#safetyisnumberonepriority

The WorksafeBC was first introduced in 2013 in efforts to create a healthy and safe working environment and to prevent/address workplace bullying and harassment through explaining the duties of employer, workers, and supervisors. I think that the reason that WorksafeBC introduced new anti-bullying and harassment laws and regulations was that prior to the establishment of this policy, there were many incidences and reports that involved people being harmed either physically or mentally due to ignorance and negligence of others. According to the 2013 article by Jennifer Newman, a workplace psychologist, on the newly formed policies of WorksafeBC, many of the bullying situations have “managers as part of the root cause”. She then goes on to say “If managers abdicate their responsibility to set a healthy and safe tone, the policy and procedures set by WorkSafeBC will have no effect”. Before the policies came into effect, there was no place that workers could file a complaint to about workplace health and safety. Often times, if workers had complained about the harshness of their working conditions, they would be fired because no one would be on their side to help them go against their manager. Thankfully, due to the new laws and regulations, if employees have any complaints regarding their work, then they can now file a claim through WorksafeBC and if the claims are considered serious enough then they will accept it and take the matter into their own hands. However, even though this policy has come into effect, the problem of an unsafe or unhealthy workplace has not completely vanished; there have still been some situations where people have disregarded these policies and have caused damage. For example, Chris Gailus, a dominant figure in the news industry and a face of Global BC, has recently been the subject of a sexual harassment complaint. The victim who is Chris’s former makeup artist, has stated that he has made various sexually inappropriate remarks about her and has claimed that Gailus has apologized to her in an email after she confronted him and then stopped making inappropriate comments. In this kind of situation, because Chris Gailus is representing Global BC and has support from various sources unlike the victim, he might not be facing that severe of a consequence than he would if he was just a regular person. In order to prevent situations like this from escalating, it is the worker’s duty to let someone know before it gets severe. Also, managers and supervisors must take the lead and ensure staff understand and demonstrate healthy and safe workplace behavior. They must never create an unsafe condition in order to cut down on labour cost which is one of the reasons why these problems still persist after the WorksafeBC policies. This is shown in ‘The Matthew Bowcott Story’ where solely because a company/manager wants to cut down on labour costs, Matthew is forced to work faster than before which causes him to get into a terrible accident. Sometimes managers could be pushing workers to the limit, but despite this, as a worker in BC, one must know they they have the legal right to refuse unsafe work and when something doesn’t seem completely safe, the best option is to refuse the work rather than to do it especially if it is to impress someone.  In conclusion, safety and health is the number one priority and in order create a safe and healthy workplace, it is important to train the managers and leaders on how to responsively and in a timely way to unsafe and unhealthy behavior. Likewise, workers must also always put in the effort to enforce the policies created by WorksafeBC.

What I thought about the lesson overall:

Assignment #6- Worksafe BC. Click the image for link.