Focus on keeping workers injury-free

Re: Increase in sick days and lost time claims costing city, report finds, Oct. 9

I’m disappointed with the nonchalant tone of this report based on the potential impact on families. Based on the reference to days lost due to work-related incidents, if this is 12.5 incidents per 200,000 hours, this translates into 12.5 out of every 100 workers getting injured seriously enough in a 12-month period that they will miss time from work, which will also impact their family life. If you extend this statistic, it means that each worker in this group will be injured severely enough at some point over the next eight years that they will require medical attention and will miss time. These are not good odds!

Mayor Nenshi, as the “senior manager” of this group, employees and employees’ representatives — all of you have a moral responsibility to turn this around. This is a joint three-party responsibility as the difference between an incident being a first aid, a lost-time accident, a longterm disability or fatality is pure luck!

Bob Fraser, Calgary