Province expands workplace inspections
Move comes as Canada Post reveals 121 Mississauga workers have tested positive since Jan. 1
Labour Minister Monte McNaughton is vowing to take a “tough stand” on rule-breaking employers as the province expands workplace safety inspections in sectors vulnerable to COVID-19 outbreaks.
It comes as workplace outbreaks, especially in industrial settings, continue to drive transmission. On Wednesday, Canada Post confirmed that 121 employees at its Mississauga facility have tested positive for the virus since Jan. 1.
A Canada Post spokesperson said Peel Public Health has allowed the mail carrier to “maintain its operations,” adding that the organization has “followed the guidance of public health authorities to implement rigorous measures to keep its employees safe.” On-site testing began Tuesday.
Provincial workplace inspections will include a focus on areas like distribution centres and warehousing, McNaughton said. In announcing new lockdown measures last week, the province said workplace safety campaigns would also focus on break rooms and carpooling, where “there is a tendency to forget about the importance of wearing masks, maintaining physical distance and hand hygiene.”
Deena Ladd of the Toronto-based Workers Action Centre said the
province should focus on the root causes of unsafe working conditions.
“The ministry of labour knows there’s a highly racialized workforce (with) no paid sick days, low wages and no benefits,” Ladd said. “The combination of precarious employment and the lack of ability to speak up without fear of losing work are the critical factors leading to more outbreaks.”
A recent study from the Institute for Work and Health found that half of essential workers surveyed reported that their workplace did not perform adequate infection control. More than 11,400 workers have fallen ill due to work-related COVID-19 exposures since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest statistics from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. There are 259 active workplace outbreaks in the province, the second highest number behind care settings.
In Peel and Toronto, warehousing and manufacturing have emerged as two of the hardest hit sectors.
The ministry inspections blitzes involving more than 300 officers will begin in Hastings and Prince Edward counties, and roll out across 10 other communities including Niagara, Durham, Halton and Toronto. The campaigns will include a focus on farms reliant on temporary foreign workers; almost 1,600 farm labourers in Ontario have tested positive for the virus since the start of the pandemic.
Wednesday’s announcement follows a weekend blitz at bigbox retailers in the GTA where just 69 per cent of businesses were found in compliance with COVID-19 safety precautions, resulting in 25 tickets to violators.
McNaughton said the number of workplace inspections in Ontario has increased by 39 per cent since 2019. Data obtained by the Star shows that between March and mid-December last year, the ministry issued just two fines for COVID-19 violations — one of them to a worker.
A report by Toronto’s medical officer of health this month called for strengthened proactive workplace safety inspections, as well as additional resources to protect vulnerable workers like temporary agency employees. McNaughton said the compliance rate at box stores was “not good enough.”
“Businesses know now what they need to be doing,” he said.
Enforcing workplace safety laws is an “integral” infection control measure, according to the SARS Commission tasked with investigating the province’s response to the 2003 epidemic. That report described the ministry of labour’s “sidelined” role as a key failing during the deadly outbreak.
Toronto’s medical officer as well as health and labour advocates have also called on the province to enact permanent paid sick days to help slow workplace spread of the virus and prevent future infectious disease outbreaks.
Premier Doug Ford has said the measure would “duplicate” a temporary federal sickness benefit that provides sick workers with $500 a week for up to two weeks. Workers can only apply for the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit retroactively, and payments can take anywhere from three days to a month to process. Only workers who lose out on at least half their work week due illness are eligible.
“It just doesn’t deal with the reality of the fact that you may just need to get a COVID test,” said Ladd.
McNaughton said Wednesday that he is “imploring” the federal government to speed up access to the CRSB.
“The federal government is going to have make those improvements,” he said.
“The provincial responsibility was to bring in job-protected leave and that’s what we did,” he added — referring to legislation passed at the start of the pandemic banning employers from firing workers who take time off for COVID-related illness.
Employer-mandated paid sick leave falls under provincial jurisdiction. Ontario workers previously had access to two paid sick days, which were revoked by the Ford government in 2018.