A new workplace safety plan for Nova Scotia is to be released early next year, says the provincial Labour and Advanced Education Department.
Department communications staff said recently the five-year strategy ?will aim to make Nova Scotia one of the safest provinces in the country.?
The plan will likely be made public ?early in the new year,? spokeswoman Chrissy Matheson said last week.
It's to replace a strategic plan that covered 2009-2013.
?Over the past several months the Department of Labour ... in partnership with the Workers? Compensation Board, have been consulting with internal government partners and external stakeholders to gather information? for the safety blueprint, according to a statement provided to The Chronicle Herald.
?Twenty-eight consultations have been held with over 400 stakeholders to date.?
Answering inquiries about occupational health and safety this newspaper initiated in June, the department?s recent response said, ?We are focused on preventing (job site) injuries and fatalities from happening.?
It said that since 2005, this province has seen a declining trend in workplace injuries, a rate that has dropped, on average, five per cent a year.
?That said, there is still work to be done,? said an email message from Matheson. ?One injury or fatality is too many.?
According to the department, there have been 18 workplace fatalities in Nova Scotia so far this year.
Between 2007 and 2011, 123 employees died due to occupational hazards or from chronic illnesses caused by their work or other health issues.
Last year, there were 27 workplace deaths. The board said 6,616 injuries in 2011 were serious enough for the hurt worker to require time off.
Nova Scotia?s updated workplace safety program, which is to cover 2013 to 2017, is being developed with an eye to anticipated changes in the province?s labour force.
Over the next 10 years, the workforce with those aged 18 to 64 will decline by 40,000 people, according to a government website overview.
In the future, ?Nova Scotia?s success will be valued not just in dollars saved due to injury prevention, but, more importantly, in lives saved and even more lives not destroyed by injury,? the overview said.
It said improvements to workplace safety will probably see ?greater alignment? between the board and department.
Two former department staffers contacted The Herald on Monday to attempt to shed light on internal matters at the department?s worker-safety division. One former staffer, who said he was a veteran work-site inspector, alleged 18 inspectors have quit in the last two years.
The occupational health and safety division?s longtime executive director, Jim LeBlanc, and its director of investigations, Vince Garnier, have vacated their positions. The department won?t publicly discuss personnel issues.
Rick Clarke, president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, has said he will be seeking details of why LeBlanc and Garnier are no longer on the job when he attends Wednesday?s meeting of the provincial government?s occupational health and safety advisory council.
(mlightstone@herald.ca)
Source: http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/149371-nova-scotia-to-get-new-safety-plan-for-workplaces
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