Ontario's Ministry of Dangerous Labour
Topic: Ontario's Ministry of Dangerous Labour
Host Jessa McLean on Doug Ford's latest attack on construction workers. He's ended mandatory coroner's inquests into deaths on construction sites - the most dangerous place in the Province to work.
By looking at his history with the industry and the inventions made on behalf of employers (developers), it becomes clear Doug Ford and the Ontario Progressive Conservatives are willing to risk worker's lives for wider profit margins.
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Transcript
Welcome to another Ravel rant. You're stuck with me today. My name's Jessa. Santiago is
Speaker:off celebrating his birthday as he should be. And I'm gonna get into this week's main rant
Speaker:in just a second, but first, I've got to vent about some chicken sauce. That's right, chicken
Speaker:sauce. You know, I was making hot chicken sandwiches for my family for dinner and I went into my
Speaker:cupboard and for some reason, there was both a can of St. Hubert's gravy and Swiss chalet
Speaker:gravy. This is very specific to Canadians. Anyone outside the country is listening and have no
Speaker:idea what I'm talking about. These are like competing rotisserie chicken mainstays in Canada.
Speaker:And just to be silly, but also to help me choose, I of course went to the internet, took a picture,
Speaker:put it up, asked people to vote on it. Everything was going well. It was quite evenly paced,
Speaker:to be honest, until Bob Chandler chimed in, of course. Any? idea that we had free will
Speaker:disappeared when Bob told me that both St. Hubert and Swish LA had in fact been purchased by
Speaker:the same company. So I don't even know which one we ended up choosing because frankly who
Speaker:cares anymore. So yeah thanks Bob and of course late stage capitalism. I'm sure you can all
Speaker:relate but what am I really here to talk about this week? What's got me riled up obviously
Speaker:it's Doug Ford again. Of course it is. Last week, Ontario's Solicitor General Michael Kersner
Speaker:announced an end to mandatory coroner's inquests into workplace deaths at construction sites,
Speaker:specifically. These inquests were previously done on a case-by-case basis. They were meant
Speaker:to look at each death specifically and find and issue recommendations. This was supposed
Speaker:to have a preventative measure built it wouldn't happen to the next worker. Doug Ford's now
Speaker:going to replace this with an annual general review of all deaths in the industry that year.
Speaker:That's about 22 deaths a year now in Ontario that are all going to be lumped into one single
Speaker:process, a process that isn't entirely clear right now, and their job will then be to provide
Speaker:recommendations that people either listen to or don't. Now, I'm not going to pretend that
Speaker:the inquiries that existed were ideal or that they were in any way preventing workers from
Speaker:dying on the job, because we've seen these numbers actually go up over the years. The process
Speaker:was a joke. It is a joke. Unfortunately, the province does have plenty of evidence behind
Speaker:them that something needed to be done. And if it wasn't for their complete disdain for workers
Speaker:and their lack of track record of making any of these sites safe. one might buy into the
Speaker:reasoning they provided. They're telling us that they're looking to ease pressure on coroners
Speaker:to get more timely recommendations. Timely is an issue, right? Like if you're looking to
Speaker:prevent workers from dying in a similar way, we can't take 12 years to find out what happened.
Speaker:And that's exactly what happened if folks can think back to Christmas Day many, many years
Speaker:ago. Four workers lost their lives on a swing stage when it collapsed. They weren't harnessed.
Speaker:Most of them were not harnessed. And in the end, a site supervisor that survived the accident
Speaker:was the only one that went to jail. The company was fined less than a million dollars. And
Speaker:finally, the coroner's inquest took place 12 years after the fact. It did issue recommendations
Speaker:that Ontario has since adopted in terms of Heights training. harness training, workers had to
Speaker:work on roofs safely by strapping themselves in and whatnot, and they have to take this
Speaker:annually and get recertified. And so changes did take place, but I mean fall from heights
Speaker:still account for 20% of workplace deaths. So you can imagine it over those 12 years that
Speaker:folks were waiting to find out what really happened and to issue recommendations. There was 12
Speaker:years where 20% of construction workers who were training or workplace, proper workplace
Speaker:attitudes around working at heights. So, you know, there's no doubt that something had to
Speaker:be done in order to speed things up. But you have to also keep in mind that Ford has made
Speaker:cuts to the coroner services. So it's no wonder that there's such a backlog. And one has to
Speaker:imagine how they can look at 22 cases some years more than that, and properly determine exactly
Speaker:what went wrong and find constructive recommendations to make prevention happen. But like I said,
Speaker:this government has done everything possible to actually make construction sites less safe.
Speaker:So it's hard for us to believe that this is in the best interest of workers, if it's coming
Speaker:from them. Let me tell you what I'm talking about. And I'm sure it won't surprise you that
Speaker:most, if not all of Doug Ford's changes to the Labor Act and how the Ministry of Labor functions
Speaker:has completely favored employers over workers. which obviously flies in the face of reality,
Speaker:where we know massive interventions are sorely needed to protect workers from exploitation,
Speaker:from that power imbalance that exists, that so obviously exists. Ford has made it easier
Speaker:to misclassify workers, underpay them, he's made it harder to bring complaints forward,
Speaker:and he's just provided fewer resources to ensure workplaces stay safe. Doug Ford's been particularly
Speaker:cruel to the construction. industry workers. And let me tell you what I'm talking about.
Speaker:He starts off by pretty much dismantling the Ontario College of Trades and taking all of
Speaker:the things that they were responsible for underneath the Ministry of Labour. And the College of
Speaker:Trades was far from ideal. But bringing it inside the ministry means workers will not be involved
Speaker:in any way. This includes safety issues, certification requirements. All of this will be decided by
Speaker:a minister. who will not necessarily have, and most likely will not have, any lived experience
Speaker:in the trades. He's also cut over 16 million dollars just to the Ministry of Labor overall.
Speaker:This is a department that is specifically tasked for looking at occupational injuries, illness,
Speaker:and death prevention. One of the worst bills to pass for the construction industry was Bill
Speaker:47. and like all of their stupid bills, they have the worst names. This was the Making Ontario
Speaker:Open for Business Act. So there was a lot amended. It was under this act that the Ontario College
Speaker:of Trades and Apprenticeships was dismantled and redistributed. But one of the things that
Speaker:also happened here was that they changed the ratio between journey persons, you might know
Speaker:them as journeymen, versus apprentice for the trades. He, for all of the trades, he set it
Speaker:at one to one. So... Obviously, again, this is a move to allow employers to save on labor
Speaker:costs, because what they'll do is they'll be able to hire more apprentices than they had
Speaker:previously at a lower rate, with fewer obligations to retain the more experienced journey persons,
Speaker:who obviously get paid a higher rate. The purpose of the ratio wasn't just to protect the seniority
Speaker:of workers who get paid more, but it was a safety mechanism. These are inherently dangerous jobs.
Speaker:A construction worker is the single most dangerous job in Canada. What journey persons do and
Speaker:what that experience does is the apprentices, they keep the apprentices safe. At least that's
Speaker:the idea. The more experienced hands you have on a project, the safer those apprentices are,
Speaker:the safer the whole site becomes. Now a foreperson and like the one safety worker on site are
Speaker:not enough eyes to make sure that each worker is doing the things that they're supposed to
Speaker:be doing in the correct way. A lot of these folks, a lot of these apprentices are doing
Speaker:very dangerous things, sometimes for the first time. Advocates within the industry were very
Speaker:cautious of a one-to-one ratio. However, it didn't really have the backing of the unions
Speaker:like they're supposed to. Notoriously, the unions that represent construction workers here in
Speaker:Ontario are all in the pocket of developers. Their interests don't really differ from developers
Speaker:at all. They do so little for their workers. Worse. we often find them campaigning or endorsing
Speaker:conservative candidates like Doug Ford. So unfortunately construction workers aren't very well represented
Speaker:by the people that are supposed to be protecting them. And they're sure as hell not being protected
Speaker:by Doug Ford and the Ministry of Labor. Because in the year where there were the highest amount
Speaker:of deaths, 25 construction deaths here in Ontario, and that's just at construction sites specifically,
Speaker:there were over, in that year there were over six thousand complaints made to the Ministry
Speaker:of Labor in relation to workplace health and safety. And only four work refusal orders were
Speaker:issued. So that pretty much means the Ministry of Labor only found there were four sites in
Speaker:all that year in all of the province that didn't that weren't safe enough to be working at.
Speaker:This is despite 25 workers dying and the injuries in the tens of Although we tell workers that
Speaker:they have the right to refuse safe work, that isn't the reality. So, on top of the Ministry
Speaker:of Labor pretty much ignoring most complaints, we all know that reprisal is the reality of
Speaker:a workplace as well. That being the person to complain or to issue a complaint, to ask for
Speaker:safer conditions on a work site is not going to get you brought over to the next job. It's
Speaker:not going to keep you with your crew. And so the workplace attitudes that exist on construction
Speaker:sites really do play into it. And so it's absolutely essential that folks continue to look at the
Speaker:mechanisms that exist in these workplaces in order to lower those deaths. Another way that
Speaker:Ford has really shown his disdain for construction workers, or rather his proximity to developers,
Speaker:because folks need to understand, construction is a huge industry, Canada-wide, globally,
Speaker:I'm sure, but in Ontario. This is like a $50 billion part of our GDP. It's about 8% of the
Speaker:Canadian GDP overall. And so on top of Ford being really close with these developers, it's
Speaker:essential the way that we structured our economy. So when the premier pretended to lock the province
Speaker:down in response to COVID, he ignored the construction sites. He deemed them almost all essential,
Speaker:even parking garages and condo buildings. were continually built with very little safety precautions
Speaker:added to them at all. I've described on another episode how you would go to some sites and,
Speaker:you know, it's a tiny shared washroom, a porta potty quite often. Hot water and soap aren't
Speaker:exactly readily available, the mask mandates were not enforced, and so construction workers
Speaker:have been left particularly vulnerable during that time. And as with all of the other things
Speaker:that have occurred with construction industry, the union has not been particularly helpful
Speaker:to them. And the way we pick our rants has us most riled up in that week, right? I can't
Speaker:possibly fit into an episode, all of the things that I'm upset about. But this one hit particularly
Speaker:close to home because of the amount of years that Mai has been spent at construction sites.
Speaker:He was a carpenter on large commercial builds, sometimes residential builds, but always...
Speaker:almost always high rises and workplace injuries and death are commonplace on the construction
Speaker:site. There would be no shortage of stories and in fact it wasn't all that long after he
Speaker:started while he was definitely still an apprentice that my husband was sent to the hospital with
Speaker:a massive cut on his leg from some power tool close to some artery and you know it really
Speaker:shook him. That was very soon after he started and The small injuries were constant and in
Speaker:fact, you know, he's on disability now. But death was also something that he witnessed
Speaker:on the job. Not super up close, thankfully, but you know, one was from falling debris at
Speaker:the site, not secured properly in a gust of wind falling down below. And the second was
Speaker:a worker crushed by concrete forms that they had been building. just as my husband was on
Speaker:the other end of the same site at the same time. It really impacted a lot of the workers there
Speaker:for obvious reasons, but some workers had to continue working almost right away. The immediate
Speaker:site was closed off for a short period for some investigative process, but it was a three-tower
Speaker:build that resumed the next day. A small fundraiser, I remember being held amongst the workers.
Speaker:I don't know of any outcome of any inquest, which probably hasn't even happened yet. And
Speaker:I don't know what kind of compensation, if any, the family received or what honours were provided
Speaker:to that worker from the province. But that isn't the case when all workers die in the job, though,
Speaker:is it? It's not the case when cops die. We see elaborate funerals, closed off streets, news
Speaker:reports might even be televised live. It's attended by d- dignitaries, right? It is an occasion.
Speaker:There are really no expenses spared. Now most police forces actually refused to disclose
Speaker:how much they spend on police funerals but the CBC was able to find out that one police services
Speaker:spent about a quarter of a million dollars on one funeral. It was two hundred and forty something
Speaker:thousand dollars and of that a hundred and ninety one thousand seven hundred and ninety two dollars
Speaker:and fifty six cents. went to pay cops premium pay just to attend the funeral. And that's
Speaker:really ironic, especially when it occurs even under governments that pretend to be penny
Speaker:pinchers of sorts. One has to ask themselves why. Why the province, why the police forces
Speaker:make sure to mark these deaths in a very elaborate way and issue recommendations and funding and
Speaker:training associated with making sure that doesn't happen to another cop. Some of you will have
Speaker:an answer, obviously. You know that it's because in large part, their power, their ability to
Speaker:exploit us, is maintained by the presence of a police state. It's important that the police
Speaker:are seen as important, as an essential service, as heroes, in order to keep up the entire illusion.
Speaker:It's also important to maintain these police budgets. We will fund heroes. We will spare
Speaker:no expense. for police budgets that actually protect the powerful and the system that benefits
Speaker:them. But the cost is the tell-all reality though, right? Because under these austerity regimes
Speaker:where conservatives will cut any budget in sight, often arbitrarily with no thought of consequence,
Speaker:they continue to increase police budgets and spend a fortune on their funerals. Police is
Speaker:like the 17th. most dangerous job in Canada. It's somewhere between electricians and auto
Speaker:mechanics. So no one's saying it's not dangerous at all. I mean, these are typically hyped up
Speaker:individuals running around with weapons in fast cars. So I'm not surprised that they're in
Speaker:the top 20. But if you compare them to the folks that they're on either side of, they have double
Speaker:the median wage of the trades folks that face far more dangerous circumstances. You know,
Speaker:your median wage for construction worker in Ontario or in Canada is about $22. And for
Speaker:a cop it's $46. Obviously that's a median so they get paid lower and higher than that, but
Speaker:you know it's just the way that we put them in prominence both in what we pay them and
Speaker:how we treat their safety. These folks are provided with extensive continuous training and all
Speaker:the safety equipment and weaponry one needs to storm a small city while the rest of us
Speaker:can't even get fucking paid sick days during a pandemic. And none of this, none of this
Speaker:is unique to Ford and his progressive conservatives. All of our governments are making policy choices
Speaker:that have led to lowered life expectancy in Canada. Right? In the last three years, that
Speaker:number has gone down. And that is because our so-called leaders do nothing but facilitate
Speaker:the needs of capital in the most reckless ways, like ending mandatory coroner's inquest into
Speaker:construction deaths. But I think one of the things that we need to get used to. in this
Speaker:late-stage capitalism is the removal of all facades. The masks, as they say, are off. And
Speaker:the policies we are seeing and the global carnage we are witnessing are all evidence of that.
Speaker:There is no hiding their indifference to the suffering of the working class. And as with
Speaker:almost all of the issues facing us, the only solution is organizing, and more organizing.
Speaker:So until next time, keep organizing. That is a wrap. A very big thank you to the producer
Speaker:of our show, Santiago Helu-Quintero. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status
Speaker:quo, please share our content. And if you have the means, consider becoming a patron. So until
Speaker:next time, keep disrupting.
