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The right to the highest standard of physical and mental health, including
improvement of
environmental and industrial or occupational working conditions. No Joke; Government Safety Programs Ron and Rita both worked in warehouses. They both lifted heavy boxes of canned goods all day. By the time Ron was 45 he could not work anymore. First his back gave out. Then he had a head injury. A crate of canned beans fell on him while he was on his break. Rita was not as strong as Ron, but her back was OK. A large stack of heavy boxes fell during her break too, but they hurt no one. Rita says government programs kept her workplace safe. Ron wants to know why the programs didn't help him. In many provinces, a worker has three basic rights when it comes to safety. She or he has the right to help make the workplace safe. She or he has the right to refuse unsafe work. If a job has ten or more workers, they also have a right to be part of a safety group that reports to the government any time the job does not seem safe. This group is called an Occupational Health and Safety Committee. Both Rita and Ron knew their jobs had committees. But Rita knew her job was dangerous. She wanted to take care of herself from her first day. She knew lifting boxes can hurt your back. She asked her safety committee how to prevent this. At first they told her they did not know. She asked them to please find out. She said it was important. So they did find out. They got booklets from the government. The booklets told how to lift boxes without getting hurt. Every worker got a booklet. Some of them thanked Rita for asking for the booklets. Rita also noticed a dangerous thing on the job. The site was a big open warehouse with two levels. There were no guardrails on the top level. Boxes could fall. They could fall on workers, especially in the area where workers took their break. Rita asked her boss to put up guardrails. He said it would take too much time, space and money. He said it wasn't necessary. Rita asked the other workers how they felt. Some said it didn't matter. Rita said, "How would you like it if a fifty-pound crate of crushed pineapple fell on your head from thirty feet up?" A few agreed with her. Together they told the boss they refused to work on the lower floor until he put guardrails up. They told him the safety committee could report the problem to the government. He put guardrails up that week. A stack of crates fell a few days later, but the rails kept them from falling to the lower floor. There were no booklets on back safety at Ron's job site. Nobody asked for any, even though many workers had bad backs. Ron felt he was strong enough to lift boxes without a booklet telling him what to do. He hurt his back because he never did learn to lift the boxes safely. At Ron's warehouse crates fell all the time. It was easy to knock them over because they were stacked very high. One worker said maybe the stacks were too high. The other workers made fun of him for being afraid. A worker on the safety committee wondered if he should do something. But he figured it wasn't serious. The guys were just joking around. When Ron was injured by a falling crate, the workers sent him funny cards to cheer him up. They did not realize Ron's brain would never understand jokes again. Ron's job looked the same as Rita's, but Rita came out of hers a lot better off. Some people say Ron wasn't as lucky as Rita. But maybe lucky wouldn't be the right word. Questions for Discussion
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