Occupational Health and Safety | The disaster, we are already living it

In response to Isabelle Dubé’s article, “Occupational health and safety: the disaster, we can feel it coming” ⁠1published on 1er november

Posted at 2:00 p.m.

Daniel Boyer and Eric Boisjoly
Respectively president of the FTQ and general manager of the FTQ-Construction

Rather disturbing to read in the article by Isabelle Dubé, published in The Press, the convoluted arguments of employers’ associations in the construction sector wanting to delay the entry into service of health and safety representatives (RSS), claiming their lack of training. According to them, their hasty entry would lead to a “catastrophe”… nothing less!

Difficult to take them seriously when everyone in the industry knows it well: the disaster, we are already experiencing it. Isn’t it a disaster to lose your life while working? Need we remind you that in 2021, 71 people died after working on a construction site?

It is all the same ironic to claim that improving the prevention of accidents at work will constitute a disaster! The real disaster is the toll of deaths and occupational injuries in construction. Why didn’t they rip their shirts off about that…it seems a lot more important to us! But again, employers don’t seem to have a sense of urgency.

The reality is sad and simple: employers see the RSS as a person who slows down the work of the site and, for them, it is synonymous with loss of money. For us, that means lives saved.

The new function provided for in the recent health and safety law (LMRSST) aims to ensure that Quebec construction sites are safe, and, where applicable, to ensure that the prime contractor and the employers present on the construction sites in Quebec do not put workers in the sector at risk. According to the law, the RSS must be appointed in January 2023 with a training obligation in January 2024. This leaves them one year. A delay that we consider absolutely reasonable.

Training

It is true that training is necessary, but we must not forget that the workers already know their work environment very well and that they know what needs to be corrected on their jobsite. Why put a spoke in the wheels of prevention by delaying the entry into function of the RSS? There is fire in the cabin and the employers are blocking access to the firefighters!

Moreover, the unions all already offer training, but for the employers, it is not sufficiently “neutral” to be offered to all full-time HSRs who will take up their duties on 1er January. However, the RSS does not work for the employer; it represents the interests of workers. The training of unions will be adjusted to the standards of the CNESST (Commission for standards, equity, health and safety at work) when they are transmitted to the various groups, but above all we must not delay the entry into RSS function to save money for bosses! The balance sheet seems sufficiently disastrous to us to understand that!

For 40 years, the FTQ has required the presence of health and safety representatives on all construction sites in Quebec. For 40 years, the employers’ representatives have been doing everything to prevent their presence under nebulous economic and ideological pretexts. For all the workers who died working for these bosses, it’s already too late. Construction workers in Quebec must finally have people who represent them and finally have a voice for their health and safety on construction sites in Quebec. We are ready. We can’t wait any longer.


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