The fatal accident at the Ezeflow plant in Granby (“Someone is going to die”, The duty, June 16, 2021) is yet another tragic illustration of the shameful fact that the plan for the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases in Quebec is the least restrictive of the 63 jurisdictions in Canada and the United States. Only 15% of workers in Quebec have any right to participate in the prevention of dangerous conditions.
As the article illustrates well, the workers at Ezeflow were keenly aware and deeply concerned about the dangers they faced. But they did not have the power to compel the employer to take appropriate action. As for the latter, he obviously lacked interest. The fine imposed by the CNESST – itself guilty of obvious negligence in the case of worker Gonzalez’s death – is not even $ 1,000 for every year of his life.
Faced with this situation, what does Minister Boulet, this former employer lawyer specializing in labor law, offer us? In principle, Bill 59 seeks to extend to all economic sectors the rights of workers to participate in prevention (this, 40 years after the adoption of a law that formally proclaimed this right!), But while removing them from ways to make this participation effective.
The bill would drastically limit the free time for the preventive activity of workers’ representatives, while removing what little power the current law gives to the minority to which it already applies. Thus the choice of the doctor in charge of occupational health in the company would be withdrawn from the parity committee (workers-employer) to be handed over to the employer alone; and the adoption of the prevention program would also become the prerogative of the employer alone. Finally, the members of the committee will only be able to request the doctor’s intervention in the event of immediate danger – and no longer as soon as a risk is present -, which goes against the logic of prevention.
Matter of power
All experience in occupational health and safety shows that the most effective factor in preventing occupational accidents and diseases is the power of workers over their working conditions. They are the ones who suffer from occupational accidents and diseases and who often also know how to best prevent them. As for the employers, and even the CNESST, this is far from obvious, as the case of the Ezeflow company shows.
We would like to think that in this period of pandemic, where the very fact of being present in the workplace poses a threat to the health of workers, the government of Quebec would have the decency and integrity to correct the criminal negligence of the past by empowering workers to influence the health and safety conditions in the workplace in which they spend – not out of real choice, but out of economic necessity – so much of their lives.
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