InterviewWorkers' Forum: What are the main changes that Bill 59 brings to the occupational health, safety and prevention regime? Julie Hébert: At the moment, we have a regime that includes four prevention mechanisms. In the original 1979 law, it was foreseen that each workplace would have a health and safety committee, one or more prevention representatives, a prevention program and a health program. Over time, for various reasons, these mechanisms have only been applied to 12 per cent of workplaces. The sectors of the economy were separated into six different workplace categories. Only in two of them, known as sectors one and two, were all of these prevention mechanisms applied.[1] What the Steelworkers and the entire labour movement have been calling for is the extension of these prevention mechanisms to all workplaces, so that prevention could be carried out everywhere equally. Time has shown that these mechanisms work well in the workplaces where they were applied, certainly in those represented by the Steelworkers. But that is not what Bill 59 does. The bill eliminates the health program in the workplace. This was a program in which there was intervention from Public Health and a physician responsible for health care in the facility. That no longer exists. The second point is the prevention program that was submitted to the Health and Safety Committee for approval and was also developed with Public Health and the physician in charge. This program is now the sole responsibility of the employer. There is no longer joint approval by the health and safety committee. Thirdly, the health and safety committees lose their ability to act because this is diluted by the provision that an employer can create a single health and safety committee for several establishments. The bill is not clear on this subject, as it uses the criterion of the nature of the employer's activities. For example, a mining company that has different facilities for refining, casting and other activities could say that the nature of all these activities is the same and therefore have a single health and safety committee for several establishments. This is because the criterion in the bill is not clear.
What should have been done is to take what presently applies in the 12 per cent of workplaces and extend it to all workers. Instead, this has all been diluted, in particular by removing the minimums. This will be left to negotiation between the parties. If there is no agreement, there will be legal recourse, leaving it up to the Labour Standards, Pay Equity and Workplace Health and Safety Board(CNESST ) to decide on the issue. We remember that mines were real killers for workers in the 1950s and 1960s. The mining unions will now have to go to court or to the Administrative Labour Tribunal to make their case as to why so many prevention representatives and so many release hours are needed. This is judicialization of the process. This will probably become one more issue that will have to be negotiated at the bargaining table, just like wage increases or working conditions. As well, currently a contaminant register is submitted to the joint health and safety committee. From now on, the employer will have sole control over this. The register will no longer be submitted to the health and safety committee. Workers will no longer know what they are exposed to in their own workplace. I am a lawyer by training and when I am involved in occupational disease cases with unions, if the prevention representative is able to provide me with all the minutes of the health and safety committee and tell me that for x amount of time such and such a contaminant has been used in our plant, we were exposed, it is dangerous, we have made representations to the employer, -- all of this is evidence that we need to have work-related diseases recognized that we will now lose. When talking about health and prevention programs, I mentioned that there is a physician responsible for health services at the workplace. Currently, this physician is appointed by the health and safety committee. Now they will be appointed by the employer. WF: Do you want to add anything in conclusion? JH: The most deplorable aspect of Bill 59 is the loss of contact with the workers on the floor. Nobody knows the situation better than the prevention representatives. Nobody knows the plants better. They are there day after day and are in the best position to help the workers. Also, the parity provisions in the 1979 law are being eliminated. Full power is given to the employer and we firmly denounce this. Note1. The priority groups one and two in the law where the four prevention mechanisms apply are: PRIORITY GROUP I 1. Construction and public works; 2. Chemical industry; 3. Forestry and sawmills; 4. Mining, quarrying and oil wells; 5. Metal product manufacturing. PRIORITY GROUP II 6. Wood industry (without sawmill); 7. Rubber and plastic products industry; 8. Transportation equipment manufacturing; 9. Primary metal processing; 10. Non-metallic mineral product manufacturing. Although the construction sector is included in these groups, the
provisions of the law regarding the prevention mechanisms have never
been enacted for construction. (Translated from original French by Workers' Forum. Photos: Uttam)
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The
last thing, which is probably the most serious, is that it takes away
prevention representatives' ability to act. In the original law, it
was the prevention representatives who were responsible for contact
with the workers. In the present law, in groups one and two, it is the
prevention representatives who are responsible for what is referred
to as work on the shop floor, of being in contact with the workers,
representing them, helping them exercise their rights. This is
extremely important work that is done every day in Quebec, that is, in
the 12 per cent of workplaces where this prevention representative
mechanism presently applies. Apart from the issue of
multi-establishments, the bill
removes all the minimums that were provided for, whether it be the
frequency of health and safety committee meetings or the minimum number
of hours that prevention representatives are released from work to
carry out these duties. At the moment there are minimums, or a scale,
so that for a given number of workers, prevention representatives are
mandated so many hours of release, and a minimum of one, two or three
prevention representatives are mandated based on the number of workers,
etc. This no longer
exists. This will now be determined through an agreement between the
parties. The unions will have to come to an agreement with the employer
to negotiate release time for their prevention representatives. We will
end up having to negotiate workplace prevention.