Failure to heed warnings and
discipline gets worker fired
Worker fired for not filling out required
paperwork; had lengthy disciplinary record
BY JEFFREY R. SMITH
A NOVA SCOTIA company has won an appeal overturning an order
to reinstate a long-time worker it dismissed for repeated violations
of company policies and procedures.
Bruce Young began working for Michelin North America (Can-
ada) in November 1988 as a mechanic/curing technician at the
company's tire manufacturing plant in Waterville, N.S. As a curing
technician, Young was responsible for press maintenance and sup-
porting press operators. His job involved responding to issues as
well as taking proactive measures.
The dangers of sitting
Mounting research says your employees need to move more — or else
BY MELISSA CAMPEAU
ARE YOU sitting down for this?
In most workplaces, most of the
time, the answer would be yes,
and it turns out that's high-risk
behaviour. In the past few years,
research papers have been piling
up, all with the same message:
Sitting for long stretches of time
is having a profoundly negative
effect on employee health.
First, there's back, neck and
shoulder discomfort, felt by just
about anyone who's hunched
over a keyboard for too many
hours at a time. Florida-based
orthopedic surgeon Dr. Alfred
O. Bonati, founder of the Bonati
Spine Institute, says, "Sitting for
prolonged periods of time can be
a major cause of back pain, cause
increased stress of the back,
neck, arms and legs and can add
Safety Reporter
Canadian
www.safety-reporter.com
October 2017
TRUCKING COMPANY SENDS
DRIVER PACKING AFTER MULTIPLE
SAFETY VIOLATIONS
Repeated breaches of safety protocol put company
in unsatisfactory rating with regulators, clients pg. 3
TEACHER REFUSES WORK TWICE
BECAUSE OF VIOLENT STUDENT
pg. 5
Student's safety during his tirade trumps
teacher's right to refuse work but second
refusal the next school day allowed
WORKER WINS APPEAL
FOR COMPENSATION FOR
DEGENERATIVE BACK CONDITION
Workplace back injury and subsequent
heavy labour known factors for
protruding discs: Tribunal
pg. 6
INSIDE
NEWS BRIEF
Movement > pg. 4
Credit:
Shutterstock/Andrey_Popov
Worker > pg. 2
PM
#40065782
ALCOHOL MAY IMPAIR
TIRED DRIVERS MORE
(Reuters Health) — People with
blood alcohol levels below the le-
gal cutoff may still be unsafe driv-
ers if they're also sleep deprived, a
small experiment suggests.
Researchers tested drowsiness
and attention in 16 healthy men
between 18 and 27 exposed to
sleep deprivation or alcohol con-
sumption, or both at once. They
found that the combination of
moderate alcohol consumption
— within legal limits for driving —
and restricting sleep to five hours a
night produced greater drowsiness
and more deficits in attention than
either sleep restriction or alcohol
intake alone. The combined effects
lasted two to three hours.
"No amount of alcohol intake
has been deemed safe when un-
der the influence of sleepiness
through either poor or inadequate
sleep, or being awake when the
body (should be) asleep at night,"
said study co-author Clare An-
derson of the Institute of Cogni-
tive and Clinical Neuroscience at
Monash University in Australia.
The study limited its focus on
healthy young men, which means
the results might be different for
older people or those with health is-
sues that can impact driving ability.