Occupational Health and Safety Enforcement System in the Workplace - Essay Example

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY ENFORCEMENT SYSTEM IN THE WORKPLACE Introduction The risks creeping around workplaces are serious andneed an intervention through the regulation of occupational health and safety. In Canada, the state has intervened with the type of its control changing. Nevertheless, its presence in the control is a lasting item of the modern-day health and safety system. It has been found that where a government enacts, implementation certainly ensues. By late 1970s, the immense responsibility of safety regulatory sank to the interest groups within the workplace. The government was only responsible for the establishment of wide-ranging standards. The government though still plays a role in enforcing the standards. To find out how regulation may affect the practices at a workplace, two questions should be answered; how the legislation will be enforced and who will enforce it? The status The enforcement of the health and safety in the workplace by the government is by an internal responsibility system. The measures guard against the health and safety of both the employer and the employee. The government is mandated with the task of arranging essential standards for the protection of the worker. The roles of the government in the enforcement of health and safety at the workplace are two: avoiding occurrences at workplaces through active inspections and examination of occurrences containing death or grave injuries. These measures enable determination of the legal blameworthiness and the corrective measure. The OHS legislation has awarded the government with the far-reaching powers carrying out investigations, give direction and do investigations. An emblematic of other OHS acts in Canada, Alberta, has the powers of implementation with the following rights:   Enter into or on any work site at any sensible time and conduct an inspection of the work site (s. (8(1)(a));   Taking samples, taking hold of or inspection of any material, tool, product, equipment or appliance under production, used set up in or on the work site (s. (8(1)(c));   Conducting tests, taking of photographs and recordings (s. (8(1)(d));   Carrying out interviews and obtaining of statements (s. (8(1)(e));   Ordering the responsible person of a work in progress a) to stop the work as indicated in the order, b) taking measure as indicated in the order, in the opinion of the officer, in necessity of guaranteeing the work being conducted in a healthy and safe way (s. (9(1));   Ordering work or any art of the work in progress to be brought to a standstill straightaway (s. (10(1)(a)). The legislation offers the health and safety enforcement officers all the desired items for guaranteeing full amiability with the requirements highlighted in the Act and its regulation. The consideration of which enforcement occurs is not an issue of the legal capacity, but rather of political deliberation. The quota of the total budget assigned to OHS affects the effectiveness of the government enforcement greatly. The process of budget setting exposes the political dynamics in action within the authority. However, each authority shall finance its enforcement responsibility in a different way, a higher scale of meeting about total allocations per worker remains (Tucker, 2003). Majority of the authority fund only a small committee of OHS enforcement officers. An example is the Alberta that only has eighty-four officers responsible for one hundred and forty-four thousand employers. The number of workers under their docket amounts to two and a half million (Alberta Justice and Attorney General, 2008). A sign that most of the officers’ time is spent investigating cases involving death or serious injuries in addition to worker and public-initiated complaints. It can be thought that most of Alberta work sites were examined in a superficial way if they were at all examined. Another study by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), in 2007, found that customary workplaces (mining, factories, and construction) were highly probable to be examined than health facilities, schools or offices. Employers on the other side view OHS enforcement as an interruption into their rights of management. They feel the wide-ranging rights allocated to the officers allow the government to interfere with issues about workplace safety. Employers settle on attempts to shape the policies and ways that are established and obligated by government. The result of this is the placement of OHS enforcement policies and ways within the political dominion. In 1990s through to 2000s, Alberta approved the adoption of a policy of “Voluntary compliance”. The policy required its OHS officers to offer noncomplying statements of employer nonconformity. It desired that any available correction be done by a certain date. An “order” was to be deemed only when an employer failed to comply by the stated date. The effectiveness of this policy was in that the “order” were enforced by courts. The approval of the voluntary compliance policy was in a bid to soothe employers who saw the random OHS examinations as exceedingly invasive. The last stage in the enforcement is the prosecution of the victims. The government decides how and when a person or company gets to be taken to the court. On the ground, legal prosecution is rarely used. Majorly, prosecution is only used in scenarios involving fatalities and total negligence. Most violators of OHS Act go unpunished. The furthest the matter is taken is corrective measure to contain the situation back into order. This is the far politics and economics have affected enforcement of safety legislation by the government. From chapter seven of Working Disasters: The Politics of Recognition and Response, David Whyte explores the responses of the government to a tragic accident that happened in British North Sea Oil industry. He gives a reminder of the reason about why the government would intervene into a workplace safety. He states that it does so not to protect the worker but to reduce industrial relations. The oil industry is explained to have undertaken its welfare that conflicted safety standards at the slightest chance available. He interacted with OHS officers, came up with three assumptions, and referred to them as “frames” or “strands”. The first was that safety was thought of to be secondary to economic considerations. The officers affirmed the idea of lots of safety dents the economic competitiveness of the oil industry. You need to bear in mind that you can’t go around shutting installations down, these people have injected a lot of money into the economy and potentially will inject a lot more, and we have to bear that in mind–”put it into the equation–”when we’re dealing with them [operating oil companies]. (Whyte, 2006, p. 196) The vigor in enforcing the safety standards is thought as a threat towards the economic growth of the industry resulting to enforcement officers shying away from fully implementing their mandated duties. The second was the thought that management decisions are not related to safety directly. If by any chance the decisions bear a safety effect, it will be over the extent of government involvement. The third and last strand is that bearing the idea of employers sharing a common interest with the employees in relation to safety. When the two parties (employer and employee) are considered as being equally committed to attaining a safe workplace, the government steps aside allowing them to sort things out. He concludes that the government conducted its actions with an aim of gaining capital’s needs through soothing the public without offending the industry’s status quo. In chapter nine, Susan Dodd reports of a scorching explosion through the Westray coal mine in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. The incident resulted to the death of twenty-six miners giving rise to an unusual expanse of political and public anger. It lead to the unveiling of a public inquiry to set up the sources of the accident. The report given was found to be unique from the preceding ones in that it was a four-volume report. It had a description in details of the events that lead to the explosion. Among them were employer negligence and government’s failure to act. The inquiry reports have a habit of clouding responsibility of an accident. Many reports blame the workers directly; as others close that no one should be blamed. In mining, danger has been thought to be unavoidable hence, a balance between safety and production is recommended. This indicates that production and safety are in a skirmish. Industrial disasters expose the fact that working people die while owners profit, and this creates the potential for political crisis. Inquiry reports play an ambivalent role in the aftermath of a disaster: they expose the conditions that led to the deaths and at the same time they work to give the public memory of these conditions safe for capitalism. (Dodd, 2006, p. 268) In conclusion, the government has been seen to lessen its enforcement responsibility in compliance to politics and economics. My plan for an ideal occupational health and safety enforcement system for the Canadian workplace would use the random checks on the workplaces. The government would form a committee within the house that would be responsible for the control of the enforcement. The committee members would be sought from different work backgrounds to unify the decisions been made. A budget for the full implementation of the enforcement would be drawn with a policy that clearly states the role of each player. Employers would be required to strictly comply to the policy no matter the nature of the work as long as the safety of workers is not compromised. The workers would be utilized as the observers of the adherence of their employers to the safety policy. As the policy enforcement officers, make their random checks on the workplace, they will be required to interview the workers to set up the compliance by the industry. The government would be mandated with the responsibility of funding the implementation and formation of the policy. It will also be responsible in bringing the offenders to judgement. The government would appoint a committee that in turn would deploy an adequate number of policy implementation officers all over the country. They will be mandated with carrying out regular random examinations on industries taking into account recommendations and submitting them to the committee for review. At all times the safety of the workers should be considered first before the economic benefit of the company. Political interferences shall be kept at bay through making the committee independent i.e. not answerable to any political body. The officers also will be awarded the powers to look at a workplace at any time and any day. They will also be able to stop a process that have a health risk to the workers at whatever stage of production the process may be provided it does not pose a severe risk at the point. The advantages of the plan are that severe disasters will be minimised through the bringing to judgement the minor offenders on a daily basis. Punishing everyone who is not in compliance reflects a most compliance. The employment of large numbers of officers will mean all workplaces are well examined regularly minimizing the possibility of some industries switching off the safety measures once examination has been made. Reliance on workers to gauge the success and compliance of industries will give the real picture of who does comply and who does not. From the one on one interaction with the workers, recommendations on the adjustments to be made on the policy are easily noted. The committee gets to know of existing loopholes in the policy from the recommendations. The plan will also have some drawbacks in that from the large numbers of officers employed to enforce the policy, it will be difficult to reach their productivity. Some of them can also be puppets to the industries hence hindering compliance to the policy. The policy will be faced with lots of hindrances especially where the safety measures are in conflict with the economic status of the industry. References Alberta, Justice.Annual report, 2007-2008. (2008). Edmonton. Tucker, E. (2006). Working disasters: the politics of recognition and response. Amityville, N.Y.: Baywood Pub.. Read More