Résumés
Summary
Section 50 of the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act prohibits an employer from punishing a worker who complains about a health and safety concern and who seeks to exercise the right to raise or report this concern. A worker who suffers such a reprisal may file a grievance if covered by a collective agreement or make an application to the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB).
We studied the effectiveness of this protection by reviewing 688 OLRB section 50 complaint cases that had been filed and concluded between 2006 and 2017 and by interviewing 25 workers who had suffered reprisals and completed a formal complaint or grievance.
The majority of the workers had filed complaints about a physical work hazard. There was alleged harassment and/or violence in 45% of the cases. There was harassment in half of the cases involving women. Employment was frequently terminated when the complainants had exercised their legal right to refuse unsafe work, to call an inspector or to act as a worker OHS representative.
Although government OHS inspectors played a key role in most cases when called to address occupational health and safety concerns, they were prevented by government policy from investigating the reprisals. There was no penalty for employers who had violated section 50.
In the vast majority of cases, the complaints were settled without reinstatement of the worker and with an average settlement of $5,461. The complainant had to accept a confidentiality agreement as part of the settlement.
While the current settlement system is unlikely to encourage workers to exercise their rights, it does provide some compensation for those who have exercised them. In many of the cases we examined, the reprisal victims were faced with serious risks to their health and safety. They were not faced with a choice so much as a necessity to act. Often, they used strategies that could have been more effective in a system that recognized and defended their rights. Although the settlements were inadequate in recognizing both the rights at stake and the victims’ sacrifices, many of these workers did benefit from that option. Given that inspectors had responded to most of the complaints and investigated them, there is a basis for more effective enforcement.
Abstract
Workers have a right to participate in enforcement of occupational health and safety. Using a review of 688 cases submitted to the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) and 25 in-depth interviews with workers who went through the process, we examined the state’s strategy to protect workers from employer reprisals when they exercise health and safety rights at work. We argue that the existing remedies are important but limited and should be enhanced by a strategy of enforcing workers’ participation rights through sanctions directed against specific employer behaviours. In particular, the state should sanction employer harassment that masquerades as supervision.
Key words:
- occupational health and safety,
- worker participation,
- worker representation,
- worker health and safety rights,
- enforcement,
- reprisal,
- discipline
Résumé
L'article 50 de la Loi sur la santé et la sécurité au travail (Occupational Health and Safety Act) de l'Ontario interdit à un employeur de punir un travailleur qui se plaint d'un trouble de santé et de sécurité et qui cherche à exercer son droit de signaler ce problème. Un travailleur qui subit de telles représailles peut déposer un grief s'il est couvert par une convention collective ou faire une demande à la Commission des relations de travail de l'Ontario (CRTO).
Nous avons étudié l'efficacité de cette protection en examinant 688 dossiers de plaintes en vertu de la Section 50, qui avaient été déposés à la CRTO et conclus entre 2006 et 2017. Nous avons interrogé 25 travailleurs qui avaient subi des représailles après avoir rempli une plainte formelle ou un grief.
La majorité des travailleurs avaient déposé des plaintes concernant un danger physique au travail. Il y avait une allégation de harcèlement et/ou de violence dans 45% des cas : la proportion étant du 50% dans les dossiers où la victime était une femme. L'emploi a souvent pris fin lorsque les plaignants avaient exercé leur droit légal de refuser un travail dangereux, d'appeler un inspecteur ou d'agir en tant que représentant des travailleurs en matière de SST.
Bien que les inspecteurs gouvernementaux de SST aient joué un rôle clé dans la plupart des cas lorsqu'ils ont été appelés pour répondre aux problèmes de santé et de sécurité au travail, la politique gouvernementale les a empêchés d'enquêter sur les représailles. Aucune sanction n'était prévue pour les employeurs qui avaient enfreint l'article 50.
Dans la grande majorité des cas, les plaintes ont été réglées sans réintégration du travailleur et avec un règlement moyen de 5 461 $. Le plaignant a dû accepter un accord de confidentialité dans le cadre du règlement.
S'il est peu probable que le système de règlement actuel encourage les travailleurs à exercer leurs droits, il prévoit néanmoins une certaine compensation pour ceux qui les ont exercés. Dans bon nombre des cas que nous avons examinés, les victimes de représailles étaient confrontées à des risques graves pour leur santé et leur sécurité. Souvent, elles ont utilisé des stratégies qui auraient pu être plus efficaces dans un système qui aurait reconnu et défendu leurs droits. Bien que les règlements à l'amiable n'aient pas permis de reconnaître à la fois les droits et les sacrifices des victimes, nombre de ces travailleurs ont bénéficié de cette option. Considérant que des inspecteurs ont répondu à la plupart des plaintes et les ont examinées, il est possible de considérer qu’une application plus efficace des mécanismes de la loi est souhaitable.
Précis
Les travailleurs ont le droit de participer à l'application des règles de santé et de sécurité au travail. À l'aide d'un examen de 688 cas soumis à la Commission des relations de travail de l'Ontario (CRTO) et de 25 entrevues avec des travailleurs qui sont passés par le processus, nous avons examiné la stratégie de l'État pour les protéger contre les représailles de l'employeur lorsqu'ils exercent leurs droits en matière de santé et de sécurité au travail. Nous soutenons que les recours existants sont importants mais limités. Ils devraient être renforcés par une stratégie visant à faire respecter les droits de participation des travailleurs et par des sanctions dirigées contre des comportements spécifiques des employeurs. En particulier, l'État devrait punir le harcèlement patronal qui se fait passer pour de la surveillance.
Mot-clefs:
- Santé et sécurité au travail,
- participation des travailleurs,
- représentation des travailleurs,
- Droit de la santé et la sécurité au travail,
- représailles,
- discipline
Parties annexes
Bibliography
- Bernard, Elaine. (1995). “12 Canada: Joint Committees on Occupational Health and Safety.” Works Councils: Consultation, Representation, and Cooperation in Industrial Relations, 351.
- Bittle, Steven. (2012). Still Dying for a Living: Corporate Criminal Liability after the Westray Mine Disaster. UBC Press.
- Gray, Gary (2006). Ticketing health and safety offenders: a socio-legal examination of ticketing in high-risk firm initiatives. Policy and Practice in Health and Safety 4(2), 77-93.
- Gray, Gary (2011). Constraints to upholding workplace safety laws and regulations within organizations. Droit et société (1), 57-68.
- Hall, Alan., Anne Forrest, Alan Sears, and Niki Carlan. (2006). “Making a difference: Knowledge activism and worker representation in Joint OHS Committees.” Relations Industrielles. Industrial Relations 61(3), 408-436.
- Hall, Alan., John Oudyk, Andrew King, Syed Naqvi, & Wayne Lewchuk. (2016). Identifying knowledge activism in worker health and safety representation: A cluster analysis. American Journal of Industrial Medicine 59(1), 42-56.
- Ham, James. (1976). Report of the Royal Commission on the Health and Safety of Workers in Mines. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.
- Harcourt, Mark, & Sondra Harcourt. (2000). “When can an employee refuse unsafe work and expect to be protected from discipline? Evidence from Canada” ILR Review 53(4), 684-703.
- Hilgert, Jeffrey. (2012). “The future of workplace health and safety as a fundamental human right,” Comp. Lab. L. & Pol'y J. 34, 715.
- King, Andrew, Wayne Lewchuk, Ellen MacEachen & Julia Goyal. 2019. Making worker voice a reality under the Internal Responsibility System: The limits of Section 50 protections for workers experiencing OHS reprisals. https://labourstudies.mcmaster.ca/documents/reprisal-report-final-2019.pdf.
- Leopold, Les. (2007). The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor. Chelsea Green Publishing
- Lewchuk, Wayne. (2012). "The limits of voice: are workers afraid to express their health and safety rights." Osgoode Hall LJ 50, 789.
- Lippel, Katherine. (2018). “Conceptualising violence at work through a gender lens: Regulation and strategies for prevention and redress” U. Oxford Hum. Rts. Hub J. 143.
- Ollé-Espluga, Laia, Montserrat Vergara-Duarte, Maria Menéndez-Fuster, Joan Benach & Maria Luisa Vázquez. (2019). “Workers’ knowledge and views on interaction with health and safety representatives: An exploratory qualitative study” Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations 74(4), 719-741.
- Ponce Del Castillo, Aída. (2016). “Occupational Safety and Health in the EU: back to basics.” In Bart Vanhercke, David Natali and Denis Bouget, eds., Social Policy in the European Union: State of Play, ETUI.
- Richardson, Charles. (2008). “Working Alone,” New Labor Forum 17(3), 69-78).
- Robens, Alfred. (1972). Safety and Health at Work: Report of the Committee 1970-72. London: H.M.S.O.
- Rozen, Peter. (2013). “'But it's not safe!': Legal redress for workers who are victimised for raising a safety issue at work” Australian Journal of Labour Law 26, 326.
- Sass, Robert. (1989). “The implications of work organization for occupational health policy: The case of Canada” International Journal of Health Services 19(1), 157-173
- Spieler, Emily. (2016). “Whistleblowers and safety at work: An analysis of section 11 (c) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act” ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law 1-24.
- Tompa, E., Kalcevich, C., Foley, M., McLeod, C., Hogg‐Johnson, S., Cullen, K. & Irvin, E. (2016). A systematic literature review of the effectiveness of occupational health and safety regulatory enforcement. American Journal of Industrial Medicine 59(11), 919-933.
- Tucker, Eric. (1990). Administering Danger in the Workplace. University of Toronto Press.
- Tucker, Eric. (1995). Defeat Goes On: An Assessment of Third-Wave Health and Safety Regulation in Frank Pearce and Laureen Snider, eds. Corporate Crime: Contemporary Debates. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Tucker, Eric. (2003). “Diverging trends in worker health and safety protection and participation in Canada, 1985-2000” Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations 58(3), 395-426.
- Tucker, Eric. (2013). "Giving Voice to the Precariously Employed? Mapping and Exploring Channels of Worker Voice in Occupational Health and Safety Regulation" Comparative Research in Law & Political Economy. Research Paper No. 14/2013
- Walters, David. (2006). “One step forward, two steps back: worker representation and health and safety in the United Kingdom” International Journal of Health Services 36(1), 87-111.
- Walters, David, & Theo Nichol. (2007). Worker Representation and Workplace Health and Safety. Springer.
- Walters, David. (2011). “Worker representation and psycho-social risks: A problematic relationship?” Safety Science 49(4), 599–606
- Walters, David, & Emma Wadsworth. (2020). “Participation in safety and health in European workplaces: Framing the capture of representation” European Journal of Industrial Relations 26(1), 75-90.
- Walters, Vivienne & Ted Haines. (1988). “Workers' use and knowledge of the internal responsibility system': Limits to participation in occupational health and safety” Canadian Public Policy/Analyse de politiques 411-423.
- Walters, Vivienne & Margaret Denton. (1990). “Workers' knowledge of their legal rights and resistance to hazardous work” Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations 45(3), 531-547.
- Walters, Vivienne. (1991). “State mediation of conflicts over work refusals: The role of the Ontario Labour Relations Board” International Journal of Health Services 21(4), 717-729
- Zoller, Heather. (2003). “Health on the line: Identity and disciplinary control in employee occupational health and safety discourse” Journal of Applied Communication Research 31(2), 118-139.
10.7202/014184ar