Workplace health and safety has come a long way since the IAPA was founded 90 years ago
In the early 1900s, the best hope of surviving a fire from a second-storey factory in Ontario was to climb down a rope. That was the fire emergency regulation at the time. Occupational health and safety has come a long way since then, thanks in no small part to the many members of the Industrial Accident Prevention Association (IAPA), which is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year.
“The founders of IAPA would be in awe at how the concept of a safe and healthy workplace has evolved to include emotional well-being, an individual’s health practices and the social culture of an organization,” said Maureen Shaw, CEO of the IAPA, a Mississauga, Ont.-based not-for-profit health and safety organization representing more than 50,000 member firms and 1.5 million Ontario workers.
While much remains to be done to protect workers in Canada, it’s worth reflecting on the progress of health and safety in the workplace over the past 90 years (see sidebar). Canadian HR Reporter shares the recollections of some veteran IAPA members, whose lives have been shaped and influenced by on-the-job safety or lack thereof.
PAUL DODDINGTON
Son of James Doddington, IAPA member from 1926 to 1959. Paul is the keeper of the IAPA film archives (which include black-and-white silent films going back to 1917) and currently lives in Port Carling, Ont.
“As a kid in the 1940s I remember some of the unsung heroes of the IAPA. One inspector, Harry Mabson, used to go into factories, such as the old lumber yard that was at the corner of Yonge and Eglinton in downtown Toronto. I’d visit him in his own shop, where he would be welding these devices. Turns out they were actually machine guards for circular saws. None of the factories back then had any guarding for dangerous machinery. And he’d take it upon himself to make sure those machines were guarded, even if it meant making the guards himself.
“One IAPA health and safety education film from the 1940s actually shows those homemade guards. There’s also one video where workers are building huge steam locomotives back in 1928. There’s a scene where they are pouring the castings for these giant 10-foot wheels. Sparks are flying everywhere. Nobody is wearing any safety equipment. One young kid, an apprentice, starts to lean in to look, and you see the foreman grab the kid and pull him back. Of course nowadays nothing like that would ever happen.
“Back then the job description was a lot different. You had to be smart enough to spot the dangers, smart enough to come up with a device or solution to eliminate the risk and smart enough to make sure it didn’t interfere with the machine or workflow. You didn’t just write down the risk and file the paperwork. As a health and safety inspector, you did everything.”
GUSTAV SCHEID
Volunteer IAPA member, 1971-1991 and chair of the safety committee at Westinghouse, where he worked for many years. He is now retired and resides in London, Ont.
“Health and safety has definitely changed from when I started in the 1970s. We had safety equipment but it was pretty hard to get workers to use it. They didn’t want to wear the hats or safety shoes. Worker training really helped to change those kinds of attitudes.
“I can remember a fork-lift truck driver going too fast and crashing into a transport trailer on the outside dock. Six years before I started, someone died of electrocution in the cage of a transformer.
“The attitudes of companies have really changed too. It used to be that if a worker got hurt they simply lost pay. Now companies have a responsibility to that worker. That’s incredibly important.”
MAUREEN SHAW
President and CEO of IAPA in Mississauga, Ont.
Workplace safety issues have directly affected Shaw’s life. Her grandfather died of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (also known as “black lung disease”) from working in a mine in Nanaimo, B.C. And her son lost a leg in an accidental explosion doing helicopter seismic exploration in the Rocky Mountains at the age of 23. This last tragedy played no small part in one of her many passionate projects — the IAPA’s Young Worker Awareness Program.
“I grew up on Vancouver Island in a small town called Chemainus, which had one of the largest saw mills at the time. My father worked there after the Second World War. They had what you would call health and safety ‘danger pay,’ where the mill basically paid extra for the most dangerous work, and my father took it.
“Whenever someone was injured or killed on the job, a siren would go off. You could hear it through the town. It was terrifying because you would never know who it was who had been hurt, or how bad. That was my introduction to health and safety.
“The workers were always going on strike to try to change the conditions (my father was a union steward). The store would give us credit until the strike was over, but once he was back at work, we’d have to pay that off. You could never get ahead.
“We’ve come a long way in addressing health and safety mechanisms. We’ve got hazardous materials regulations and safety committees in place, for example. We’ve also got much better education systems.
“Now we need to focus on the health of the workplace itself. We need to create cultures where safety is embodied in the organization, and not just one function of the human resources department. I’d like to see health and safety evolve to the point where it is part of corporate values.”
Lesley Young is a Toronto-based freelance writer.
THE LONG JOURNEY
Health and safety timeline
• 1884: The Ontario Factories Act is passed, establishing a system of inspection to ensure health and safety standards in factories. Number of hours that can be worked per week is set at 72.
• Oct. 13, 1884: An explosion at the Hamilton Powder Company kills five workers. The case comes to trial and establishes corporate legal liability for death and injuries in the workplace.
• 1886: Workmen’s Compensation for Injuries Act becomes the first worker’s compensation legislation in Canada, establishing conditions under which a worker can launch legal action against an employer for injuries sustained at the workplace.
• 1914: The Ontario Workmen’s Compensation Act is passed, which establishes what is now the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario, stating some level of injury is inevitable and compensation should be provided without regard to responsibility. The other provinces follow suit over the next several decades.
• 1919: The Department of Labour is established in Ontario.
• 1932: The Employment and Social Insurance Act and Minimum Wage Act are passed in Ontario. Public workers are limited to a 44-hour workweek and industrial workers are limited to a 48-hour workweek.
• 1950: The Royal Commission on Workmen’s Compensation Act recommends joint labour and workplace safety committees be established in workplaces.
• 1964: Amendment of Workmen’s Compensation Act establishes the role of Ontario associations to be educational, not inspection-oriented.
• 1975: IAPA launches concept of loss-control management, which sees a change from injury investigation to looking at the basic cause of accidents, whether or not an injury occurred, with the emphasis on injury prevention.
• 1979: Ontario Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act comes into force, establishing the “internal responsibility system.”
• 1988: The Hazardous Product Act comes into effect federally, introducing the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System as a national hazard classification and communication standard in Canada.
• 1990: Bill 208 amends the OHS Act broadening requirement for joint health and safety committees and establishes the right to stop work.
• 1996: The IAPA launches the Young Worker Awareness Program.
• 2004: Bill C-45 is passed, ensuring organizations are held accountable when they commit criminally negligent acts in the workplace.
• 2004: For the first time in IAPA history, the lost-time injury rate (the average number of lost-time injuries experienced for every 100 workers) for IAPA member firms drops below two.
“The founders of IAPA would be in awe at how the concept of a safe and healthy workplace has evolved to include emotional well-being, an individual’s health practices and the social culture of an organization,” said Maureen Shaw, CEO of the IAPA, a Mississauga, Ont.-based not-for-profit health and safety organization representing more than 50,000 member firms and 1.5 million Ontario workers.
While much remains to be done to protect workers in Canada, it’s worth reflecting on the progress of health and safety in the workplace over the past 90 years (see sidebar). Canadian HR Reporter shares the recollections of some veteran IAPA members, whose lives have been shaped and influenced by on-the-job safety or lack thereof.
PAUL DODDINGTON
Son of James Doddington, IAPA member from 1926 to 1959. Paul is the keeper of the IAPA film archives (which include black-and-white silent films going back to 1917) and currently lives in Port Carling, Ont.
“As a kid in the 1940s I remember some of the unsung heroes of the IAPA. One inspector, Harry Mabson, used to go into factories, such as the old lumber yard that was at the corner of Yonge and Eglinton in downtown Toronto. I’d visit him in his own shop, where he would be welding these devices. Turns out they were actually machine guards for circular saws. None of the factories back then had any guarding for dangerous machinery. And he’d take it upon himself to make sure those machines were guarded, even if it meant making the guards himself.
“One IAPA health and safety education film from the 1940s actually shows those homemade guards. There’s also one video where workers are building huge steam locomotives back in 1928. There’s a scene where they are pouring the castings for these giant 10-foot wheels. Sparks are flying everywhere. Nobody is wearing any safety equipment. One young kid, an apprentice, starts to lean in to look, and you see the foreman grab the kid and pull him back. Of course nowadays nothing like that would ever happen.
“Back then the job description was a lot different. You had to be smart enough to spot the dangers, smart enough to come up with a device or solution to eliminate the risk and smart enough to make sure it didn’t interfere with the machine or workflow. You didn’t just write down the risk and file the paperwork. As a health and safety inspector, you did everything.”
GUSTAV SCHEID
Volunteer IAPA member, 1971-1991 and chair of the safety committee at Westinghouse, where he worked for many years. He is now retired and resides in London, Ont.
“Health and safety has definitely changed from when I started in the 1970s. We had safety equipment but it was pretty hard to get workers to use it. They didn’t want to wear the hats or safety shoes. Worker training really helped to change those kinds of attitudes.
“I can remember a fork-lift truck driver going too fast and crashing into a transport trailer on the outside dock. Six years before I started, someone died of electrocution in the cage of a transformer.
“The attitudes of companies have really changed too. It used to be that if a worker got hurt they simply lost pay. Now companies have a responsibility to that worker. That’s incredibly important.”
MAUREEN SHAW
President and CEO of IAPA in Mississauga, Ont.
Workplace safety issues have directly affected Shaw’s life. Her grandfather died of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (also known as “black lung disease”) from working in a mine in Nanaimo, B.C. And her son lost a leg in an accidental explosion doing helicopter seismic exploration in the Rocky Mountains at the age of 23. This last tragedy played no small part in one of her many passionate projects — the IAPA’s Young Worker Awareness Program.
“I grew up on Vancouver Island in a small town called Chemainus, which had one of the largest saw mills at the time. My father worked there after the Second World War. They had what you would call health and safety ‘danger pay,’ where the mill basically paid extra for the most dangerous work, and my father took it.
“Whenever someone was injured or killed on the job, a siren would go off. You could hear it through the town. It was terrifying because you would never know who it was who had been hurt, or how bad. That was my introduction to health and safety.
“The workers were always going on strike to try to change the conditions (my father was a union steward). The store would give us credit until the strike was over, but once he was back at work, we’d have to pay that off. You could never get ahead.
“We’ve come a long way in addressing health and safety mechanisms. We’ve got hazardous materials regulations and safety committees in place, for example. We’ve also got much better education systems.
“Now we need to focus on the health of the workplace itself. We need to create cultures where safety is embodied in the organization, and not just one function of the human resources department. I’d like to see health and safety evolve to the point where it is part of corporate values.”
Lesley Young is a Toronto-based freelance writer.
THE LONG JOURNEY
Health and safety timeline
• 1884: The Ontario Factories Act is passed, establishing a system of inspection to ensure health and safety standards in factories. Number of hours that can be worked per week is set at 72.
• Oct. 13, 1884: An explosion at the Hamilton Powder Company kills five workers. The case comes to trial and establishes corporate legal liability for death and injuries in the workplace.
• 1886: Workmen’s Compensation for Injuries Act becomes the first worker’s compensation legislation in Canada, establishing conditions under which a worker can launch legal action against an employer for injuries sustained at the workplace.
• 1914: The Ontario Workmen’s Compensation Act is passed, which establishes what is now the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario, stating some level of injury is inevitable and compensation should be provided without regard to responsibility. The other provinces follow suit over the next several decades.
• 1919: The Department of Labour is established in Ontario.
• 1932: The Employment and Social Insurance Act and Minimum Wage Act are passed in Ontario. Public workers are limited to a 44-hour workweek and industrial workers are limited to a 48-hour workweek.
• 1950: The Royal Commission on Workmen’s Compensation Act recommends joint labour and workplace safety committees be established in workplaces.
• 1964: Amendment of Workmen’s Compensation Act establishes the role of Ontario associations to be educational, not inspection-oriented.
• 1975: IAPA launches concept of loss-control management, which sees a change from injury investigation to looking at the basic cause of accidents, whether or not an injury occurred, with the emphasis on injury prevention.
• 1979: Ontario Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act comes into force, establishing the “internal responsibility system.”
• 1988: The Hazardous Product Act comes into effect federally, introducing the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System as a national hazard classification and communication standard in Canada.
• 1990: Bill 208 amends the OHS Act broadening requirement for joint health and safety committees and establishes the right to stop work.
• 1996: The IAPA launches the Young Worker Awareness Program.
• 2004: Bill C-45 is passed, ensuring organizations are held accountable when they commit criminally negligent acts in the workplace.
• 2004: For the first time in IAPA history, the lost-time injury rate (the average number of lost-time injuries experienced for every 100 workers) for IAPA member firms drops below two.
