safe workplace

Hockey players and workplace health and safety

April 24, 2012 Marcia Scheffler Health and Safety, Human Resources

Hockey players get paid to be hit. The reverse is also true; many hockey players are paid to hit. For hockey players, violence is part of the job. This job has clearly been taken up a notch this year for the playoffs. Even Sid “the Kid” was renamed “Vicious Sid” in a recent headline.

employee discipline, employment law, enforcement, fines, hazard controls, hockey violence, internal responsibility system, minimize the risk of violence, personal protective equipment, safe workplace, unsafe behaviour, violence prevention, workplace violence, young workers

Employers must now treat verbal threats as serious offences under the OHSA’s definition of workplace violence

September 14, 2011 David Hyde Employee Relations, Health and Safety, Human Resources, Human Rights

A recent labour arbitrator’s decision—to uphold the City of Kingston’s right to terminate a 28-year employee for issuing a verbal threat against a co-worker—was based in large part on the arbitrator’s view that “the classification of threatening language as workplace violence” under the Occupational Health and Safety Act represents a “clear and significant change” to the law in Ontario.