Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety

HRinfodesk poll result and commentary: Do you know what the Globally Harmonized System is?

June 20, 2013 Yosie Saint-Cyr, LL.B. Managing Editor Employee Relations, Health and Safety, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Training and Development, Union Relations

Well it seems not many people know about the Globally Harmonized System. When we asked in our poll of April 19, 2013, “Do you know what the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) is?” Out of 221 respondents, 140 (63.35 percent) said no. The rest of the respondents either knew about GHS (59/26.70 percent) or were not sure (22/9.95 percent). So, what is the Globally Harmonized System?

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What can we learn from recent critical workplace violence incidents?

September 26, 2012 David Hyde Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, Health and Safety, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Training and Development, Union Relations

Under Canadian Occupational Health and Safety legislation, employers are obligated to take all reasonable steps to maintain a safe work environment. In many Provinces (e.g., Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta) as well as the Federal jurisdiction, employers are statutorily obligated to put in place a workplace violence prevention and intervention program (i.e., measures and procedures designed to mitigate the risk of harm from work-related violence)…

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Labelling tool helps organizations comply with WHMIS, OSHA, GHS

February 6, 2012 Adam Gorley Health and Safety, Human Resources

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety has released an online tool to help organizations that handle chemicals comply with requirements under Canada’s WHMIS, the United States’ OSHA standard and the new Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals. If you’re keeping an eye on the GHS implementation, this might interest you…

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Heated arguments: Temperature wars in the office

August 3, 2011 Yosie Saint-Cyr, LL.B. Managing Editor Health and Safety, Human Resources

The room temperature at work is an ongoing point of contention in many workplaces, including ours. It is either too cold in the summer or too hot in the winter.

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The importance of conducting risk assessments for human resources

July 19, 2011 John Proctor Health and Safety, Human Resources

When an organization gives one of their human resources a task, how often is a risk assessment done? The answer is: it depends. When firefighters are asked to enter a burning building, the person in charge first assesses the risk to his people. When the engineers at the Japanese nuclear plant had to re-enter the facility to prevent a meltdown, a risk assessment was also completed before that. However, when most organizations fly their sales guy to South Africa, or get the young clerk at the gas station to close up the shop at night, rarely do they consider all the risks.

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Duty of care and sending employees abroad: How much do organizations need to care?

May 17, 2011 John Proctor Corporate Immigration, Health and Safety

More and more organizations are asking the question: “What are the responsibilities associated with managing a travelling workforce?” This question has been increasingly relevant as of late, with a number of Canadian companies taking notice of the recent events in Egypt, Libya, and Japan.

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