Reprinted with permission from the Construction Safety Association of Ontario, NetworkNews Newsletter July 2008 p. 1-2

New MOL Strategy

If you haven't thought about the IRS lately, now may be time for a review. Sophie Dennis, an Assistant Deputy Minister with the Ministry of Labour (MOL), recently presented the Provincial committee with information about the MOL's new enforcement strategy.

The new strategy, called Safe at Work Ontario, is currently being implemented across the province. Two themes that emerged during the presentation were the safety culture of workplaces and the need for a high-functioning internal responsibility system (IRS).

Results from the High Risk strategy

Before going into details of the Safe at Work Ontario strategy, Dennis discussed the results of the MOL's previous High Risk strategy. In 2004, when the High Risk strategy began, one of the main objectives was to protect workers who were at the greatest risk of being injured. The goal was to reduce the annual rate of workplace injuries in Ontario by twenty percent. The methods used were based mostly on individual firms' injury track records.

Companies were targeted for proactive inspection based on their past performance compared to their peers. The MOL recently announced that the twenty percent reduction in workplace injuries across Ontario has been achieved. The High Risk strategy was successful.

Implementation

The goal of the new strategy is to continue to reduce injuries and fatalities, but with a focus on improving the health and safety culture of Ontario workplaces. In order to do this, the MOL is adopting a more flexible approach than was used to implement the High Risk strategy. Two significant differences between the old and new strategies are the level of autonomy inspectors have in determining their level of intervention with a firm and the information used to prioritize proactive inspections.

Under the old strategy, inspectors had to visit a targeted firm four times no matter what they found during those visits. Under the new strategy, an inspector can decide how many times a firm needs to be visited in order to ensure that a proper health and safety program has been developed and is being followed. Under the new strategy, more factors than individual firms' injury records are being considered when prioritizing firms for inspection. For example, the hazardous nature of a sector may lead to proactive inspections even if the firm has not had any recent injuries.

Safety culture and the IRS

Another aspect of the new enforcement strategy is that inspectors will pay more attention to the IRS. Inspectors are going to assess the strength of a firm's IRS as an indication of the firm's safety culture. They will be looking for evidence of regular joint health and safety committee (JHSC) meetings, certified JHSC members, regular job site inspections and knowledge of health and safety regulations, among other things.

For more information about the Safe at Work Ontario strategy, visit www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/hs/sawo/index.html.