Canadian Safety Reporter - sample

4 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2016 CSR | August 2016 | News ada — they could be anything from verbal assaults, thrown liquids, being spat on, threats, or actual physical violence." Some regions in Canada have seen significant spikes in violence against transit drivers in recent years. Assaults on drivers in Win- nipeg, for example, jumped 54 per cent between 2014 and 2015. A 2011 report for the U.S Transportation Research Board found transit workers were at higher risk of violence than other jobs because of their daily contact with the public. Typically, bus drivers sit within arms length of customers and regularly engage them — putting them on the front lines for exposure to violence. In theory, laws against physical violence — and the punishments for breaking those laws — help keep bus drivers safe. Assault is a punishable of- fence, as covered by the Cana- dian Criminal Code. As of Feb. 2015, Bill S-221 amended the Criminal Code to call for up to 10 years imprisonment for assault- ing a transit operator. "With this bill, the penalties are increased because we're a front-line worker," says Thorp. "This was something that we spent years lobbying for." Of- fenders, however, aren't neces- sarily serving the longer sen- tences outlined in the bill. "We have a lot of lawyers who plea bargain down the sentence to time served or a slap on the wrist," says Thorp. "We really need lawyers to stop doing that and we need judges to uphold the law and enforce the penalty." Risk assessments Since the transportation sector is federally regulated, the Cana- da Labour Code also applies. As of 2008, Part XX of the Canadian Occupational Health and Safety Regulations, Violence Preven- tion in the Workplace, states that public transit system operators are required to meet a number of legal requirements to protect bus drivers from violence. "Employers must conduct a risk assessment that focuses on all potential exposures to violence that drivers would have," says Da- vid Hyde, a workplace safety and security consultant and violence prevention strategist. "Then, they are required to take steps to miti- gate the drivers' risk. "In my experience, those as- sessments are not done in a meaningful way," says Hyde. "They're not done in a way that teases out the real causes of the violence or the real exposures that drivers face. "The assessments tend to be perfunctory," says Hyde, and the resulting safety measures don't address the real problems. "It's just, 'Let's put cameras up,' or 'Let's put systems in place where if the driver's under threat he can flip a switch and a light goes on at the back of the bus and a signal is sent to transit control.' "Those measures are put in place and in the meantime the driver is still getting assaulted," says Hyde. "So I think there are gaps in the assessments that are mandated under federal law." Root causes of assaults The Transit Co-operative Re- search Program (TCRP) pub- lished a report in 2011 outlining the biggest risk factors for bus drivers across North America. The report noted the highest- risk time periods for assaults are in the late evening/overnight/ early morning hours, followed by the afternoon peak period. The report also found the pri- mary factors contributing to as- saults are fare enforcement and intoxicated passengers or those under the influence of drugs, fol- lowed by rule enforcement other than fare enforcement, youth- related violence and passengers with mental illness. To improve the situation, says Hyde, "everything begins with a risk assessment." That includes the collection of data to paint a clear picture about how, when and why assaults happen. "Look- ing back through several years' data you should be able to say, for example, we've had 83 incidents of spitting, 60 of threats, and 10 of violence," says Hyde. "Then consider, when is this happen- ing? Why? What was the distur- bance over? Was somebody an- gry about a fare? Is that the root cause? Or was someone angry because the bus was late? Did the driver stop them because they were doing something wrong? Was the person visibly drunk?" It's important to note that regions, neighbourhoods and particular routes have their own patterns. "There's not a single prescription and there's not a single set of risk factors," say Hyde. "So if I'm driving a bus in downtown Toronto on a pretty active route at midnight, that's very different than driving a ru- ral route where I might be more isolated, more alone." He adds, "What I need to secure myself in those two scenarios might be very different." Assessments should include perspectives from multiple sources, as well. "You should not only talk to the bus drivers and get their experiences, but you're also talking to a sampling of pas- sengers, you're talking to the transit security people, you're talking to the police, you're look- ing at statistics for security in other jurisdictions," says Hyde. Mitigating risk with training Once the biggest risk factors have been identified, transit operators should be offering training to help drivers identify and handle potentially violent situations. "Situational awareness train- ing is key," says Hyde. "That would include being aware of factors around them that could increase the risk of violence, communicating in conflict and de-escalation techniques." This kind of training does go on, says Hyde, but it's not always aimed at the specific challenges drivers face on their routes. "We've seen some transit sys- tems adopt this kind of training before — it's not brand new," says Hyde. "Drivers are being trained right now, but the trouble is, the training is often disconnected from the realities they face on the bus routes." Instead, he says, "They need to know how to gauge a situation, how to read some- body. If It's 10 p.m. and you're on a route where you know there a lots of bars and pubs and some- one comes on looking a bit glassy eyed, that's someone you want to be aware of and you don't want to be combative with. You don't want to be digging your heels in about fare enforcement." The TCRP report finds that a high percentage of assaults are instigated by fare issues (fare evasion, short pay, transfer dis- putes, questionable fare media or lack of ID for special fares). How a driver handles these situations is a key risk factor, according to the report, noting transit system operators believe a significant number of assaults may have been instigated by the behaviour or action of the bus operator, making driver training in conflict mitigation and divers- ity a top priority. Systems for security "Connected to the assessment and the training are the proto- cols and process — the opera- tional apparatuses of the transit system," says Hyde. When payment is difficult or a bus is chronically late, for example, "that adds to people's frustration and they might take that out on the driver, because the driver is the physical em- bodiment of that transit system, on that night, on that route," says Hyde. "The transit operator has a big role to play, to make sure they're not creating a system that could ramp up a situation and put a driver at greater risk." Processes for handling poten- tially violent situations need to clear, as well, says Hyde. "If the driver steps away from what they should be doing — driving the bus — to deal with fare evasion, it's going to make them late," says Hyde. That compounds the problem. "Now the bus is going to be late for the next steps and people are going to be even an- grier." What's more, says Hyde, there's little to be gained by insti- gating a confrontation. "The fare evader is not respecting your authority, so how is that going to change when you go to the back of the bus to speak to him?" The TCRP report notes that many transit systems use some type of policing or security pa- trols to handle such problems. Transit employees responsi- ble solely for enforcing the rules can be specially prepared for potentially violent situations. "Security may have batons or pepper spray or handcuffs," says Hyde. "They have the tools and Improving < pg. 1 Assault can come in many different forms Different > pg. 7

• Cover