Canadian HR Reporter

N E W S 10 www.hrreporter.com How does unionization make a difference with workplace safety? Unionization is definitely a factor when it comes to lower rates of injury, but it's the size of the employer that makes even more of a difference in taking care of the workforce, writes John Dujay A lot of funds are allocated each year by the industry, according to Robert Bronk, CEO at the Ontario Construction Secre- tariat (OCS), a joint labour-management organization, in Toronto, which leads to a better-educated workforce and, thus, greater safety. And a 2016 Statistics Canada report found that union workers are three times more likely to have their Certif- icate of Qualification than non-union workers, he says. "The ICI unionized sector invests $40 million annually in apprenticeship and health and safety training at over 90 union training centres across the prov- ince. This is an ongoing investment that management organization, in Toronto. The study also showed positive numbers in the rates of musculoskeletal injuries and critical or severe injuries, being 23 per cent and 16 per cent lower, respectively, at unionized workplaces. However, there are still mysteries to be solved, says lead author Lynda Robson, a scientist at the Institute for Work and Health (IWH) in Toronto. "The general finding was that union- ization was associated with a lower fatal injury rate, but it was actually associ- ated with a higher non-fatal injury rate. That was kind of a puzzle and not what people were expecting because they expect unions to generally make condi- tions safer." Why the difference? The findings point to the work that unions do to promote safety and prevent injuries on the jobsite. "One can infer that union members do benefit from the combined effort of management and union when they work to provide access to training. We have a training department that provides a whole suite of safety and skills training, and so it's not a surprising outcome," says Ian DeWaard, Ontario director of CLAC union in Lynden, Ont. "That's an advantage that not all non-union companies would have access to because there's just a greater avail- ability, accessibility and more focused programming for workers." has been taking place for decades and it's bound to have some effects." While more training does influence safety, it's not the only factor, says Carmine Tiano, director of occupational health services at the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, a group that represents 12 unions, in Toronto. "I strongly believe that the unionized workers, through their apprenticeship, are trained better and are trained better to identify risks. But there's a little bit more policing that the union does through the representatives to ensure that… there's safe practices at the workplace." Unionized workplaces also have a more robust injury reporting system, says Robson. "There's a greater chance of people being more likely to report an injury when it happens and we even see that in surveys… So what happens is that with no lost-time injuries, they're more discretionary," she says. "Knowing that there's a difference in the empowerment of workers, we would expect unionized workers to be more comfortable refusing unsafe work, more comfortable reporting minor injuries. They're probably more comfortable reporting unsafe conditions to supervisors CONSTRUCTION IN ONTARIO BY THE NUMBERS "Union members benefit from the combined effort of management and union when they work to provide access to training." Ian DeWaard, CLAC 45% Percentage of unionized workers in ICI workforce 60,425 Number of firms studied in IWH report 31% Greater likelihood unionized construction sector is safer than non-unionized one 1.7 million Persons employed in ICI sector in Ontario THE union safety effect is real — at least in Ontario's major construction sector. Unionization is associated with a 25-per-cent lower rate of injury, according to a study by the Institute for Work and Health, which focused on the institutional, commercial and indus- trial (ICI) construction sector and used workers' compensation injury data from 2012 to 2018 (updating a 2015 report on the same topic). For the organization that financially contributed to the research, the results are gratifying. "They concluded that the industry itself actually got safer [and] the gap between the two sectors [union and non-union] widened," says Robert Bronk, CEO at the Ontario Construc- tion Secretariat (OCS), a joint labour- Sources: IWH, OCS

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