaths and injuries have occurred, how it is unacceptable and how there needs to be an inquiry. The drill is the same absolutely every time; talk and more talk. There is at least one migrant farm worker fatality in this province every year. More talk. There will be a catastrophic construction accident with one or more dead. More talk. Someone will die of asbestos induced disease but our government wholeheartedly approves of the industry shipping it to countries with less stringent or no safety regulations. More talk. Someone will lose a limb or a digit or their sight or hearing (or worse) and the vast majority of these incidents are preventable but they happen over and over again. We need much more action or this is never going to end:

“Kyle Knox had a passion for construction, fishing, hunting and snowcross racing. The 24-year-old Musselman’s Lake resident died Tuesday when a drilling rig toppled onto two smaller machines at York University. Mr. Knox was caught in one of the smaller machines. He would have turned 25 Nov. 12. Mr. Knox was scheduled to write his crane ticket exam next week to become a fully licensed crane operator.” - from yorkregion.ca