Manitoba’s NDP Government Gets A C+ On Worker Safety

Last week, the Manitoba Federation of Labour (MFL) released its “Workplace Health and Safety Report Card” for 2024, an assessment of the provincial government’s record when it comes to protecting and promoting workers’ health and safety.

The labour federation gave the provincial NDP government a C+, citing improvements made since the last report card in 2022 but also noting many areas in need of further attention.

The MFL is made up of 30 affiliated unions representing more than 130,000 workers across the province. Its regular report cards are an important appraisal of governments’ commitments to workplace health and safety in Manitoba.

The NDP government of Premier Wab Kinew has been in power for just more than a year, having won a sizable majority in last October’s election. The MFL’s report card assesses how the NDP has performed on the health and safety file thus far, but notes that it will take more time to fully address and hopefully undo the significant damage done by the previous Progressive Conservative (PC) governments of Brian Pallister and Heather Stefanson.

“While some positive steps have been taken on the health and safety front under the Kinew government, inaction and steps backwards that were taken by the previous PC government means that a lot more work needs to be done to strengthen health and safety laws in Manitoba,” said MFL president Kevin Rebeck.

The report card evaluates the Manitoba government’s health and safety track record across four areas: health and safety laws, enforcement, prevention, and workers’ compensation.

When it comes to health and safety laws and regulations, the previous government both neglected to update the Workplace Safety and Health Act and implemented several amendments that weakened worker protections, according to the MFL.

The new government is currently facilitating a comprehensive review of the Act, seeking input from key stakeholders, including organized labour. This review process is expected to be completed by the end of this year and offers an opportunity to push for progressive amendments, such as requiring training and certification for workers handling asbestos.

A particularly positive development is that the NDP has legislated the reinstatement of the Minister’s Advisory Council on Workplace Safety and Health. This advisory body, eliminated by the previous PC government, offers a venue for labour representatives and other experts to raise health and safety issues directly with the government.

Also, the NDP has reversed the previous government’s decision to reduce the level of required supervision of apprenticeships in the building trades. The PCs changed the law to allow one journeyperson to supervise two trainees at a time, effectively exposing apprentices learning a trade to increased risk of injury and death. As one union leader put it, “Frankly, the lack of fatality or serious injury under the current 2:1 apprenticeship ratio is sheer luck.” The ratio is once again one-to-one, a safety measure originally instituted in 2000 following the death of Michael Skanderberg, who was electrocuted while working unsupervised as an apprentice.

While not directly related to health and safety, the NDP government’s passage of card-check certification will ease the path to unionization, allowing more workers access to collective bargaining and thus the ability to negotiate improved safety protections.

As the MFL highlights, however, the government has thus far failed to act to improve regulations related to asbestos exposure. In Manitoba, more than 60 workers have died from asbestos-related diseases in the past decade, yet the province still has no mandatory training and certification to protect workers who work with this deadly material in building renovation and demolition.

Last, Manitoba, like most provinces, still does not provide paid sick days as a minimum employment standard. Only British Columbia and the federal government legislated short-term paid sick leave for all employees post-pandemic. Public health lessons that should have been learned during the pandemic remain unheeded.

When it comes to the enforcement activities of the province’s health and safety branch, the MFL is calling for continued improvement and more staffing. While the number of inspections has been more or less consistent over the past decade (between 5,500 to 6,000 per year), the inspectorate seems to be issuing more improvement and stop work orders in response to unsafe working conditions. As well, they seem to be devoting more attention to high-risk sectors, such as health care. These are positive developments. But with only 52 officers covering the entire province, it’s difficult to leverage inspection activities to improve safety.

On the prevention side, a long-term fall in the injury rate across the province has stalled over the past few years, according to the MFL’s review of the data. Particularly concerning is the high injury rate in the health-care sector. Health care has a rate of injury nearly 50 per cent higher than the provincial average and much higher than other physically dangerous sectors, such as manufacturing and natural resources.

Violence in the workplace also remains a pressing concern. According to the labour federation, the number of workplace injuries caused by violence has quadrupled over the last decade. Last year alone, there were more than 1,800 such injuries, or roughly five workers injured by violence at work everyday.

The MFL is calling for improved safety measures and regulations to deal with this high rate of violence at work, as well as further staffing improvements in health care and other public services to reduce the service delivery challenges that can lead to violent interactions.

Last, further reform is needed to the workers’ compensation system to, as the report card puts it, “meet workers where they are at and recognize injuries and illnesses that are happening in today’s workplaces.” Importantly, labour wants to see the list of diseases given “presumptive coverage” expanded.

Historically, it has been very difficult for a worker to demonstrate that their illness or disease is work-related and thus obtain benefits. Giving presumptive coverage to a broad range of illnesses that are recognized to be work-related reduces the need for workers to go through lengthy eligibility screening processes and thus increase access to vital income and health benefits. The Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba has recently begun to expand their presumptive list, but more could be done to ensure all workers suffering from occupational disease receive the benefits they deserve.

Last year, changes were also made to allow workers better access to benefits for work-related psychological injuries. Despite this positive step, workers continue to have their claims denied due to restrictive eligibility criteria, such as the requirement to demonstrate that a psychological injury is related to a particular circumstance (rather than to compounding problems such as overwork).

In 2022, the MFL gave the previous PC government a D grade, citing the multiple ways in which the PCs had harmed workers’ health and safety rights. For example, the PCs lowered the minimum age of employment to 13, exposing children to increased risk on the job; under-invested in prevention and enforcement activities; and generally failed to protect workers during the pandemic by ignoring public health recommendations and not providing adequate levels of personal protective equipment.

This was a downgrade from the 2019 report, in which the Conservatives received a C- to reflect their inaction on the health and safety file and their initial efforts to cut health and safety protections.

It is thus positive to see that a year of NDP government has made some progressive changes over its first year in government. There remains much to do, however, and a go-slow approach simply won’t cut it.

As the MFL’s report card summarizes, “While many improvements to workplace health and safety have been won by workers and unions over the course of many decades of fighting for worker safety, the fact that Manitoba still experiences some 28,000 reported workplace injuries and twenty-five (25) fatalities annually is a sobering reminder of the need to remain vigilant and redouble our efforts to make workplaces safe and healthy for all Manitobans.”

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