Comité SST

When money rules the health and safety of workers

Have you seen the latest publicity from the CSST? The one where mutilated youngworkers fill public squares with corpses covered with a bag spread out right in the middleof the street? If not, we recommend you watch it by clicking on the following link: http://www.csst.qc.ca/jeunes/Pages/temoignages_videos.aspx#.

Have employees and employers really understood the message? It shook us up. How longmust we wait? How many injured workers must there be before everyone understands that itis high time to invest in prevention?

To minimize the costs, certain employers minimize work accidents by denying them, bysystematically contesting them, with the goal of not seeing a rise in their contribution rate tothe CSST. How much do all the efforts invested, in both time and money by the local team,the consultant and lawyer, in medical expert opinions and counter opinions cost? Yet, allthese appeals undermine the health of the injured person even more, without talking aboutthe doubt and loss of confidence for an already vulnerable worker. The human costs areenormous.

Why do these employers not realize that it is not only more economical to invest inprevention, but also more profitable on the psychological level for the workers to feel thattheir employer has their health at heart. Both will come out of it as winners.

What is effective prevention? We will talk to you about that in an upcoming editorial.

Do you know ?

Musculoskeletal problems are a constantly growing problem and one of the main reasons forcompensation in Québec.

Faced with the tendency of certain employers to systematically contest the claims for workaccidents, the FIQ ensures the optimal services of its team of lawyers specialized in OHS, inorder to adequately defend its members.

The employer’s contribution rate to the CSST varies according to the number of workaccidents that occur in the institution. The more accidents that occur, the higher the rate ofcontribution.

The results of the Enquête québécoise sur des conditions de travail, d’emploi et de SSTpublished in 2011 reveal that young workers in fact represent a group at risk of sufferingwork accidents.

According to this publicity from the CSST, forty (40) young workers are injured every day,three (3) suffer amputations every month and 8 are killed every year, which represents morethan 13,000 young accident victims age 24 or younger every year in Québec.