Joint inspection teams and better seat belt laws needed: union group
On a rainy morning last month, a van transporting 16 women to work skidded on a highway near Abbotsford, B.C., rolled, hit two other trucks and came to a stop upside down on a concrete median. The crash killed three women — Amarjit Kaur Bal, Sarabjit Kaur Sidhu and Sukhwinder Kaur Punia.
The van, operated by contract company RHA Enterprises, was transporting the Indo-Canadian workers to a nursery in Chilliwack.
While the RCMP, the Ministry of Transportation’s commercial vehicle safety branch and WorkSafeBC, the province’s workers’ compensation board, are all investigating the crash and the B.C. coroner has also called an inquest, the British Columbia Federation of Labour worries nothing will change.
“We’re concerned because, quite frankly, coroners have made recommendations before that were ignored,” said Jessie Uppal, the federation’s director of communications.
In 2003, a 15-passenger van carrying 18 berry pickers crashed and one worker, Mohinder Sunar, died.
“She did not die because of the crash,” said Uppal. “She was asphyxiated because her fellow workers were on top of her.”
Following Sunar’s death, WorkSafeBC and the coroner’s report called for the reinstatement of roadside inspections by the RCMP, the motor vehicle and gas safety branches of the Ministry of Transportation, WorkSafeBC and the Ministry of Labour. However, the government has failed to implement the recommendations.
WorkSafeBC and the coroner’s report also urged the government to clarify seat belt laws and prevent the removal of seat belts. These recommendations were also ignored.
“We know what the problems are and we know what some of the solutions are. We know enough to act,” said Uppal.
From 1983 to the end of last year, 16 farm workers were killed while being transported, according to WorkSafeBC. That figure is twice the number of fatalities for the next leading cause of death: unguarded machinery.
The main reason vehicle fatalities are such a problem for farm workers in B.C. is the province’s lax seat belt laws, said Uppal.
Under the B.C. Motor Vehicle Act (MVA), which regulates seat belt usage on highways, the penalty for failing to wear a seat belt is a fine of $138. There is no restriction or penalty against the person’s driver’s licence.
“Seat belt infraction fines simply become a cost of doing business. Because they’re not prohibitive, they don’t scare people off,” said Uppal.
The RCMP said it appears as if some of the occupants in the March 7 crash, ranging in age from 20 to 50, were not wearing seat belts. RCMP statistics show that of those who die in motor vehicle accidents, 60 per cent would probably be alive if they had worn a seat belt.
The issue of seat belts is fraught with loopholes as different agencies have different jurisdictions and regulations regarding their use. Under the MVA, police can only enforce seat belt use if there are seat belts in place. If they have been removed, or if there are more people in the vehicle than there are seat belts, there’s nothing they can do.
WorkSafeBC’s seat belt regulations are more stringent: there must be one seat belt for each seat and each passenger. But WorkSafeBC doesn’t have the authority to pull over vehicles on the highway — it can only inspect them when they are at the workplace.
In the days following the accident last month, the Ministry of Transportation, the RCMP and WorkSafeBC instituted joint, random inspections of vehicles transporting farm workers to see if they were in compliance with the different agencies’ regulations.
“Whether we do that again or not remains to be seen, but we are looking at that,” said Scott McCloy, director of communications for WorkSafeBC. “We are working closely with the other agencies in determining what we are going to do next.”
In light of the fatal crash, the B.C. Federation of Labour has made 29 recommendations to Labour Minister Olga Ilich. Chief among these is the call for an inter-agency team, including the employment standards branch, WorkSafeBC, the Ministry of Transportation’s commercial vehicle safety branch, the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency.
All of these agencies have some responsibility for the protection of farm workers and by bringing them together, there will be less question about who is responsible for what, said Uppal.
“The government has stated that the idea bears merit,” said McCloy. “We want to be part of anything that’s going to make a difference in terms of the safety of farm workers. No determinations on that have been made at this point, but we are optimistic that the parties will all be able to work together going forward.”
Other recommendations include improvements to traffic and vehicle safety, joint inspections of vehicles on the road, better seat belt laws and tougher fines for overcrowding of vehicles used to transport workers.
Between 2001 and 2005, 20 workers died in agricultural-related accidents and 183 were seriously injured, according WorkSafeBC. However, analysis of accident data from 1992 to 2005 showed a 45-per-cent reduction in the injury rate, from 1,096 injuries per 100 person years of work to 746.
But Uppal is skeptical about what the data really means. Farm workers have only been covered by the Occupational Health and Safety Act since 2003 and, because of that, many workers and employers aren’t aware of their rights and responsibilities under the act, she said.
“There hasn’t been a great deal of education awareness and enforcement of those rules with respect to farm workers,” she said. “The piece of paper has changed but without the enforcement, it hasn’t really changed the actual working conditions and work practices.”
The lack of adherence to the regulatory bodies was evident in the crash on March 7. Two weeks before, on Feb. 22, a WorkSafeBC inspector counselled RHA Enterprises, which provides workers to nurseries and greenhouses and which was transporting the women on March 7, about the safe transport of workers.
The officer, Baldev Seehra, spoke to the women in Punjabi about wearing seat belts and wrote a detailed report outlining the employer’s responsibility to ensure everyone in the van had a seat belt, which was given to RHA Enterprises, said McCloy. However, the van was not inspected because it was not on site at the time.
The van, operated by contract company RHA Enterprises, was transporting the Indo-Canadian workers to a nursery in Chilliwack.
While the RCMP, the Ministry of Transportation’s commercial vehicle safety branch and WorkSafeBC, the province’s workers’ compensation board, are all investigating the crash and the B.C. coroner has also called an inquest, the British Columbia Federation of Labour worries nothing will change.
“We’re concerned because, quite frankly, coroners have made recommendations before that were ignored,” said Jessie Uppal, the federation’s director of communications.
In 2003, a 15-passenger van carrying 18 berry pickers crashed and one worker, Mohinder Sunar, died.
“She did not die because of the crash,” said Uppal. “She was asphyxiated because her fellow workers were on top of her.”
Following Sunar’s death, WorkSafeBC and the coroner’s report called for the reinstatement of roadside inspections by the RCMP, the motor vehicle and gas safety branches of the Ministry of Transportation, WorkSafeBC and the Ministry of Labour. However, the government has failed to implement the recommendations.
WorkSafeBC and the coroner’s report also urged the government to clarify seat belt laws and prevent the removal of seat belts. These recommendations were also ignored.
“We know what the problems are and we know what some of the solutions are. We know enough to act,” said Uppal.
From 1983 to the end of last year, 16 farm workers were killed while being transported, according to WorkSafeBC. That figure is twice the number of fatalities for the next leading cause of death: unguarded machinery.
The main reason vehicle fatalities are such a problem for farm workers in B.C. is the province’s lax seat belt laws, said Uppal.
Under the B.C. Motor Vehicle Act (MVA), which regulates seat belt usage on highways, the penalty for failing to wear a seat belt is a fine of $138. There is no restriction or penalty against the person’s driver’s licence.
“Seat belt infraction fines simply become a cost of doing business. Because they’re not prohibitive, they don’t scare people off,” said Uppal.
The RCMP said it appears as if some of the occupants in the March 7 crash, ranging in age from 20 to 50, were not wearing seat belts. RCMP statistics show that of those who die in motor vehicle accidents, 60 per cent would probably be alive if they had worn a seat belt.
The issue of seat belts is fraught with loopholes as different agencies have different jurisdictions and regulations regarding their use. Under the MVA, police can only enforce seat belt use if there are seat belts in place. If they have been removed, or if there are more people in the vehicle than there are seat belts, there’s nothing they can do.
WorkSafeBC’s seat belt regulations are more stringent: there must be one seat belt for each seat and each passenger. But WorkSafeBC doesn’t have the authority to pull over vehicles on the highway — it can only inspect them when they are at the workplace.
In the days following the accident last month, the Ministry of Transportation, the RCMP and WorkSafeBC instituted joint, random inspections of vehicles transporting farm workers to see if they were in compliance with the different agencies’ regulations.
“Whether we do that again or not remains to be seen, but we are looking at that,” said Scott McCloy, director of communications for WorkSafeBC. “We are working closely with the other agencies in determining what we are going to do next.”
In light of the fatal crash, the B.C. Federation of Labour has made 29 recommendations to Labour Minister Olga Ilich. Chief among these is the call for an inter-agency team, including the employment standards branch, WorkSafeBC, the Ministry of Transportation’s commercial vehicle safety branch, the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency.
All of these agencies have some responsibility for the protection of farm workers and by bringing them together, there will be less question about who is responsible for what, said Uppal.
“The government has stated that the idea bears merit,” said McCloy. “We want to be part of anything that’s going to make a difference in terms of the safety of farm workers. No determinations on that have been made at this point, but we are optimistic that the parties will all be able to work together going forward.”
Other recommendations include improvements to traffic and vehicle safety, joint inspections of vehicles on the road, better seat belt laws and tougher fines for overcrowding of vehicles used to transport workers.
Between 2001 and 2005, 20 workers died in agricultural-related accidents and 183 were seriously injured, according WorkSafeBC. However, analysis of accident data from 1992 to 2005 showed a 45-per-cent reduction in the injury rate, from 1,096 injuries per 100 person years of work to 746.
But Uppal is skeptical about what the data really means. Farm workers have only been covered by the Occupational Health and Safety Act since 2003 and, because of that, many workers and employers aren’t aware of their rights and responsibilities under the act, she said.
“There hasn’t been a great deal of education awareness and enforcement of those rules with respect to farm workers,” she said. “The piece of paper has changed but without the enforcement, it hasn’t really changed the actual working conditions and work practices.”
The lack of adherence to the regulatory bodies was evident in the crash on March 7. Two weeks before, on Feb. 22, a WorkSafeBC inspector counselled RHA Enterprises, which provides workers to nurseries and greenhouses and which was transporting the women on March 7, about the safe transport of workers.
The officer, Baldev Seehra, spoke to the women in Punjabi about wearing seat belts and wrote a detailed report outlining the employer’s responsibility to ensure everyone in the van had a seat belt, which was given to RHA Enterprises, said McCloy. However, the van was not inspected because it was not on site at the time.
