Canadian Labour Reporter

total injury claims and 14 per cent lower rates of allowed lost-time claims. "We found a pattern," said IWH senior scientist Ben Amick, co-lead investigator on the study. "It's the pattern that matters, it's very powerful." According to Amick, these sta- tistics suggest that while union- ized workers are more inclined to make work-related injury claims, their claims are less likely to be of a serious nature. "It's probably because there's leadership in the company that is really pushing down to encour- age people that reporting prob- lems is an important issue," he said. "Because if they don't know there are problems, we can't solve them. We think that environment is good and we also think that happens because the union pro- vides some level of protection." Andrew Regnerus, Ontario's construction co-ordinator for the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC), agreed the pro- tection unions provide has a sig- nificant effect on safety. "Unions have the knowledge and resources to protect from re- prisals and members know it," he said. According to Regnerus, unions also encourage employees to ac- tively participate in the safety of their workplaces, and to seek on- going education on the issue. The lower rates of lost-time claims could support the argu- ment that unionized workplaces are safer because of their focus on education, said IWH associate scientific director Sheilah Hogg- Johnson, project co-lead. "It could be they do a better job of educating workers, in part through apprenticeship train- ing. They may give workers more voice to influence the health and safety of their work environ- ments, and to report not only in- juries, but also near-misses," she said. IWH analyzed seven years of claims data — between 2006 and 2012 — for 5,800 unionized firms employing 720,000 full-time equivalent workers and 39,000 non-unionized forms employ- ing 810,000 full-time equivalent workers. Adjustments were made for firm size, region and classifi- cation unit. Newer area of research To conduct the study, IWH part- nered with the Ontario Con- struction Secretariat (OCS), which had a complete list of unionized construction compa- nies in Ontario, said Amick. "We could do something that was unprecedented." According to Amick, little re- search has been done on the role of unions in health and safety in construction, despite the number of unionized employees and the hazardous nature of the industry. "This filled a huge gap," he said. "I think it's the first study that ac- tually has a reasonably complete view of the relationship between unions and workers' compensa- tion claim outcomes in the con- struction sector." Because of this lack of re- search, more investigation is nec- essary before concluding union- ized construction firms are safer than non-unionized ones. One important factor, Amick said, is the possibility unionized employees are often older and more experienced. It is also pos- sible unionized workplaces offer more or better options for modi- fied work following an injury, re- sulting in fewer lost-time claims. IWH plans to continue its in- vestigation with a study focus- ing on the organizational prac- tices and policies of construction firms, to be conducted with fund- ing from the Ministry of Labour. Amick said he also hopes to shed light on whether job perfor- mance and quality of work are af- fected by unionization. Relationships important Alberta-based safety consultant Alan Quilley said researchers should consider the significance of relationships in future studies. Quilley said the employer's relationship with the union — as well as its relationship with work- ers — is much more telling than the presence of a union alone. "It's likely that if the union and management are working well to- gether, safety, as well as any num- ber of other areas, will be better," Quilley said. "But a correlation does not mean causation." Unionizing the workforce is not enough to change safety at an organization, he said. Because while a union can be a great partner and provide signifi- cant advantages to an employer, an adversarial union can do dam- age. "If you've got a unionized envi- ronment and the members have good communication with the union and the union has good communication with the em- ployer, that could very well lead to having a safer, better run, more productive place," Quilley said. "It's the nature of the relation- ship rather than whether or not it's unionized." Quilley said employers and unions should simply focus on strengthening the relationships with each other and with workers in order to better implement the health and safety practices cur- rently in place. "How you communicate and how you hold people accountable matters a lot," Quilley said. "The best practices I've seen would be managing the culture and managing the accountability system to make sure people are doing the right things. Best prac- tice is say what you do, and do what you say." 7 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2015 CANADIAN LABOUR REPORTER NEWS < from pg. 1 Further research to focus on practices, policies, job quality Photo: Todd Korol (Reuters) IWH hopes to examine the way factors such as age and modified work might influence the correlation between unionization and job-related injury claims in a future study funded by the Ministry of Labour.

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