Safety initiatives are often among the first on the chopping block during tough economic times. While governments slice safety enforcement budgets as part of a deficit-reduction gesture, many contractors challenged by shrinking profit margins trim or slash safety programs to meet their bottom line.

Walter Keating, chair of the Insulators Trade Labour-Management Health and Safety Committee, says these days building project owners often expect more for less, a common symptom of any recession and reason for an increase in safety infractions.

“Budgets for building projects are often put together by consultants retained by the owners. The problem is they don’t always have the facts to get to the contractor so we’re left in a position of having to cut here and there to meet our budget.” Another growing problem during the recession, he points out, is that small start-up contractors trying to eke out a living any way they can don’t always see safety as a priority.

While accident statistics for the industry weren’t available for 2009, it is likely that rates are on the rise across Canada due to tough times. In Ontario alone from January to October 2009, there were nine fatalities and 14 critical injuries in the building industry. Stats for the insulation sector weren’t available. However, the province saw accident claims across the building industry steadily rise from 125 in 2004 to 277 in 2008. There is no reason to think that last year’s numbers won’t be even higher, suggests Keating.

Making matters worse are cuts to government safety programs that result in fewer construction safety inspectors on site. Often the hardest hit are small population centres.   

“We need people to be talking about safety at all times,” says Keating, pointing out that the December 24 tragedy in suburban Toronto where four construction workers fell 13 floors to their deaths when their swing stage collapsed should be a wake-up call.

“All companies, whether they have one employee or 100 need to have safety policies in place for first aid, supervisor training, WHMIS, dangerous goods, confined spaces, ergonomic lifting methods, fall arrest, proper scaffolding, asbestos and mould training, electrical hazards, hoisting and rigging, lockout and tag safety, occupational health and safety act training, and traffic protection and control planning.” 

Keating says sometimes contractors realize after bidding on a job that they haven’t budgeted for everything they need to complete the work safely. Pricing a job using ladders, rather than scaffolding, is an example. While it might not be clear in a tendering package that scaffolding will be needed, preparing a budget without it can result in an inaccurate bid. “To meet budget the contractor might take safety shortcuts, doing them on the backshift or the weekend to avoid getting caught [by construction inspectors].”

In the insulation industry, musculoskeletal injuries are among the most common, often resulting from something as simple as improper lifting. Falls, typically off ladders, are another concern.     

In Quebec, sometimes contractors take more safety risks and cut corners to meet their bottom line, especially on commercial projects, says Paul Bouchard, director of the asbestos removal and industrial divisions of Isolation Val/Mers, Ltée. – for instance, skipping daily “tool box” meetings, or not ensuring workers wear safety helmets, goggles, and gloves.
Bouchard says safety can add five to 15 percent to the total cost of a commercial contract. Along with costly injuries, the repercussion of taking shortcuts on safety can result in “very expensive” fines, or business license suspensions.

He says if every contractor includes safety costs in his/her tender then the jobs awarded will be for more money. “We can’t ignore safety, not only at the bidding stage, but also during the course of the job.”

Moreover, there shouldn’t be any grey areas that leave contractors to speculate on safety procedures, or who is responsible for ensuring the rules are followed. Quebec law stipulates that the company’s owner, job superintendent, and foremen are responsible for safety, and criminally responsible for injuries that could result in the death of a worker.

Most reputable employers have safety programs and set aside time for regular jobsite safety meetings. It is some of the small contractors (fly-by-night operations) that don’t take safety seriously, says Fred Clare, vice-president for the eastern Canada region of the Heat & Frost Insulators International.

“My experience is that it takes so little time to train in site-specific safety,” says Clare. Safety procedures have to be reinforced over the lifespan of the project, however, which can be months or longer.

How to get workers to form safety habits is an age-old problem. Reinforcing safety’s importance through shock value (graphic images of accidents) is incorporated into training programs presented by the union. Still, there’s nothing like being involved in an accident or knowing someone seriously injured to make a worker place special attention on safety procedures.
“I have yet to speak to a contractor who doesn’t care about the welfare of his employees or the reputation of his company,” says Clare. “By not allowing for the implementation of safety programs and policies in their bid they put both of these values at risk.”

He points out that it is only natural for workers to think their employer is only interested in his/her bottom line if there is no safety program in place.

“It results in workers cutting corners with safety and sooner or later there will be an accident, the only question is how serious. If the client finds out that safety has been compromised, chances are that contractor will not be working on that project in the future. Safety programs work best when everyone buys into them from management down to the workers.”