Disturbing ads make the point about workplace deaths
There is no such thing as a workplace accident. That’s the message the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), Ontario’s workers’ compensation board, wants to get across with its graphic advertising campaign.
In one television advertisement, a woman working in a retail store falls to her death from a rickety ladder onto a glass display case. In another, a forklift driver is killed when he backs into a shelf, causing a pipe to impale him.
“Our campaign says there really are no accidents, which really means that all of these incidents are preventable,” said Steve Mahoney, chair of the WSIB. “Many campaigns have attempted to draw attention to the seriousness of the issue, particularly as it relates to fatalities, and they haven’t been as successful as was expected. The idea was we should ratchet things up and be more provocative.”
In all, the campaign cost $4 million to produce and distribute. After launching the ads last month, Mahoney spoke with some miners in Timmins, Ont., who told him it was about time someone woke people up to the dangers at work.
“They said, ‘If we have to shock a few people and offend a few sensibilities to get the point across, then so be it.’ I think that generally there’s a willingness to acknowledge that this kind of thing needs to happen,” he said.
In 2005, 343 people died in Ontario due to work-related illnesses and injuries. Nearly 100 of them died from a traumatic, workplace incident, according to the WSIB.
When Mahoney took over as chair earlier this year, his goal was to get lost-time injuries and workplace fatalities down to zero. His critics have said that’s not a realistic goal.
“What is a realistic number? Is 50 dead OK to you? There’s only one number that’s acceptable and it’s zero,” he said. ¬“Accidents don’t just happen. These injuries and fatalities occur because somebody didn’t do what they were supposed to.”
Mahoney is frustrated that some tragic incidents, such as the five people who died recently when a Quebec overpass collapsed or soldiers’ deaths in Afghanistan, get all the media coverage while workplace deaths are ignored.
“When you talk in large numbers, there’s all kinds of uproar and attention and media coverage. What tends to happen with single incident fatalities is that they sort of fly under the radar,” he said. “As terrible and tragic as the fatalities in Afghanistan are, we all understand the purpose of people being there and fighting for freedom. There is no purpose to being killed on a work site.”
Not all the response to the ads has been positive. Some employers feel they’re being singled out, but Mahoney said the campaign isn’t about playing the “blame game.”
“Our ads do not point fingers at solely the employer or the employee,” he said. “There’s enough responsibility to go around.”
The commercials highlight that everyone — employees, managers and employers — must all share the responsibility of workplace fatalities and injuries.
Other provinces are also using graphic and disturbing ads to get the message across. Last year, the Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia used posters of bloody, severed body parts, including an eyeball and a hand, with a minimum-wage price tag attached to capture the attention of young workers.
The campaign, which cost $250,000 to produce and distribute, was a big leap for the WCB and something it wouldn’t have done if its target audience hadn’t demanded it, said Shelley Rowan, vice-president of marketing, communications and HR.
High school and university students told the WCB they didn’t think about workplace safety at all. When asked what would make them think about it, they said the WCB needed to take a graphic approach.
“It’s not something I would have naturally done,” said Rowan. “But when the very people you’re trying to reach say, ‘I know my parents may not like this, my teachers may not like this, but this is what I need to see in order to make me think differently,’ it made it an easy decision to make to go with that.”
The response from young people was positive, said Rowan. However, some people thought the WCB had gone too far. But with 900 young workers getting hurt every year in Nova Scotia, Rowan is willing to do whatever it takes to get the message across.
“This is what resonates, that’s what we need to do. It gets people talking about workplace safety and that’s the goal.”
WSIB television ad
View the video
In one television advertisement, a woman working in a retail store falls to her death from a rickety ladder onto a glass display case. In another, a forklift driver is killed when he backs into a shelf, causing a pipe to impale him.
“Our campaign says there really are no accidents, which really means that all of these incidents are preventable,” said Steve Mahoney, chair of the WSIB. “Many campaigns have attempted to draw attention to the seriousness of the issue, particularly as it relates to fatalities, and they haven’t been as successful as was expected. The idea was we should ratchet things up and be more provocative.”
In all, the campaign cost $4 million to produce and distribute. After launching the ads last month, Mahoney spoke with some miners in Timmins, Ont., who told him it was about time someone woke people up to the dangers at work.
“They said, ‘If we have to shock a few people and offend a few sensibilities to get the point across, then so be it.’ I think that generally there’s a willingness to acknowledge that this kind of thing needs to happen,” he said.
In 2005, 343 people died in Ontario due to work-related illnesses and injuries. Nearly 100 of them died from a traumatic, workplace incident, according to the WSIB.
When Mahoney took over as chair earlier this year, his goal was to get lost-time injuries and workplace fatalities down to zero. His critics have said that’s not a realistic goal.
“What is a realistic number? Is 50 dead OK to you? There’s only one number that’s acceptable and it’s zero,” he said. ¬“Accidents don’t just happen. These injuries and fatalities occur because somebody didn’t do what they were supposed to.”
Mahoney is frustrated that some tragic incidents, such as the five people who died recently when a Quebec overpass collapsed or soldiers’ deaths in Afghanistan, get all the media coverage while workplace deaths are ignored.
“When you talk in large numbers, there’s all kinds of uproar and attention and media coverage. What tends to happen with single incident fatalities is that they sort of fly under the radar,” he said. “As terrible and tragic as the fatalities in Afghanistan are, we all understand the purpose of people being there and fighting for freedom. There is no purpose to being killed on a work site.”
Not all the response to the ads has been positive. Some employers feel they’re being singled out, but Mahoney said the campaign isn’t about playing the “blame game.”
“Our ads do not point fingers at solely the employer or the employee,” he said. “There’s enough responsibility to go around.”
The commercials highlight that everyone — employees, managers and employers — must all share the responsibility of workplace fatalities and injuries.
Other provinces are also using graphic and disturbing ads to get the message across. Last year, the Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia used posters of bloody, severed body parts, including an eyeball and a hand, with a minimum-wage price tag attached to capture the attention of young workers.
The campaign, which cost $250,000 to produce and distribute, was a big leap for the WCB and something it wouldn’t have done if its target audience hadn’t demanded it, said Shelley Rowan, vice-president of marketing, communications and HR.
High school and university students told the WCB they didn’t think about workplace safety at all. When asked what would make them think about it, they said the WCB needed to take a graphic approach.
“It’s not something I would have naturally done,” said Rowan. “But when the very people you’re trying to reach say, ‘I know my parents may not like this, my teachers may not like this, but this is what I need to see in order to make me think differently,’ it made it an easy decision to make to go with that.”
The response from young people was positive, said Rowan. However, some people thought the WCB had gone too far. But with 900 young workers getting hurt every year in Nova Scotia, Rowan is willing to do whatever it takes to get the message across.
“This is what resonates, that’s what we need to do. It gets people talking about workplace safety and that’s the goal.”
WSIB television ad
View the video
