Module 3.1 - Working together for safety
Understanding the Occupational Health and Safety Act is about knowing employers’ and supervisors’ health and safety duties, and workers’ duties and rights, and acting accordingly. Everyone needs to be involved.
- If the University is aware of a hazard and doesn’t try to eliminate or reduce it, or make sure workers are told about it and how to deal with it, then the University is not doing what the law requires.
- If a supervisor knows about a hazard and doesn’t explain to workers how to deal with it, that supervisor is not doing what the law requires.
- If a worker knows about a hazard and doesn’t report it to a supervisor or the employer, that worker is not doing what the law requires.
If you see a hazard on the job, you have a duty to speak up. This includes reporting equipment that isn’t working properly, equipment missing guards, slippery floor surfaces and any other hazard that may be present as a result of not following the OHSA or regulations.
It is important that you report to your supervisor (or appropriate University representative) any injury, incident or close call, so that the University can take proper action to prevent those kinds of things from happening again in the future. Report an event using the uOttawa accident/incident reporting form.
If you answer YES to one of the following questions, immediately contact Protection Services and indicate that someone has suffered a critical or fatal injury in your sector. Remain available in case more information is needed.
Did the injury:
- Endanger someone’s life?
- Cause someone to lose consciousness?
- Cause heavy blood loss?
- Cause a fracture to an arm or to a leg (but not to a finger or a toe)?
- Cause the amputation of a leg, an arm, a hand or a foot (but not of a finger or a toe)?
- Cause burns to a major portion of the body?
- Cause a loss of vision in one eye?
Module 3.2 - The right to participate in health and safety issues
The OHSA gives you the right as employees to participate and get involved in keeping your workplace safe and healthy. There are many ways you can do this. Here are just a few:
- Ask questions when you’re not sure about something.
- Volunteer to become a worker health and safety member of the Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee. Speak with your union or association for more details on the process, or contact the Office of the Chief Risk Officer.
- Help a health and safety committee with workplace health and safety inspections by pointing out possible hazards in your work area.
- Take health and safety training seriously and put what you learn into practice in your job. Be a role model.
Module 3.3 - Joint health and safety committees
The OHSA says that workplaces like uOttawa need to have a joint health and safety committee. The committee plays an important role in helping to keep workplaces safe. For example, a committee member who represents workers must regularly inspect the workplace. Information from these inspections is brought back to the committee. The committee then makes recommendations to the University to improve health and safety. The University has a legal duty to respond to these recommendations within a reasonable period of time (for less urgent situations, 21 days is the standard response time). The committee includes both employer and worker members, so everyone is involved in identifying and solving problems.
The University has a health and safety committee, the Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee (UJOHSC). Members come from unions and associations across the campus.
The University also has three functional occupational health and safety committees:
- The Laboratory Functional Occupational Health and Safety Committee
- The Office Functional Occupational Health and Safety Committee
- The Facilities and Protection Functional Occupational Health and Safety Services Committee
- The Alta Vista Functional Occupational Health and Safety Committee
- The Psychological Functional Occupational Health and Safety Committee
Duties of committees can be found under section 9(18) of the OHSA. Because activities, and therefore, health and safety issues, vary at the University, separate committees were established to deal with specific issues. This allows employees to direct their health and safety concerns to those directly involved with the type of work they do. For example, the Laboratory Committee deals with hazards and concerns related to a lab environment (either undergraduate, graduate, wet lab or workshop).
The majority of worker members sitting on the health and safety committees are union-appointed and represent their union on the committee. Representatives of non-unionized University employees also sit on the committees. No matter what union or association you belong to, if you are interested in being a member of your health and safety committee, please contact your union or association.
Here is a list of unions and associations at the University:
- Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa (APUO)
- Association of Part-Time Professors of the University of Ottawa (APTPUO)
- Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 2626 (CUPE)
- Canadian Union of Public Employees, Lifeguards (CUPE)
- Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation / Support Staff University of Ottawa (OSSTF/SSUO)
- Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC)
- International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), Local 772A
- International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), Local 772B
- Non-Union Employee Association (NUEA)
Before a health and safety committee meeting can be declared an official business meeting, quorum must be achieved. This means that more than 50% of the members holding worker-represented positions are present, along with at least one employer representative and either of the committee co-chairs.
Resource persons
There are also committee seats for resource persons. At the committee's discretion, individuals may be invited to sit on the committee based on their expertise in a particular subject matter.
For complete details on the way the uOttawa Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee is structured, please refer to the Terms of Reference (PDF, 1MB) or speak with your union or association.
Module 3.4 - What to look for and what to ask
The OHSA says that the University must post the OHSA and other health and safety information such as the University’s health and safety policy, committee minutes and lists of committee members in the workplace. You can find this information on campus health and safety bulletin boards.
If you can’t find this information in your workplace, ask your supervisor about it or contact the Office of the Chief Risk Officer. Health and safety is an important part of everyone’s job — talk to your colleagues so you can learn and benefit from each other’s experience.
You can help by always being on the lookout for hazards to yourself or others. Continuously ask yourself questions like:
- Is any of the machinery, or a component of it, broken or damaged?
- Are there warning labels or signs? Are they legible and understandable?
- Is there any moving equipment I could get caught in?
- Is there something I could slip or trip on?
- Do I need protective equipment?
- Do I know how to do this job safely?
- Is there another worker nearby who could get hurt by what I’m doing?
- Is this task more than I can physically handle?
- Where is the nearest emergency equipment? There will be different types of emergency equipment for different locations. For example, office locations will not have emergency showers or spill kits, but will have fire extinguishers. Look for some of the following:
- Emergency eyewashes
- Emergency showers
- First aid kits
- Spill kits
- Emergency exits
- Fire extinguishers
Get in the habit of asking these simple questions before starting a task.
Module 3.5 - Be a safety role model
Workers should be able to look to their supervisors as good health and safety role models. But your fellow workers may also be looking to you as a role model for good health and safety practices. How you work, and the way you think and talk about the work, can affect the safety of the people you work with. The message you want others to get from you is “Prevention starts here.”
Two things you can easily do to be a role model are:
- Avoid working alone: The University has a directive on after-hours access to labs, which includes a short section about working alone. See the Directive on After-Hours Access to Research Laboratories for Research Personnel (PDF, 13KB).
- Respect entry signage for laboratories and other restricted areas: Some areas are particularly hazardous; refrain from entering them. If you require access to specialized areas as part of your job, ensure that you speak with your supervisor before entering. Your supervisor will ensure that you are adequately oriented, aware and prepared for potential hazards. Some examples of hazardous areas at uOttawa are the tunnels, confined spaces, laboratory/research environments and the Power Plant.