Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER February 8, 2016 18 INSIGHT ICE CAPADES STE. ANNE, MAN. — Drinking and driving is a no go — even if you are a Zamboni driver, as one employee found out recently. Po- lice offi cers received a complaint one night in Ste. Anne, Man., about a driver who was running into the rink's boards and moving erratical- ly around the ice, according to the CBC. "He struck the gate where the Zamboni drives onto the ice, and broke the boards and also broke pieces off the actual Zamboni," said Martin Kintscher, hockey team manager. "One piece got stuck un- der the Zamboni, which left a ridge on the ice with every lap." Offi cials had to cancel the game due to the damaged surface. "He got fairly angry and said that it was fi ne, and then he was upset that we called su- pervisors in," said Kintscher. RCMP took the operator into custody and he was charged with impaired driv- ing and resisting arrest. MINING FOR TROUBLE KYRGYZSTAN — Employees relocated overseas often face different cultures and customs, including foreign delicacies. But it might be best to withhold comment — especially on social media — judging by a recent situation involving a British employee. At New Year's Eve celebrations, Michael Mcfeat, a British welder working at Kyrgyzstan's biggest gold mine, felt compelled to post on Facebook that his Kyryz colleagues were lining up for their "special delicacy, the horse's penis." The dish, chuchuk, is actually sausage made from horse meat and intestines, according to Reuters. But the comment did not go over well — it caused a brief strike at the mine and Mcfeat faced calls for criminal prosecution. He was detained by police for questioning but they gave him a warning, even though other workers felt his actions incited hatred — a crime punishable by three to fi ve years in prison. In the end, Mcfeat had to leave the country because he was working without an offi cial permit. STREAMING LIVE FROM TENNESSEE NASHVILLE, TN. — When a huge snowstorm hit the United States in late January, many a re- porter braved the elements to re- port live on the weather. One ded- icated journalist did so despite a particularly runny nose, according to the Mirror. Of course, a video of the streaming action soon went viral, but Alexandra Koehn didn't seem phased, commenting on her Twitter account: "People are cruel. I guess that's a part of the biz. I did 8 liveshots in a snow storm, and was working really hard!!!" While some commentators weren't so complimentary, there were many supporters: "Keep your head up. You've always been extremely pro- fessional. Something positive will come from this unwanted atten- tion," said McFooly@IrishCorps. "Let's see all those cruel people get out there in the storm and do that job. ey wouldn't last 2 seconds," said Natalie@nattyw222. CHRISTMAS NO JOKE CARINTHIA, VIENNA — Visit any mall over Christmastime — and well before then — and you'll likely have to suff er through the same old tunes celebrating the festive season, non-stop, over and over. at painful tradition didn't stop an Austrian radio jockey from playing a prank on his listeners — and suff ering the consequences, according to Re- uters. e employee decided to lock himself in the studio — bar- ricading the door with a wooden stick — and play the song "Last Christmas" by the British band Wham! 24 times in a row. It was only after the moderator's daugh- ter put a call into the studio beg- ging her father to stop that the marathon ended. As a result, the radio employee had to work Christmas and New Year's Eve as punishment, said Timm Bodner, programming chief of the station Antenne Kaernten in Carinthia. "In general, it was funny but there must be consequences." W EIRD ORKPLACE THE Vol. 29 No. 2 – February 8, 2016 PUBLISHED BY Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 ©Copyright 2015 by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. CANADIAN HR REPORTER is published 21 times a year. Publications Mail – Agreement # 40065782 Registration # 9496 – ISSN 0838-228X Director, Carswell Media: Karen Lorimer - (416) 649-9411 karen.lorimer@thomsonreuters.com Publisher: (on leave) John Hobel - (416) 298-5197 john.hobel@thomsonreuters.com EDITORIAL Acting Publisher/Editor in Chief: Todd Humber - (416) 298-5196 todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com Editor/Supervisor: Sarah Dobson - (416) 649-7896 sarah.dobson@thomsonreuters.com Senior Editor: Liz Bernier - (416) 649-7837 liz.bernier@thomsonreuters.com Employment Law Editor: Jeffrey R. 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Address changes and returns: Send changes and undeliverable Canadian addresses to: SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Canadian HR Reporter One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 CUSTOMER SERVICE Call: (416) 609-3800 (Toronto) (800) 387-5164 (outside Toronto) Fax: (416) 298-5082 (Toronto) (877) 750-9041 (outside Toronto) Email: carswell.customerrelations@ thomsonreuters.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com CHRR reserves the right to edit for length and clarity. Todd Humber EDITOR'S NOTES CONVEYOR KITTY GALT, CALIF. — It's become somewhat of a trend lately for employees to bring their pets to work. But a recycling facility in California had an unexpected visitor recently when a tiny kitten showed up. e kitty was heading down a conveyor belt at Cal- Waste, about to fall into the composter, when he was spotted by loader operator Tony Miranda, according to KCRA. "I pretty much just found it between all the debris and bags and just everything," he said. "I just grabbed it and immediately re- ported it to the line supervisor." It's presumed the kitten went for a ride in a garbage truck and was then pushed onto the conveyor belt. "We put so much material in here and we run so much stuff through it," said Miranda. "It's just amazing to see a little kitty survive through all this. It made my day today, defi nitely made my day." In the end, shift lead Heather Garcia decided to adopt the new employee and name him Murphy. "It's just so cute, I mean why wouldn't you take it home?" she said. Credit: maximult (Shutterstock) Twelve years later, criminal convictions for OHS still rare T hirteen years ago, I wrote an article for Canadian HR Reporter with the headline "Putting the boss be- hind bars." It detailed the story of Blair Hal- lett. His 14-year-old nephew, Shane Stecyk, was killed on the job at a construction site in Ed- monton on the second day of his summer job. e fi rst thing Hal- lett did was call 911. e second thing he did, as overheard by the 911 dispatcher, was to tell a fore- man at the worksite: "Workers' comp will be here right away, so you get that railing up right now." Kevin Flaherty of the Alberta Workers' Health Centre told me in an interview: "If there was ever a case that would elicit a jail sen- tence, this would be the one you think would certainly." Over the last 13 years, varia- tions of that have been uttered following the deaths of countless workers — but jail time has been exceedingly rare. When I wrote the story about Hallett, it looked like the land- scape was going to change im- mensely. In 2004, the federal government passed Bill C-45, the so-called "corporate killing law," which made it possible to lay criminal charges and jail indi- viduals. e federal law came in the wake of the Westray coal mine disaster, when 26 workers were killed in an explosion in Nova Scotia in 1992. We spilled a lot of ink discuss- ing how C-45 would revolutionize workplace safety — what with the potential for unlimited fi nes and for senior company directors to be held criminally responsible. But criminal charges just never materialized. e fi rst charge to be laid came in 2005. Domenico Fantini, a su- pervisor, was charged under C-45 after a trench collapsed and one of his workers was killed. But the criminal charges were withdrawn after he pled guilty under the pro- vincial Occupational Health and Safety Act and was fi ned $50,000. In 2008, Transpavé in Quebec was charged after a worker was crushed to death. It was convict- ed under the criminal charges, but nobody was jailed and the compa- ny was fi ned $100,000. In 2010, Pasquale Scrocca — a landscape contractor in Quebec — was found guilty of criminal negligence causing death after one of his employees was killed on the job. He was sentenced to two years less a day, with the sentence being served in the community with a number of conditions, in- cluding a curfew. In February, an article in Ca- nadian Employment Law Today detailed the story of two corpo- rate directors in Ontario who were sentenced to 25 days in jail, to be served on weekends, after a worker fell from an elevated plat- form and died. e company was fi ned $250,000. But those charges were under the provincial act, not federal C-45 criminal charges. But now, some 12 years after C-45 was enacted, we have an ex- ample of a supervisor being sen- tenced to jail. As outlined in one of this issue's cover stories, Vad- im Kazenelson was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. He was a project manager at Me- tron Construction, the company doing work at a Toronto apart- ment building on Christmas Eve in 2009 when a swing stage col- lapsed and four workers plunged to their deaths. A fi fth worker was severely injured. So what has changed in light of the Metron case? Well, don't expect the fl oodgates to open for criminal charges in OHS cases. We've had a decade-plus of this possibility, so it's unlikely and probably naive to think that will occur. But what has changed is criminal liability is more than just a theoretical issue now. A project manager is heading to jail, con- victed of a crime, in the deaths of employees. (An appeal has been fi led, so this case isn't closed yet.) It took far longer than many would have guessed for an em- ployer to face jail time under the criminal code amendments. But now a precedent has been set — police and prosecutors who may have been reluctant to lay charges, because they didn't think they had a reasonable chance of conviction, can now clearly see where the bar has been set by a judge. Good OHS practices are a core part of good HR practices — they go hand in hand. is ruling can serve as a talking point for your current HR practices. Use the fact a company manager was sentenced to signifi cant jail time as a launching point for a serious review to ensure your company is doing everything it can when it comes to safety. particularly runny nose, according likely have to suff er through the It's become somewhat of a trend lately for employees to bring their pets to work. But a recycling facility in California had an unexpected visitor recently when a tiny kitten showed up. e kitty was heading down a conveyor belt at Cal- Waste, about to fall into the composter, when he was spotted by loader operator Tony Miranda, according to KCRA. "I pretty much just found it between all the debris and bags and just everything," he said. "I just grabbed it and immediately re- ported it to the line supervisor." It's presumed the kitten went for a ride in a garbage truck and was then pushed onto the conveyor belt. "We put so much material in here and we run so much stuff through it," said Miranda. "It's just amazing to see a little kitty survive through all this. It made my day today, defi nitely made my day." In the end, shift lead Heather Garcia decided to adopt the new employee and name him Murphy. "It's just so cute, I mean why wouldn't you take it home?" she said.

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