Workplace accidents are declining across province
Regina professor credits efforts by unions, employers, government
The decline in Saskatchewan's workplace injury rate last year is good news to Sean Tucker, professor of occupational health and safety at the University of Regina, who commends the work of employers, workers, unions and others involved in injury prevention.
According to the Saskatchewan Workers' Compensation Board (WCB), the 2023 time loss injury rate was 1.78 per 100 workers, which Tucker said is tied for the all-time lowest time loss injury rate with 2020. The total injury rate is the lowest recorded in the province's history, with 3.95 per 100 workers.
“What we've seen broadly across Canada — and Saskatchewan's mirrored this — is a very consistent downward decline in both the total and time loss injury rate,” Tucker said during an interview on Thursday.
“What's happened in the last few years is the time loss rates in most provinces kind of plateaued. In a way they kind of just flattened out and haven't gotten any lower, but it's good to see that ours is still trending downwards to 1.78.”
Tucker expects the WCB to release more details on last year's claims in the coming months that will show which sectors have experienced increases, decreases and constant injury claim rates.
“The province has a serious injury and fatality strategy that was unveiled last year that targets health care, transportation and construction, so we'll look at those areas closely when the detailed claim statistics are released and see if there was progress made in those priority areas,” he said, adding he expects to get a better sense of the progress being made in the coming years.
The WCB'S 2023 report showed there were 29 workplace fatalities in a variety of industries in the province, compared with 39 in 2022. Tucker said the number of occupational disease fatalities — which are mostly related to exposure to asbestos — have decreased significantly.
“There were 10 of those last year and that's the lowest number of occupational disease since 2015,” he said, adding the number fluctuates every year.
“Sometimes occupational disease fatalities go unreported, so somebody may have succumbed to a cancer and it may be work-related, but maybe the treating physician doesn't take your work-related history or the worker is just unaware that their cancer was caused by work.”
While there is potential for occupational disease fatalities to go unreported, Tucker said he has the Saskatchewan cancer registry's counts for mesothelioma — a form of cancer which is caused by asbestos exposure — and the number aligns closely with the number of WCB claims for the disease.
“I think we're doing a good job at picking up those, but there may be other cancers that are due to work-related exposures that for a variety of reasons aren't recorded as work-related deaths.”
Nine fatalities were caused by motor vehicle collisions, and the remaining 10 were from non-occupational disease, which includes traumatic events such as electrocution, falls, heart attacks and suicide. Tucker said that doesn't represent a change year over year.
He said the number of fatalities in the report doesn't include fatalities related to farming. He pointed to a U of S study that showed there were 166 farm work-related fatalities recorded between 2005 and 2019 in Saskatchewan. According to the study, the most common location of injury was the farmyard or field and the most common cause of injury was a tractor.
“People working in agriculture can voluntarily pay for WCB coverage, so there is a category there for farming and ranching, but it's my understanding that most of these go unrecorded and that's why the researchers will turn to the coroners reports for that data.”
Tucker highlighted the issue of psychological injuries in the workplace which can be caused by harassment and sexual harassment.
He said there is still a lot of stigma around mental health and reporting harassment.
“We have a lot more work to do to prevent workplace harassment, sexual harassment and other forms of psychological injuries in the workplace. These types of injuries often go unreported, so when we're talking about work-related injuries, they're often under-represented in the WCB claims data.”
He said with serious injuries still occurring in the province, and some employers not taking their responsibility seriously, continuing to have inspections in the workplace for employers with a pattern of non-compliance is important.
“Continuing with prosecutions is important and they send a strong deterrence message to employers who may think that they can take shortcuts when it comes to worker safety,” Tucker said.
We have a lot more work to do to prevent workplace harassment, sexual harassment and ... psychological injuries.