shared responsibility

We all have a responsibility to keep workers safe, especially vulnerable workers such as child labourers. There are a few easy steps we can follow.
1. Never patronize and establishment where you witness unsafe practices. In the case of this story the author should have walked out the door and bought thier coffee somewhere else when they realised the managment had no regard for worker safety.
2. Report unsafe practices to WorkSafe BC. Anyone can make a report to worksafe including a patron or a passerby. If you have a camera phone take a quick shot to add to your email. The incident described in the article was a near miss that had the potential for major bodily harm. Worksafe will be more likely to do an inspection for work sites where there have been complaints. I am sure an inspector would find many more hazards and the manager will be forced to comply with thier recommendations.
3. Practice what we preach. Look around our own places of work for unsafe practices and identify them before someone suffers an injury.
Safety is everyone's responsibility.

get what you pay for!

Young people coming into the workforce soon realize that manual labour is a dead end, and adopt an attitude that their lives are doomed already.

As a result they do not take a menial job seriously, but instead regard it as a waste of their time and merely do a token effort, keeping their mind on anything else.

The cure would be to stop the wide gap in earnings between "blue collar" workers and those who could afford to attend a university.

We as a society pump millions into advanced education, which is fine, but we should not sit back and accept that the very people we support then wind up earning so much money that we create an envy barrier.

There should be enough renumeration to average working people that they see their efforts rewarded; as things stand right now, kids see this discrepancy immediately and the results are as described in this article.

The title of the article should be changed.

To: Stupid Bosses, Serious Risks. People should have to pass a test before they can actually hire someone other than a contractor.

just remember

The real job of the WCB is to collect revenue for the government. Not to make sure that employees are safe. They might do something after the fact but that is unlikely. It's up to each worker to find out how to work safely on their own as well as what their rights are. Most unions are good about making sure their members are safe.

Remember, If you do not WORKSAFEly in BC you will not be COMPENSATED.

This is news to me

But certainly not the Liberal Government as it all falls on deaf ears.

I remember reading a damming report a few years around and it is truly sad around here when BC youth can be tossed around like they were a mere coin. Heads the kids work for nothing and nobody says nothing and BC Liberals are ahead of the game. How does that work exactly where is the pay off?

My son works 60 to 70 hour a week

He dosen't receive fair compensation and is afraid to say no to long hours or lose his job. He told them at work it was time to go home after working 18 hours after only a few hours of sleep and its the norm while being grossly underpaid. He walks home at 3 in the morniing because the buses don't run late enough and often walks home because his money runs out. He was so worried about his job but just couldn't stand on his feet and I told him my son the Universe will answer your needs and get some rest and things will look up. And where else is the reastuarant he works for going to find someone who works all those hours and takes all the BS but in BC so he was certain to get back his job.

And so he did get back his job

So all is well in the universe until he ends up sleep walking into the deep fryer and Alive my son really likes his job and the people he works for and even his dumb ass boss who can figure that. It just dosen't seem fair to prosper of the backs of kids especially their broken backs and the province should have great shame for the conditions things are in.

PRetty shocking

More chatter, I wasn't even trying and six violations of the BC Labour Code came to me as you wrote. I'm not even going to consider the Worksafe stuff - I tend to agree with Denis B, that they spend more time collecting money for their aggrandizement than making things right for workers, and they deliberately set up an adversarial system between managers and workers so that the conflict inevitably ends up with losers who pay - with money, health or the life of the business. It's not all one-sided - they know who has the money.

There are times when I feel like it would be a solution to abolish WCB and go back to the time when every employee had his or her own personal lawyer attached to their ass like a lamprey, taking note of all the violations of reasonable acts and due diligence.

At least for a week, anyway. Society would be broke, hungry and at a standstill after that.

WCB (aka WorkSafeBC)

I am self-employed, and while I do not need WCB, many of my regular clients are afraid of an investigation by WCB if I do not carry their insurance. So I do, resigned as I am that should I make a claim, I will be rejected, or the recompense will be miniscule at best - and primarily because I am self-employed, with no "clout" to fight their (completely arbitrary) rulings.

I consider it a cost of doing business, and nothing more.

This what the people of BC

This what the people of BC voted for. Low wage conservatives, 6 buck training wage, 2 hour shifts, have to do your own fighting with employment standards now, the sheet with ones labour rights taken down from work all thanks to the people of BC who elected Campbell and the low wage cons not just once but 3 times. Shame on you all that voted Campbell and the low wage cons into power!

The food industry wanted all these changes and the low wage government did as they were asked, so I do not feel sorry for them when they whine about losing money due to HST. boo hoo. NOT!

The worst could be yet to come

Wait till the uneducated lot passing out of the school system now start their working lives. If they can't read or comprehend properly for their age at this time then there will be the potential for many workplace accidents in the future.

I once watched a young man

I once watched a young man running a table saw and cringed at the manner in which he used it. When I mentioned that he should get his supervisor to show him the safe way to cut wood before he ended up badly hurt he seemed to take offence. But, the next day he was using the machine safely and professionally.

I think reporting an issue to worksafe isn't always a good first option. Many times people are quite willing to take the advice of an observant bystander.

Shifting the weight of responsibility

What I find most interesting is this new 'framing' of the name away from the Worker's 'Compensation' Board to WorkSafeBC.

This subtle shift in name tells the tale....and in changing the emphasis away from compensation it redirects both accountability and liability onto the worker.

The onus is shifted away from the company in regard to safety and the consequent accountability/responsibility/compensation and towards the worker....an attempt to make the worker solely culpable and liable.

The newly named WorkSafeBC has been framed this way to imply that if there is an injury, it is because the worker was not working safely enough and it shifts the weight of responsibility for safety on the job and on the job site onto the worker and away from the company/employer....and more importantly, it shifts accountability and thus decreases the likelihood that a worker will receive compensation for an injury suffered on the job.

WorkSafeBC just reflects our present provincial government regressively ugly policies where the rights of business trump the rights of human beings.

To cut to the chase, this is not about working safely.

It's about money.

It's a shift in focus created specifically to provide less and less compensation for workers....and more and more savings in insurance rates for business.

lynn

And all the while making coverage by the (ex) WCB compulsory.

"Free" enterprise at its finest!

Since the manager had no

Since the manager had no concern for the safety of the young man, our reporter might have mentioned that the rag, and the cleaning solution, had contaminated the fries. That was something any customer could legitimately complain about, something the manager could not explain away, something that would cost the business money, and something that might have gotten the lad out from over the hot oil.