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Posted January 23, 2009 
Occupational Health and Safety Conference Report The
following report was submitted by Carey Stoneberg - with photos by Lee Henderson - as part of the Unions
policy to update the Executive and interested members about Conferences
attended by their peers.
On October 23-26, 2008 over 500 Occupational Health and Safety delegates from across the country descended in St. John's Newfounland for the 10th Annual CUPE National Health and Safety Conference. Lee Henderson and I were two of delegates lucky enough to attend this event.
After a few harrowing days getting to our destination; my plane was sent back to Halifax and Lee had to spend a few extra days in Toronto. We both managed to make it the St. John's for three full days immersed in union activism sharing best and worst practices with those from across the country and quickly learned that BC is far ahead of the rest of the country in Health and Safety issues.
The Conference began on Thursday night with a short welcome from Paul Moist, CUPE National President and the President of the Provincial Health and Safety Committee as well as the mayor of St. John's which set the tone for the weekend. Paul Moist addressed us that evening, then had to go to a Picket Line of five CUPE Outside Workers in Prince Edward Island (the only local that was on strike at that time) which was quite an accomplishment considering that there are over 570,000 members within CUPE.
The other days of the conference were split up with the morning plenary sessions with four speakers on each day, and then the afternoon was spent in individual workshops that followed the theme of the morning.
The first speaker was Cathy Walker, the former Director of Health and Safety with the Canadian Auto Workers Union. She now works with the international scene working on projects in South Africa, Australia and China. Throughout her presentation, she continued to reiterate that Health and Safety issues are the same all over the world, just that in Canada and most places in the States, we have rules to protect our workers. South African workers have a few rights and some are aware of them. The Chinese workers are still the victims of all the atrocities that occur due to the vast numbers of them, the rich factory owners know that they can use and abuse this opportunity and unneeded deaths and permanent disabilities are still occurring. Her main point came down to how Health and Safety representatives are selected, if they are appointed by the management or if they are selected by their fellow employees does make a difference, no matter where you work and live. She also mentioned that 70% of Sweden is unionized and that they have the strongest Occupational Health and Safety Regulations in the world. We really aren't that small of a world when safety is involved and the only way that we can change things is by education.
The second speaker on Friday was Dave Bennett, formerly the Director of Health, Safety and Environment, Canadian Labour Congress. He added to Cathy's presentation and shared her fears on Health and Safety and Globalization. He fears that Health and Safety will be absorbed within the larger companies worldwide and unless workers get protection and support, numerous pandemics, etc. are on their way. He cited the Avian Flu as a good example of this.
Friday's third speaker was Katherine Lippell, a full professor of law at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, who spoke on a topic near and dear to my heart, "Workplace Violence". She stated that although prevention of Workplace Violence is legislated worldwide, it is still happening. She said that 17% of all crimes occur at work and in 12% of those co-workers are involved and 88% of Violence in the Workplace cases involved someone from outside your working area. This is what we have be discussing year and year in BC. Due to cutbacks there hasn't been much done, yet we need to continue to educate everyone that it is alright to complain if you have experienced any form of violence at work.
The final speaker on Friday was Jim Brophy, former Executive Director of the Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers. His talk focused on the continued use of Asbestos worldwide and what we as union activist can do about it. Asbestos is being used in 3rd world countries and due to their limited education, their children are playing in mounds of asbestos day after day. Asbestos is still being shipped to 3rd world countries because Canada can still get large amounts of money for it. He suggested that workers do their own testing on this substance because if they believe the reports that the government
has produced they can be inaccurate and more people could die.
The afternoon session dealt with the morning theme, only in a smaller format, each afternoon workshop was limited to 24 people, then broken down into working groups of 6 people. The smaller groups allowed the participants to share ideas and suggestions on Current Threats - Harrassment, Bullying, Violence, Pandemic Influenza and Asbetstos. Unfortunately, the morning session went on longer than anticipated, which put us behind for the afternoon session. Although ideas were shared, there didn't seem enough time to cover all the topics as well as anticipated.
Saturday's first speaker was Barbara Neis, co-director of SafetyNet, a Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Research at Memorial University. She has spent a great amount of her time researching the fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador and has begun linking her findings with international fisheries related development. She took this comparison a step further by stating that "some smaller 3rd world countries treat their fish better than their female workers". In some African countries, the female workers are treated with such little respect and Dr. Neis said that changes need to be made. Currently, their motto is that they "work to live, not live to work" this is a very vulnerable workforce and when you add the migrant worker, which mostly exist there, they are even more vulnerable due the vast numbers of workers. They all share the fear that if they complain, there are a number of people willing and ready to take their job.
The second speaker on Saturday was Larry Stoffmann, Director, Occupational Health and Safety, UFCW 1518 who spoke on Workplace Cancers and how we can do something about them. He said that in 1930 1 in 10 workers were developing Workplace Cancers and in 1970 it had increased to 1 in 5 with 1 in 2.7 women being exposed and 1 in 2.4 men. The big question here is WHY? Why is this still happening and what are we as occupational health and safety activists doing? These statistics show that we are not doing as much as we can to help our employees. Workplace Cancers are still hard to prove due do the environment we live in, but again, we need to become very determined and fight for those that are affected. We need to lobby our governments at all levels to start to do something about this issue.
The third and fourth speakers on Saturday were Charly Richardson and his wife Nancy Lessin who both spoke about technological changes and the effects it can have on workers health and safety. They both reiterated that it was up to the workers and the unions to help with these changes. They also reiterated how not to be too impressed with those signs outside operations stating how many days they had been injury free. Some workers are asked not to admit that they have been injured on the job. They also mentioned that time and time again, it is the worker that is blamed when accidents occur stating that "without a hazard a disease or injury can not happen". We need to put the focus back on the hazard and start working from there.
Saturday afternoon I attended the workshop called Ramping Up Health and Safety Activism -- International Health and Safety Perspectives. We discussed how Health and Safety differs even from province to province; BC seems to be the leader in this field. We have legislation for Violence in the Workplace and an Environmental Committee that deals with promoting the use of Green Products, yet when we discussed this, others didn't know that it existed. Again, we need to get our information out to the workers and let them know that their union is working for them and there to protect them.
At Sunday morning's session, Claude Genereux, National Secretary-Treasurer addressed the audience and thanked everyone present from coast to coast for what they do day after day for their fellow worker. His background was originally in the Health and Safety field in Montreal.
Of course, you can't attend a National Conference without taking in some of the local hospitality and sights. This was interspersed throughout the conference with the Newfoundland hospitality. From the opening social with local talent to the "scuff and scoff" where we really found out how to cook and eat bologna, and the tradition of kissing the cod and becoming a life time Newfoundlander, and everything in between, the Newfounland/Labrador delegation did themselves proud.
Thank you for the opportunity to attend on your behalf and if you want to discuss any of these topics further please call me at 8314/7271 or cstoneberg@vcc.ca
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