Alberta
Bill 47, Ensuring Safety and Cutting Red Tape Act 2020
Build the Resistance to Attacks on Workers' Health and Safety
- Peggy Morton -
November 5, 2020. Alberta workers stand with hospital workers. One of many actions against
the Kenney government's cuts and
restructuring.
The Kenney government introduced Bill 47, the Ensuring Safety
and Cutting Red Tape Act 2020 in the Alberta legislature on November 5.
Bill 47 makes significant changes to the Workers' Compensation Act and
includes an entirely new Occupational Health and Safety Act. Bill
47 is the latest in a series of legislated attacks on workers and their
defence organizations. While the safety and rights of workers are
acknowledged in words, Bill 47 significantly lowers the bar when it
comes to employer obligations, deprives workers of the right to select
their own health and safety representatives, guts the joint worksite
health and safety committees, imposes new definitions of unsafe work,
and opens the door for employers to discriminate against workers who
refuse unsafe work.
 This legislation was introduced at a time when COVID-19 is
spreading across Alberta at an alarming rate, as is the case across the
country. There were 1,026 new COVID-19 cases on November 14 in Alberta.
Many, if not most of the biggest worksites, some of which are also
people's residences (such as resource industry work camps), have
outbreaks, including most hospitals in Edmonton and Calgary, large
numbers of long-term care and seniors' homes, oil sands operations,
warehouses, manufacturing, and oil refining. Unions representing health
care workers and hundreds of doctors are speaking out, expressing alarm
and making concrete proposals to government to get control of the
situation.
It speaks volumes about the character of
the Kenney government that, in the midst of a pandemic in which workers
in every sector are putting themselves on the line to fulfil their
responsibility to society, it is taking extraordinary measures to
deprive workers of any say in ensuring that their workplaces are
healthy and safe. It is not a case of
Kenney fiddling while the province burns. It is a case of government
actively working to suppress the firefighters. It is the human factor,
the mobilization of everyone, and particularly the working class, to
deal with the crisis which is decisive. The more the workers take the
lead in fighting for solutions, the more they appreciate their capacity
to
lead and it is this participation and consciousness that is the target
of the government measures. The Kenney government
keeps trying to use the crisis as cover for one attack after another on
their rights. It sees the pandemic and economic crisis in Alberta as an
opportunity to destroy all arrangements which give workers a say in
matters that affect them deeply. Recent actions of health care workers
and the broad public support that their
resistance received powerfully show that Alberta does not belong to the
rich and the people do not accept the criminalization of workers who
are standing up for their rights and for public services. Refusing
to involve the workers, shock and awe, and the use of arbitrary powers
are not going to keep the economy going. What is needed is to mobilize
workers in every workplace to implement the measures necessary. Whether
or not a "sharp break" takes place, containing coronavirus cannot
succeed without the active participation of the
working people in decision-making. Experience shows it cannot be left
in the hands of employers or a government which sees its only
responsibility as paying the rich.  Workers are
demanding that their voices be heard on health and safety issues,
particularly when it comes to a virus that is ravaging workers and
communities around the world. Workers in industry and health care have
been fighting to make workplaces safe. Workers in essential services
have fought to keep everyone safe, risking their own
health and very lives to do so. Wherever the measures proposed by
workers have been implemented, they have been effective and where there
has been refusal of government and employers to meet the reasonable
demands of the workers the results have been disastrous.
It
is the workers and their collectives who have fought for proper personal protective equipment,
physical distancing in the workplaces, paid sick leave for workers off
work because of COVID-19, one-site rules to keep COVID-19 from
spreading from one seniors' home to another, for adequate staffing in
health care and seniors' care, for adequate wages and full-time
work so workers do not have to work multiple jobs, and more. Workers
and their collectives have fought for the right to use their
professional judgement to decide what measures are required, and to be
involved in the decision-making. They have stood up to employers
pressuring workers to come to work in violation of public health
guidelines. In a modern society, the responsibility
of governments is to protect the polity and all its members and insist
that employers do the same. Every collective and individual in society
has the right to this protection based on standards established
scientifically including the collective knowledge and experience of the
society and the working people.
The same duty falls on every member and collective in society. Bill 47
shows what kind of battle the workers are facing.
This article was published in
Number 78 - November 17, 2020
Article Link:
Alberta
Bill 47, : Build the Resistance to Attacks on Workers' Health and Safety - Peggy Morton
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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