Resources related to Workplace Safety

• Current names and means of contacting committee members or the health and safety representative
• The minutes of the most recent committee meeting until they are replaced by the minutes of the next committee meeting
• A current copy of the Act
• A code of practice required by the Act or regulations
• A current phone number for reporting occupational health and safety concerns to the Division
• Where one is required, an occupational health and safety policy
• An order, compliance notice, notice of appeal or decision and an edited order
• An application for an appeal and notice of appeal
• An application for a deviation from the regulations
• A copy of the decision on such application
• The location of the first aid supplies and the name and location or phone number of the first aid attendant
• Emergency telephone numbers (in the first aid room)

Safety orientation and the basics

Whenever you hire new workers, it’s important that you incorporate safety into their orientation to the worksite before they start working. Not only will this help them understand how to do their jobs safely, but it’ll also let them know that you take safety seriously.

Using a checklist can help make the orientation easier and more thorough. Plus, you can keep the checklist on file as a record of employee training — another one of your requirements.

There are a number of orientation topics you can cover, but there are three that must be included in every orientation. These are described briefly below.

Rights and responsibilities

Everyone has a right to a safe workplace — and everyone has a role to play in keeping it safe. It’s important that new workers understand what their rights and responsibilities are, as well as the rights and responsibilities of supervisors and employers.

Workplace hazards

Workers need to be aware of hazards so they can let their supervisor or employer know if there are unsafe conditions that need to be fixed. It’s important that you identify all hazards to workers — even if they seem obvious. Also explain what systems or measures you’ve put in place to minimize the hazard.

Safe work procedures

There are probably tasks in your workplace that require specific safe work procedures — for example, locking out machinery or picking up discarded needles. Workers must be trained in these step-by-step safe work procedures. Don’t just tell them the steps or have them read the instructions; make sure to verify that they truly understand how to do the task safely.

During an inspection, identify unsafe conditions and activities that may cause injury or illness, so you can take corrective measures. Follow these guidelines:

• Use a checklist to ensure that your inspection is thorough and consistent with previous inspections.
• Ask yourself what hazards are associated with the job that you are observing or that would be performed in that work area.
• Observe how workers perform tasks. Do they follow safe work procedures and use personal protective equipment as required?
• Ask workers how they perform their tasks.
• Talk to workers about what they're doing. Ask them about concerns they may have about health and safety.
• Record any unsafe actions or conditions that you observe.
• Consider tasks that the worker may also perform that you did not observe.

What to focus on:

There are different ways to approach safety inspections. Looking at the components of your health and safety program will help. For example, you can focus on the most common tasks your workers perform or on specific issues addressed by your program, such as material handling, confined space entry, or workplace violence. You may wish to break up the worksite into specific segments with focused checklists to look at specific hazards and activities in each area.

Here are some examples of things to look for:

• Uncorrected problems from the previous inspection report
• Workers do not follow safe work procedures or procedures that aren’t correct
• Improper storage of materials (for example, in front of emergency exits or electrical panels, or blocking aisles or stairs)
• Accumulation of liquid or grease on floors
• Failure to put a sign or barrier near wet floors
• Lack of guarding on equipment
• Lack of visibility through swinging doors
• Poor maintenance of equipment

• Ensure the health and safety of the people at or near your workplace
• Provide and maintain equipment, machines, and materials that are properly equipped with safety devices
• Provide information, instruction, training, supervision, and facilities to keep your workers safe
• Ensure that all workers are told about any health or safety hazards at your workplace
• Ensure that all workers know when and how to properly use all devices, equipment, and clothing required for their protection
• Conduct your business so that workers are not exposed to health or safety hazards
• Work with your health and safety representative, if you have 5 or more workers
• Cooperate with anyone performing a duty or exercising a power under occupational health and safety legislation
• Comply with the Occupational Health and safety legislation that applies to your workplace, and make sure that your workers also comply
• Establish an occupational health and safety policy, if you have 5 or more workers
• You must also make sure your workers know and understand their three basic rights:
  • The right to refuse unsafe work
  • The right to know of any hazards in the workplace
  • The right to participate in identifying and resolving safety issues

Hazards come in two forms: Health & Safety

• HEALTH HAZARDS may endanger a worker’s physical health. They may take time to show an impact. Examples of health hazards:
  • Chemical: Includes any form of chemical, such as compressed gases, solvents, and lead
  • Physical: Includes noise, vibration, heat, cold, and radiation
  • Ergonomic: Includes design of the workplace and jobs that involve repetition, force, and posture
  • Biological: Includes organisms or toxic substances produced by living things that can cause illnesses or disease in humans, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, and insects
• SAFETY HAZARDS could cause bodily injury or property damage. They often have an immediate impact. Examples of safety hazards:
  • Machine: Includes hazards from moving parts like rotating shafts, belts, pulleys, blades, and saws
  • Energy: Includes pneumatic or hydraulic pressure, steam, heat, and electricity
  • Material Handling: Includes manual and mechanical handling—lifting, lift trucks, conveyors
  • Work Practices: Working unsafely, as a result of either safe work practices not being in place or failure to follow them

Five key factors can contribute to creating hazards:

• People: Action, or lack of action, can create workplace hazards. Knowledge and training is critical to avoid unsafe behaviors. Solid leadership that puts health and safety top of mind can help ensure safe work practices and procedures are followed.
• Equipment: Tools and machines can be hazardous. Look for unsafe or unhealthy conditions, such as inadequate guarding or barriers; defective tools and equipment; incorrect tools and equipment for the job; or inadequate warning systems.
• Materials: Some materials, such as hazardous chemicals, pose a hazard in and of themselves. In other cases, handling materials improperly or using the wrong material for the task can pose a hazard.
• Environment: Some hazards are created by the work environment. Look for things like the condition of all work surfaces and walkways, overcrowding, poor ventilation, poor lighting, extreme temperatures or noise, or poor housekeeping.
• Process: Process involves a combination of people, equipment, materials, and environment. It includes design, organization, pace, and type of work. By-products created by the process may be hazards, such as heat, noise, dust, vapors, fumes, and scrap materials.

• Falls from heights
• Struck-by accidents
• Electrical hazards
• Caught-in or between hazards
• Noise exposure
• Respiratory hazards
• Chemical hazards
• Heat and cold stress
• Musculoskeletal injuries (sprains/strains)

• Manual materials handling
• Chemical hazards
• Machinery and equipment safety
• Noise exposure
• Musculoskeletal injuries (sprains/strains)
• Slip, trip and fall hazards
• Electrical hazards

When are they needed? It depends on the number of employees:

• Fewer than 5: None
• 5 to 19: Safety & Joint Occupational Health Representative
• 20 or more: Joint Occupational Health & Safety Committee

• Notify the Director (800-952-2687) immediately when a person is killed from any cause or is injured from any cause in a manner likely to prove fatal, at the workplace.
• Notify the Director as soon as possible and no later than 24 hours after any of the following accidents occurred:
  • An accidental explosion.
  • A major structural failure or collapse of a building or other structure.
  • A major release of a hazardous substance.
  • A fall from a work area in circumstances where fall protection is required by the regulations, at the workplace, whether any person is injured or not; or
  • A fire, flood or accident that causes
    • Unconsciousness.
    • A fracture of the skull, spine, pelvis, arm, leg, ankle, wrist or a major part of the hand or foot.
    • Loss or amputation of a leg, arm, hand, foot, finger or toe.
    • A third-degree burn to any part of the body.
    • Loss of sight in one or both eyes.
    • Asphyxiation or poisoning.
    • Any injury that requires admission to the hospital; or,
    • Any injury that endangers the life of an employee, unless the injury can be treated by immediate first aid or medical treatment and the person can return to work the following day.

Examples of responsibilities of safety coordinators include:

• Advising all workers on health and safety matters.
• Coordinating interdepartmental health and safety activities.
• Collecting and analyzing health and safety statistics.
• Providing health and safety education and training.
• Conducting research on special problems.
• Attending health and safety committee meetings as a resource person.
• Resolving reported health and safety issues.
• Ensuring the timely implementation of corrective and preventive actions with supervisors and management.

Safe work procedures are the safest way of doing a job, job instruction, monitoring performance, and incident investigation.

• Job safety analysis (JSA), also known as "job hazard analysis", is the first step in developing the correct procedure. In this analysis, each task of a specific job is examined to identify hazards and to determine the safest way to do the job. Job safety analysis involves the following steps:
• Select the job.
• Break down the job into a sequence of steps.
• Identify the hazards.
• Define preventive measures.
• The analysis should be conducted on all critical tasks or jobs as a first priority. Critical jobs include:
  • Those where frequent incidents and injuries occur.
  • Those where severe incidents and injuries occur.
  • Those with a potential for injuries.
  • New or modified jobs.
  • Infrequently performed jobs, such as maintenance.
• Job safety analysis is generally carried out by observing a worker doing the job. Members of the joint health and safety committee should participate in this process. The reason for the exercise must be clearly explained to the worker, emphasizing that the job, not the individual, is being studied. Another approach, useful in the analysis of infrequently-performed or new jobs, is group discussion.
• A work procedure may consist of more than one specific task. In such cases, each separate task should be analyzed to complete a job safety analysis for that procedure. The final version of the safe work procedure should be presented in a narrative style format that outlines the correct way to do the job in a step-by-step outline. The steps are described in positive terms, pointing out the reasons why they are to be done in this way. Reference may be made to applicable rules and regulations and to the personal protective equipment required, if any. Workers who carry out the tasks should be consulted in developing the procedure.

Workplace inspections help to identify existing hazards so that appropriate corrective action can be taken. Health and safety legislation requires workplace inspections as a proactive action to ensure workplace health and safety.

The frequency of planned formal inspections may be set out in legislation. Records of previous incidents and the potential for incidents are factors to be included when determining if more frequent inspections are needed.

Supervisors are responsible for conducting their own inspections (for the areas they are responsible for) and for taking action on unsafe conditions and acts as they are reported or encountered.

General inspections may be conducted by health and safety committee members or representatives, especially if they have received training or certification. Other criteria for selecting the inspection team are:

• Knowledge of regulations and procedures.
• Knowledge of the hazards in the workplace.
• Experience with work processes involved.

Pre-planning any inspection is always worthwhile. Documents, such as previous inspections, incident investigations, maintenance reports, and committee minutes, should be consulted. If a checklist is to be used, it should be reviewed and changed to meet specific needs of the workplace.

Checklists are useful aids in that they help ensure that no items are overlooked in an inspection. One type of checklist is the "critical parts inventory". This inventory itemizes parts and items that may result in an incident if they fail. While many ready-made checklists are available in safety literature, it is best to adapt these to your workplace. The health and safety committee should participate in the preparation of these tailor-made checklists.

Due diligence requires taking all reasonable steps to protect workers from harm. "All reasonable steps" is based on the level of judgment and care that a person would reasonably be expected to do under the circumstances. An organization that actively manages health and safety and takes all reasonable steps to protect workers from harm is being duly diligent.

Steps to being duly diligent

• Be Aware: Ignorance is no defense, so know your legal obligations under the Workers Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation, your health and safety responsibilities, and best practices for your industry.
• Be Objective: Identify issues for your workplace through risk assessments, using appropriately knowledgeable people. Consider using external professionals for certain aspects of this analysis. Review your incidents and trends, inspections, audit findings, program evaluations, and input from workers.
• Be Proactive: Develop a robust health and safety program that includes policies, procedures, and practices to minimize risk from specific hazards. Communicate these policies, procedures, and practices and ensure all workers are trained on them. Check to make sure procedures are being followed and enforce compliance with the Regulation as well as your own internal policies and procedures.
  An active health and safety management approach — one that demonstrates due diligence — ensures that workers are provided with valuable health and safety information, instruction, training, and supervision. It also confirms when knowledge and processes are working and corrects for unsafe hazards and practices that are not.
• Be Vigilant: Review your systems and processes frequently through self-evaluations. Continuously assess health and safety in the workplace. Monitor changes in regulation and industry practices and apply changes to your own operations as necessary.
• Be on Record: Gather evidence of your health and safety program and all its components. Be able to demonstrate how you are implementing your health and safety policies, procedures, and practices and to provide proof of enforcement when necessary. Be able to demonstrate that appropriate checks and reviews are in place to ensure continued vigilance.

Answer

Fall-Protection Training

The employer must:

• Maintain a record of fall-protection training for every person who successfully completes the training and must provide the person with a copy of their record. Any training organization that conducts the training must also maintain a record. [N.S. Reg. 52/2013, s. 21.21]
• Include in each record of fall-protection training: [N.S. Reg. 52/2013, s. 21.21]:
  • the participant’s name;
  • the date(s) of training;
  • the instructor’s name;
  • the employer’s name;
  • the training organization’s name, if training is not conducted by the employer;
  • a description of the training; and
  • the expiry date.

Confined Space Entry

The employer must:

• Make sure a competent person maintains a written record of the functional and calibration tests of the instrument(s) used to perform any tests inside the confined space. [N.S. Reg. 44/99, s. 130(10)]
• Make sure the competent person testing the confined space conditions provides a certificate or entry permit in writing which includes a record of the tests performed and the test results. [N.S. Reg. 44/99, s. 131(1)(f)]
• Post a copy of the valid certification at the entrance to the confined space for the duration of the confined space occupancy and keep a copy for 12 months. [N.S. Reg. 44/99, s. 131(3) and (4)]
• Make sure that a competent person keeps a record of who is in the confined space. [N.S. Reg. 44/99, s. 134(2)(e)]

Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee

A committee must:

• Maintain records and minutes of committee meetings in a form and manner approved by the Director, and upon request, provide an officer with a copy of these records or minutes. [S.N.S. 1996, c. 7, s. 31(g)]

First Aid and Medical Information

The employer of the certificate holder and the training agency that issued the certificate must maintain a copy of all valid workplace first aid certificates. These certificates expire 3 years from the date of issue, unless the training agency sets a shorter period. [N.S. Reg. 52/2013, s. 4.6]

The employer of an injured person who receives first aid at the workplace must create a written record of the injury that includes all of the following information: [N.S. Reg. 52/2013, s. 4.14]

• Maintain records and minutes of committee meetings in a form and manner approved by the Director, and upon request, provide an officer with a copy of these records or minutes. [S.N.S. 1996, c. 7, s. 31(g)]

The employer must not disclose any information from a medical examination, test, X-ray or hospital record of an employee made, taken, or provided, unless the employee gives permission, or all personal information is removed so that the record cannot be identified with a particular person or case. [S.N.S. 1996, c. 7, s. 62(1)] The requirement not to disclose medical information applies not only to the employer, but also to any other person who has access to the information, or if the employee communicated the information in confidence. [S.N.S. 1996, c. 7, s. 62(2)]

What type of records must an employer keep?

• Equipment inspections, repairs, and maintenance.
• Written health and safety procedures, plans, and codes of practice.
• Results of functional tests and calibrations of instruments.
• Inspection reports or orders received from the Occupational Health and Safety Division of the Government of Nova Scotia.
• Employee orientation and training with the date(s), names, description, and expiry date(s).
• Sampling and monitoring results from exposure testing.
• Forms and checklists used when following safe work procedures (e.g., confined space entry permits).
• Workplace inspections and corrective actions.
• Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee membership, rules of procedures, and meeting minutes.
• Workplace inspection and accident investigation reports.
• First aid records and injury reports.

Effective documentation and record keeping are part of a workplace’s ongoing effort to show that the employer is taking all reasonable precautions to protect the health and safety of the employees.

An organization's occupational health and safety policy is a statement of principles and general rules that guides action. Senior (or top) management must be committed to ensuring that the policy is carried out with no exceptions. The health and safety policy should have the same importance as the other policies of the organization.

The policy statement can be brief, but it should mention:

• Management's commitment to protecting and promoting the safety and health of workers, and preventing injuries and illnesses.
• The objectives of the program.
• The organization's health and safety philosophy.
• Who is accountable for the health and safety programs.
• The general responsibilities of all managers and workers.
• That health and safety shall not be sacrificed for convenience or expediency.
• That unacceptable performance of health and safety duties will not be tolerated.

The policy should be:

• Stated in clear terms.
• Signed by the current President or Chief Executive Officer.
• Kept up-to-date.
• Communicated to each worker.
• Followed for all work activities.