Falls from heights are a leading cause of serious injuries for workers in the residential construction industry. WorkSafeBC joins with safety organizations in other regions by upping inspections in its Stay On Top Enforcement blitz.
Category: Managing risks & hazards
In BC, a hospitality worker died after falling 17 feet from a ladder while checking a smoke detector located at the top of a vaulted ceiling in a loft apartment. I read about this tragedy on the new Ladder Safety Portal from WorkSafeBC.
A new BC report finds women between 55 than 64 years old are three times more likely to experience a severe fall than women 15 to 24 years old – and women working in health care are three to four times more likely to incur a serious injury as men in that industry.
3M is offering a free info session for employers on monitoring heat stress. It covers “the potential risks of heat stress, how to detect key environmental factors that can contribute to heat stress, and how to establish a heat stress management program.”
RoadSafetyAtWork.ca is a new online toolkit for employers with workers who drive on the job. It uses a five-step approach to safer workplace driving, including tools, tips, guidance, examples, and best practices – launched by WorkSafeBC in partnership with the BCAA Road Safety Foundation.
They did everything they were supposed to do – but something unexpected happened. An excavation crew was replacing a water main when they hit and ruptured a gas line. More than 100 people were evacuated, buses were re-routed, and roads were closed.
The executive director of the BC Construction Safety Alliance gave the thumbs-up to a new app that lets employers and homeowners request clearance letters from WorkSafeBC via smart phone.
Here’s a new online resource for simplifying the early return-to-work process for injured workers – originally made for construction but generic enough for employers in any industry.
I visited a conference for construction safety workers who want to “bridge the gap” in their knowledge about the industry’s health and safety issues. At the tradeshow, I chatted with lots of safety product vendors and service consultants, then I went to a seminar called Pre-Inspection to Ensure Your Protection (nice rhyme!)
If you put people first, everything else will fall into place – including safety. That’s the message from Howard Behar, the former president of Starbucks who helped grow the company from 28 stores to more than 15,000 on five continents.
