• Complete program for supervisors and managers on how to implement and manage OH&S due diligence standards in the workplace
• Confronting reality of workplace accidents that fatally injure hundreds and permanently disable thousands of Ontario workers each year
• Awareness of frequency of corporations, supervisors, officers, and directors being convicted of violating the OHSA
• Preventive insight to avoid corporate fines as high as $100,000 to $500,000 and individual fines up to $25,000, plus jail terms
• Considering courts’ and prosecutors’ increasing perception of OH&S violations as “crimes” under the Criminal Code of Canada
• Applying court-established OH&S due diligence standards to prevent most accidents and prosecutions as part of workplace health and safety programs

Learn:

• Concurrent responsibilities of workplace parties
• Reasons to go beyond the OHSA and regulations
• Use of non-government standards and guideline as “every precaution reasonable”
• Understanding the responsibilities and potential liability of corporate officers and directors
• How to implement proactive systems
• How to establish a health and safety program that meets key, court-established due diligence standards
• Understanding court standards for hazard identification, monitoring, and communication: why you can’t argue “we didn’t know” about a hazard, practice, or new issue at the workplace
• Meeting court expectations of discipline: how and when to discipline for health and safety infractions
• How and when to use notes and checklists (precedents provided)

Agenda

Obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act – A Refresher

• The workplace parties: employers, constructors, supervisors, officers and directors, workers
• Basic obligations of each party under the Act
• Obligation to ensure competency of supervision
• How the obligations of the parties fit together
• Regulations: how they fit with the Act and determining which ones apply to the workplace

Consequences for Failure to Meet Obligations Under the Act

What happens if you violate the Act

• Penalty provisions for corporations and individuals
• Aggressive enforcement
• Trends in sentencing and fines being imposed against companies, supervisors, officers, and directors

How to Bring Due Diligence to the Workplace: A Step-by Step Review

• Components of a workplace program of due diligence
• How to implement an ongoing due diligence program
• Identification of foreseeable hazards in the workplace
• Developing proper policies, practices, and procedures: supervisory role in development and on-going review
• Supervision and expectations of supervisors
• Ensuring proper training in specific policies and rules for work
• Ensuring worker familiarity with specific safety hazards and risks with work
• Creating a system to ensure that supervisors train each new and transferred worker in procedures and specific hazards
• Creating a system to alert workers to hazards of new equipment, machinery and communicate, and coordinate work
• Creating a system to monitor compliance
• Auditing and inspecting for risks
• Creating a system for ongoing reminders of risks and policies, practices, and procedures (crew meetings and other mechanisms)
• Determining whether supervisors are monitoring with sufficient frequency for risks
• Real court case examples and problems or relevant workplace issues dealing with key components of due diligence
• Practical aspects of distinction between how the company properly implements due diligence and how supervisors and managers implement personal due diligence

Discipline for Safety infractions: An Important Aspect of Due Diligence

• Court comments and arbitral review of discipline for health and safety
• Practical and legal aspects of imposing discipline effectively
• Case examples and problems using actual arbitration cases

Documentation of Due Diligence Efforts

• Importance of supervisory documentation of key due diligence components
• Documentation of facts to support discipline and the disciplinary process
• Limitation periods for prosecutions under OSHA and time frames for maintaining documentation

Book an In-House or Remote Program

For further information on our training, please call your lawyer at the Firm. If you are not a current client, please contact: