Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Act Highlights of changes effective June 1, 2018

The Alberta Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act establishes minimum standards for healthy and safe practices in Alberta workplaces. These laws are enforced through inspections, investigations, orders, administrative penalties, fines and prosecutions.

Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Act

Highlights of changes effective June 1, 2018

Changes to the OHS Act improve the OHS system to better protect workers and ensure they have the same rights and protections as other Canadian workers.

Alberta Labour received more than 1,300 survey responses and nearly 90 written submissions from Albertans and more than 200 stakeholders participated in eight roundtable discussions across the province. Feedback informed changes to the act.

OHS Act changes take effect on June 1, 2018, except role changes for the OHS Council, which took effect on December 15, 2017.

Occupational health and safety review

Alberta had not reviewed its OHS system since 1976 and the changes take effect June 1.

Changes from the current OHS Act

Enshrining workers’ rights:

Right to know

? All employers must inform workers about potential hazards and have access to basic health and safety information on site.

Right to participate in workplace health and safety

? Ensures workers are involved in health and safety discussions, including participation in health and safety committees.

Right to refuse dangerous work

? Workers may refuse to perform dangerous work and are protected from any form of reprisal for exercising this right.

? A worker must continue to be paid while a work refusal is being investigated.

? Other workers may be assigned to the work if they are advised of the refusal, reason for it, and made aware of their own right to refuse the work after the employer determines there is not a risk.

Roles and responsibilities:

Obligations of work site parties

All work site parties must cooperate with anyone exercising a duty under the legislation. Work site parties must provide one another health and safety information, including what information to provide and how to do so.

? Employers are responsible for: o Ensuring the health, safety and welfare of workers.

o Ensuring workers are aware of their rights and duties under the law and are aware of any health and safety issues.

o Providing competent supervisors, training workers, and preventing violence and harassment.

o Ensuring public safety at or in the vicinity of work sites.

o Working with the joint work site health and safety committee or health and safety representative.

Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Act (2018)

www.alberta.ca

? Supervisors must be competent, protect the health and safety of workers, advise workers of all health and safety hazards, report all health and safety concerns to the employer, and prevent violence and harassment.

? Workers are responsible for ensuring the health and safety of themselves and others, cooperating with their employer/supervisor for purposes of health and safety, using all devices and wear all required personal protective equipment (PPE), report unsafe or unhealthy conditions, and refrain from causing or participating in violence and harassment.

? Contractors are responsible for ensuring that work being performed by employers under their control does not endanger the health and safety of persons at the work site.

? Owners of work sites are responsible for ensuring the land, infrastructure and any building or premise under its control is provided and maintained in a manner that does not endanger anyone.

? Prime contractors are only required at construction sites, oil and gas sites and any other work site designated by a Director. Their obligations otherwise remain the same.

? Suppliers must ensure their products are safe to use and comply with the legislation; and any equipment and harmful substances provided include manufacturer’s specifications or other instructions for safe use (if they exist). Suppliers must provide notice when their product or equipment doesn’t comply with the law.

? Service providers must ensure the services provided comply with the law, are provided by a competent person, and do not create a hazard.

? Self-employed persons are responsible for complying with all the OHS rules that apply to employers and to workers, and ensuring that they don’t create hazards for themselves and others.

? Temporary staffing agencies must ensure workers are suitable for the work, have or will receive the PPE they need, and that the host employer is capable of looking after the worker’s health and safety.

The act defines harassment and violence to address workplace bullying and physical and psychological harm, including sexual and domestic violence.

Expanded rules prohibit any person from taking or threatening discriminatory action against workers for exercising their rights and duties under the law that protects workers from reprisal.

Program and practice:

Joint work site health and safety committees (HSC) and representatives

? Employers with 20 or more workers at a work site and work lasting 90 days or

more are required to have a HSC.

? A Director can order any other work site to establish a HSC.

? Employers or work sites with 5-19 workers and work lasting 90 days or more are required to have a health and safety representative.

Health and safety program

? Employers with 20 or more workers must have a written health and safety program. o The program must have 10 elements and be reviewed at least every three years.

o Where no program is required, the employer must involve workers in hazard assessment and control.

New OHS Advisory Council

? The OHS Council is replaced by the OHS Advisory Council. Its function is to provide specialized advice to government.

Acceptances and approvals

? Acceptances and approvals can be issued to a broad range of parties including employers, self-employed persons, suppliers, owners and prime contractors, and groups of these parties.

? Acceptances and approvals remain in effect for a maximum of five years. They will be published to the Alberta Labour website.

Duties of government

? The legislation clarifies the roles, responsibilities and authorities of government for OHS.

? The act and its administration must be reviewed every five years. The Minister is also required to annually publish a three-year plan for the review of the OHS regulations and the OHS code.

Medical examinations

? Medical examinations ordered under the OHS Act can only happen with the worker’s consent. The worker’s wages,

Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Act (2018)

www.alberta.ca

benefits, and cost of the examination are the employer’s responsibility.

? Physicians, along with other health care professionals, are required to report a person affected with, or suffering from, a notifiable disease.

? The Director of Medical Services has expanded access to medical information for preventing occupational illness and injury.

Improved review and appeals process

? The appeals process applies to refusals to do dangerous work, orders to remedy unhealthy or unsafe work conditions, orders involving improper storage and handling of substances or materials, stop work/stop use orders, director’s orders, administrative penalties, and discriminatory action decisions.

? The act recognizes a two-level appeal process. The first level involves internal review and a decision by a Director of Inspection. These may then go to a second review by the Alberta Labour Relations Board.

? The process for hearing appeals aligns with practices currently used by the Alberta Labour Relations Board.

? Transitional appeal requirements are in place to deal with appeals in progress.

Compliance and enforcement:

Inspections and investigations

? OHS officers have the authority to enter a private dwelling that is a work site, but require the owner’s or occupant’s consent or a court warrant.

? OHS officers have the authority to interview any person who has information relevant to an inspection or investigation, regardless of their location, and access electronic records.

? Technical experts may accompany an officer at a work site.

? OHS officers have the authority to issue a stop work order, which applies to multiple work sites of a single employer.

? When a stop work or stop use order is issued, affected workers must continue to be paid their normal wages and benefits. Employers have the option of reassigning affected workers to alternate work.

? The sale, rental, lease or transferring equipment subject to a stop use order is prohibited.

? Suppliers may be ordered to stop supplying any substance or material that does not comply with the OHS legislation.

? The person who receives a compliance order is required to report back to OHS on measures taken to remedy the contravention(s), provide a copy of the report to their health and safety committee or representative, and post the report at the work site.

? The Court has additional options for directing how creative sentencing penalties can be used. This includes training and education programs, research, and scholarships.

Reporting incidents

? Injuries resulting in a worker being admitted to hospital must be reported to Alberta Labour. This replaces the previous threshold of having to be in hospital for two days.

? Employers must report "potentially serious" incidents to Alberta Labour. These are incidents that had potential to cause serious injury to a person, but did not.

Information sharing:

Agreements for research and educational programs

? Government can enter into agreements with a wider range of parties, including any government, person, agency and organization.

Exchange of information

? Alberta Labour can share data with other government bodies, agencies, and external organizations beyond the WCB-Alberta.

Publishing information

? Publication of information about work site parties has been expanded to make more and better information available to Albertans at regular intervals.

? Additional information that will be shared includes orders issued, administrative penalties, tickets issued to employers (but not workers), investigation reports completed by an officer, acceptances issued, and approvals issued.

Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Act (2018)

www.alberta.ca

OVERVIEW OF CHANGES TO THE OHS ACT (2018)Current requirement

Requirement on June 1, 2018

Explanation

Responsibilities of work site parties

Roles and responsibilities of existing work site parties are not aligned with the rest of Canada.

Supervisors, owners, service providers, self-employed persons, and temporary staffing agencies do not have specific roles or responsibilities in the OHS Act.

Roles and responsibilities for existing work site parties (employers, workers, prime contractors and suppliers), and new roles and responsibilities for supervisors, owners, service providers, self-employed persons, and temporary staffing agencies.

Employers and supervisors have new responsibilities to prevent workplace harassment and violence and make sure that workers refrain from these activities.

The roles and responsibilities of all work site parties for OHS need to be clarified to enhance accountability and align with the rest of Canada.

Duty of work site parties to provide health and safety information

Current requirements to provide health and safety information are fragmented throughout the OHS regulation and OHS code.

Clarify the requirements for work site parties to provide health and safety information to each other, and clarify which documents must be made available in the workplace and how.

The right to know is a fundamental principle of the internal responsibility system. All work site parties must have basic hazard information to ensure a healthy and safe workplace and this information is in the act. The intent is to ensure information on health and safety is available and flows between work site parties.

Harassment and violence

Physical violence is defined and addressed in the OHS code. There are no definitions or explicit provisions around the responsibility to prevent workplace harassment.

Include definitions for harassment and violence that explicitly describe what they mean.

The new definitions address psychosocial hazards and clarify that all forms of violence (including sexual and domestic violence) are included.

Joint work site health and safety committees (HSC) and representatives

HSCs are only required under a Ministerial Order for specific work sites. Requirements describing how a mandated committee operates are provided in the OHS code.

Require the establishment of HSCs for work sites with 20 or more workers and work lasting 90 days or more, and the designation of a health and safety representative to represent workers for employers/work sites with 5 to 19 workers.

Details the duties of HSCs and

Provides a forum in the workplace to participate in OHS and increase worker engagement in OHS issues. This aligns with requirements in the rest of Canada.

Need assistance or help for any Safety Management System element including Establishing a health and safety committee, onsite safety management for worksites that have more employees than the established requirement, safety management system/program, let me know and I can help.

Regards,

Don Andrechek