Canada Worker Health and Safety
Overview
Please review the information below and then return to the Worker Health and Safety Awareness course.
Applicable Laws
Act respecting occupational health and safety (AOHS)
Government Office
Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CNESST)
[Administrative Head Office]
524, rue Bourdages
Québec, QC G1K 7E2
Telephone: 1-844-838-0808
https://www.cnesst.gouv.qc.ca/fr
Regional Offices: https://www.cnesst.gouv.qc.ca/nous-joindre/Pages/nous-joindre.aspx
Rights
Of the Worker:
- Right to working conditions that have proper regard for health, safety and physical and mental well-being
- To training, information and counselling services in matters of occupational health and safety
- To receive the preventive and curative health services relating to the risks to which they may be exposed
- To receive wages for the time spent undergoing a medical examination required by QC law
- To refuse to perform particular work if he or she has reasonable grounds to believe that the performance of that work would expose them or another person to danger to health, safety or physical or mental well-being
Duties
Of the Employer:
- Set up and equip workplaces to keep workers protected.
- Name specific people to handle health and safety, and post their names where workers can easily see them.
- Organize work and procedures so they don’t put workers’ safety or health at risk.
- Keep the workplace properly maintained.
- Actively identify, control, and eliminate safety and health risks.
- Follow required fire prevention rules.
- Supply safety equipment and keep it in good working condition.
- Make sure no harmful substances or emissions put anyone at the workplace at risk.
- Inform workers about job-related risks and give them the training, help, or supervision needed to work safely.
- Post any official notices (from the relevant health authorities or occupational physician) where workers can see them, and share that information with workers, the safety committee, and the union.
- Provide workers, at no cost, with the required personal protective equipment, and make sure they actually use it.
- Allow workers to attend required medical exams during their employment.
- Share the list of hazardous substances and possible emissions with workers, the safety committee, the union, and public health officials.
- Cooperate with the health and safety committee (or job-site committee) and anyone enforcing the law, giving them any information they need.
- Provide the committee with the equipment, space, and administrative support it needs to do its job.
- Protect workers from physical or psychological violence (including domestic, family, or sexual violence) at work, and take any additional required steps to prevent or stop sexual violence — this includes acting on domestic/family violence if the employer knows or reasonably should know a worker is affected.
Of the Worker:
- Take the necessary measures to protect your health, safety and physical and psychological integrity
ensure that the health, safety or physical or psychological well-being of other persons in or near the workplace are not endangered - Be aware of the prevention program implemented by your employer
- Wear and use personal protective equipment provided by your employer properly
- Participate in the identification, elimination and control of risks in your workplace, including those related to physical or psychological violence, including domestic or family violence and sexual violence
Health and Safety Committees
Employers with 20 or more regularly employed workers must establish a joint health and safety committee
- The number of worker representatitves is agreed to by the employer and workers
- It must consist of worker representatives and employer representatives
- At least half the members must represent workers
Right to Refuse Procedures
Workers have the right to refuse to perform particular work if he or she has reasonable grounds to believe that the performance of that work would expose them or another person to danger to health, safety or physical or mental well-being.
Workers cannot refuse is the refusal puts the life, health, safety or physical or mental well-being of another person in immediate danger or if the conditions under which the work is to be performed are ordinary conditions in his kind of work.
They must immediately inform the supervisor or employer.