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LONDON –
Occupational health and safety inspectors
working for the Ministry of Labour, members of
the Ontario Public Service Employees Union
(OPSEU) will demonstrate this Thursday to
protest the potential privatization of health
and safety enforcement in Ontario.
DATE:
Thursday, May 20, 2010
TIME:
12 noon
LOCATION:
Ministry of Labour, 217 York Street,
London
OPSEU
President Warren (Smokey) Thomas says that the
Liberal government may be considering the
privatization of occupational health and safety
enforcement or making it the responsibility of
the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. Either
plan, Thomas says, will have a detrimental
effect on workplace safety.
“Safety
enforcement must be kept with public inspectors
in the Ministry of Labour, a directly-run
government body,” Thomas said. “The Sunrise
Propane explosion in 2008 is a prime example of
what happens when safety standards are enforced
by a private agency like the Technical Standards
and Safety Authority.”
Earlier this
year, Labour Minister Fonseca appointed an
expert panel to review Ontario’s workplace
safety system and recommend improvements to it.
Alarmingly, there are no front-line health and
safety enforcement staff on the panel or any of
its working groups.
Len Elliott,
an occupational health and safety inspector and
president of OPSEU Local 101, says to have an
expert panel without the actual front-line
experts is an exercise in futility.
“We
investigate the day-to-day incidents that cost
478 Ontario workers their lives last year,”
Elliott said. “If the Minister really wants
improvements to workplace health and safety in
this province, there are over a thousand of our
members ready to tell him how to accomplish it.”
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