Fewer hurt workers ‘an achievement’

The workers' compensation board is calling it a slight decline, but for the first time in six years, there have been fewer workplace injuries in the territory.

The workers’ compensation board is calling it a slight decline, but for the first time in six years, there have been fewer workplace injuries in the territory.

As of Dec. 31, 2008, 1,936 injuries were reported, a drop of 24 when compared to 2007 figures (1,960 injuries).

“We’re seeing that as at least a glimmer of positivity out there,” Valerie Royle, president and CEO of the Yukon Workers’ Compensation Health and Safety Board (YWCHSB), told a news conference this morning.

“This is an achievement, especially given the fact that Yukon’s workforce increased by 600 in the territory.”

In 2008, 20,400 people were employed in the Yukon, up from 19,600 in 2007.

When injuries for both years are factored, it translated to one reported injury for every nine workers in 2007 while this past year, that ratio dropped to one injury for every 9.4 employees.

Based on injury reports, the Yukon government, building construction and retail sales had the highest number of workplace mishaps.

However, the names of specific employers in the territory experiencing the most injury incidents are not available to the public.

During last fall’s sitting of the legislative assembly, Glenn Hart, the minister responsible for the YWCHSB, sidestepped questions about publicizing territorial employers with questionable safety standards.

On the cusp of a Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruling, which forced that province’s workers’ compensation board to release such information, Liberal MLA Eric Fairclough demanded the YWCHSB do likewise.

“Workers have the right to know the safety track record of employers before accepting employment,” Fairclough said. “Will (Hart) agree that the names of those employers in the Yukon with the worst safety records should be made public?”

When the same question was posed to Royle, the YWCSB president said the board does not possess enough information to make that determination.

“The fact that a company has had a high number of injuries reported does not necessarily mean that it’s a bad company,” she said.

“If you look at a company that has 500 employees, it would be expected that it would have more injuries than a company that just has 10 (employees) ...for us to say a company is good or bad based on the pure number of injuries that they report would not be fair.”

Royle said the YWCSB is collecting relevant data but would not commit to going public with the information once it has been compiled.

The YWCSB president also suggested there are ways to determine how safe a potential employer is.

“If the public is concerned about workplaces and whether they are safe or not, then the indication is whether we are out prosecuting places for OH&S (occupational health and safety) infractions, issuing fines and shutting down workplaces,” said Royle. “And we do that. That’s part of our job.”

Last year, the compensation board issued 362 corrective orders for safety infractions, levied six fines and issued three stop work orders.

But Kurt Dieckmann, the board’s director of occupational health and safety, said information on which companies were in violation, received fines or had their workplaces shut down is not made public.

“We don’t release that information,” Dieckmann told the Star. “What we do is when we issue an order, the company has to post the order in a place where (its) workers could see it.”

For those seeking safety records of specific companies, the only alternative is through an access to information request, he added.

What is a matter of public record, as it is currently before the courts, is one YWCSB prosecution against Golden Hill Ventures for two safety infractions resulting in a motor vehicle crash.

In that case, the YWCSB alleges two Golden Hill Ventures employees were not properly licensed for the vehicles they were operating.