Right to Refuse Unsafe Work

http://www.canadianlabour.ca/right-to-refuse-unsafe-work

http://www.congresdutravail.ca/droit-de-refuser-travail-dangereux

The lives of almost one million Canadian workers will be placed in danger as a result of cynical amendments that the Conservative government is making to the Canada Labour Code. Buried deep in the government's latest budget bill tabled on October 22 are amendments to the health and safety provisions of the Code that have nothing to do with balancing the budget, and everything to do with putting workers' lives at risk.
The government wants to water down the right to refuse dangerous work, end the role of federal Health and Safety Officers in the investigation process and give employers the power to discipline workers when they invoke the right to refuse dangerous work. All together, these changes would make the Canada Labour Code provisions on the right to refuse dangerous work the weakest in the country, and put workers' lives at risk. These proposals have no business being put in a budget bill.
Send this email now to your MP urging them to fight to remove the provisions relating to the health and safety of workers from the budget bill! A copy of your letter will go to Labour Minister Kellie Leitch and to the Minister of Employment and Social Development Jason Kenney.

The following message will be sent with your signature and personal message below:

I am writing to you today about Bill C-4, the Budget Implementation Act 2013 which hides a number of very serious changes to legislation relating to the health and safety protections of working Canadians.  

This bill would water down the definition of "danger" in Part II of the Canada Labour Code to the point it will become the weakest law in the country regulating the right of workers to refuse dangerous work without reprisals from their employers. It will lead to more workplace deaths and injuries in federally regulated industries. 

Bill C-4 proposes to limit the right to refuse dangerous work to imminent or serious threat to the life or health of a person. It would eliminate exposure to hazardous substances likely to result in a chronic illness, in disease, or in damage to the reproductive system, as a reason to invoke the right to refuse dangerous work.

Imagine, knowing what we know about asbestos exposure, that a federal worker would now be unable to refuse dangerous work if his employer told him to remove asbestos from a workplace without proper safety gear?

Imagine, knowing what we know today about the impact of certain chemicals on women's reproductive health, that a federal worker would no longer have the right to refuse dangerous work if her employer gave her work that exposed her to those chemicals?

The bill would further weaken the regulatory regime by removing the very important role of Health and Safety Officers in the work refusal process. The bill replaces every reference to Health and Safety Officers with "the Minister." Am I really expected to believe that the Minister will now take the time to field all phone calls and investigations related to these matters across all workplaces in Canada?

No credible stakeholder has promoted these changes and it is outrageous for this government to hide its intention to put the health and safety of workers at risk inside a budget implementation bill. 

These amendments will turn the clock back on worker health and safety and endanger lives. I strongly urge you, as my MP, to oppose these amendments, and to insist these provisions be removed from Bill C-4. These proposed changes will inevitably lead to a higher number of deaths and injuries of Canadian workers. 

Sincerely,