e-news

  The quarterly newsletter for Safety Professionals

Q2, 2011::Issue 24

   

Small Business News

 

The Forever Changing Landscape

There seems to be a controversy growing with respect to the number of workers employed at small businesses when it comes to the inclusion of contracted independent workers.

Just when you think you’re following the law of the land to the ‘nth degree’, it changes!  It’s frustrating but when all is said and done, employees' (full time or contractual) well being is an important commodity!  There seems to be a controversy growing with respect to the number of workers employed at small businesses when it comes to the inclusion of contracted independent workers.

This conundrum began in Ontario with United Independent Operators, a small truck brokerage and dispatch service that only employs 11 regular staff.  Basically, their customers contract them to transport aggregate products and United would in turn contract approximately 30-140 independent truck drivers to provide this service. 

In July of 2004, one of those independent truck drivers was crushed causing him a critical injury.  When MOL conducted an investigation, it was found that the company did not have a joint health and safety committee (JHSC) and was charged with failing to ensure the establishment of a JHSC at its workplace. Under Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, a JHSC must be established when a workplace employs 20 or more regularly employed workers, so United felt they were complying with the Act since they only had 11 regular employees. Subsequent court proceedings in 2007 and 2009 found United acquitted and dismissed MOL’s appeal; United was not obligated to establish a JHSC.

However, in January 2011, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the truck drivers were “regularly employed”; the bottom line was “...the Act, as a remedial public welfare statute intended to guarantee a minimum level of protection for the health and safety of workers, should be interpreted generously rather than narrowly.”  The judge decided that the “regularly employed” was interpreted in too narrow a fashion and in a way that was “inconsistent with the objectives, purpose and legislative scheme of the Act.”

In the end, United had complied with the Ministry’s order and established a JHSC well before the Court had even issued its ruling.  At this point no one knows how difficult it’s going to be to maintain a JHSC, when some members are on their own schedules and usually off-site...only time will tell in Ontario’s safety mosaic.

So head’s up for the small businesses in Ontario and even across Canada...be prepared...when it comes to OHS...”there is safety in numbers”, the number of workers that is!

___________________________
Sources: Canadian Safety Reporter, March 2011
 
Copyright © YOW Canada Inc., 2011 All rights reserved.
 
Concerned about privacy? Don't be...we never sell or share your personal information. See our | Privacy Policy|
 
YOW Canada Inc. 1306 Algoma Road, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. K1B 3W8. 1.866.688.2845.
 
 
Copyright © YOW Canada Inc., 2011