CRITICS COMPLAIN ABOUT NEW WORKPLACE SAFETY LAW

Saturday's Kitchener-Waterloo Record carrys the following story " Critics fear safety act changes will kill jobs". My first response to that title was better that title than one that said "Critics fear safety act changes will kill people". Is the system broken. Yes it is. Too many people, young, old ,male and female are dying or being horribly injured in this Province and in this Region. Perhaps these "critics" haven't lost someone they know; ... yet. Perhaps these "critics" might want to have embraced the current legislation more enthusiastically. My experience (construction & factory) is that there are a ton of labour, health & safety laws, all of which are ignored by small companies with impunity. Impunity that is until someone is hurt or dies. Most Ministry of Labour inspectors seem to focus on the big guys. How is it that I could work for years on end in small construction and never wear a hard hat? How could I work laying 350 degree fahrenheit asphalt with my shirt off? How does an employer for the sake of thirty seconds permit a loaded dump truck to raise it's box, full of hot asphalt without the safety chains on? How does that same employer who the previous year buried a young employee up to his waist in hot asphalt, then order another employee to go behind and under the back end of the truck with a wheelbarrow in order to fill up out of a small manual chute... with the safety chains still off and fifteen tons of asphalt overhead? Give me a break. Ontario workplaces maim and kill, year in and year out. More laws won't help but more enforcement would. Also more training would help. This training isn't just for the workers, it's also for the owners and supervisers. When the problem is fixed, then whine about more health & safety costs.