WCB mounts campaign to inform, protect younger workers

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

Nunavut’s agency to protect workers is mounting a campaign to show young employees that they don’t have to risk their lives to keep their jobs.

The NWT & Nunavut Workers Compensation Board has been trying to get into classrooms in the territories over the past year, in order to teach youth about the dangers of the workplace.

Terry Cameron, chief safety inspector for the WCB in Nunavut, said young workers are often putting themselves in dangerous situations because they’re too eager to please their bosses.

He said youth need to be taught their rights in the workplace, which include the right to sufficient training, and the right to refuse an assigned task.

“There’s a basic lack of knowledge about their rights as workers,” Cameron said. “These rights are something we want them to know.”

Cameron recently joined other residents and workers’ advocates at the Nunavut legislative assembly to pay homage to workers who have died or been injured on the job. The ceremony was part of a national day of mourning on April 28.

After the gathering, union representatives said young workers needed the most attention in Nunavut, in terms of improving workplace safety.

“We have so many young workers who go to work and they’re not trained,” said Shona Barkley, a WCB board member through the Northern Territories Federation of Labour.

“They end up in situations where it’s not safe.”

Barkley said the WCB should especially reach out to youth going into seasonal construction jobs, where young Nunavummiut tend to find a lot of their employment in the summer.

Barkley listed grim national statistics on workplace injury and death to more than 30 government bureaucrats, and family and friends of deceased workers, who came to the ceremony last week.

Since the mid-1980s, more than 16,000 workers have died on the job; 18,000 have been injured. Last year, 800 more workers died in Canada of workplace injury or disease.

Those included six fatal accidents and incidents that occurred in the territories over the past year.

Jatinder Ji Singh Bhanwer, a 47-year-old helicopter pilot, died in a crash near Shepard’s Bay, south of Taloyoak, in November.

Bhanwer’s picture lay on a table beside photos of Kakasie Mitsima and Charlie Sagiatook, who drowned in a hunting accident near Iqaluit in October.

A series of speakers also brought attention to tragedies outside of Nunavut. Two included Aaron Vandriesum, at Wignes Lake, and Gary Robinson in Yellowknife.

Kate Emmons, a member of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, recalled the highly publicized death of Louise Pargeter.

Pargeter, a parole officer, died in October while visiting a parolee in Yellowknife. The man, from Igloolik, faces charges of first-degree murder in relation her death.

Emmons said the incident prompted the government to change the rules about a parole officer visiting a parolee with a violent past, alone. Officers must now go in pairs.

“If that was in place before, Louise would still be with us now,” Emmons said.

For youth, the WCB has released a video underlining an employee’s right to safety in Safety and the Young Worker. They’ve managed to give presentations in four communities, so far.

But WCB officials say they need more staff and funding to develop a formal course that they can bring to classrooms across the territory.

“We’d like the department of education and teachers to take it over,” Cameron said. “But that’s a tough sell. They’d like to see more participation from us.”

Cameron said WCB management is still discussing the next step of the campaign with school boards.