If you’ll agree to name it the James Clyburn Worker Safety Act, he’ll be interested if it’s in Timbuktu. 
Obviously I meant her, uh, government person. Representative. Lord of the Riding. Whatever they have in those places full of foreigners.
Member of Parliament(MP).
See, I knew that, but it just would not come to mind. I’m not tragically ignorant, just tragically confused.
There really is nothing my MP can do, the Prosecutor is doing the best he can at this point, the problem is the law. Maybe down the road I will think about that. I grew up with one of my MP’s and he is still my next door neighbour.
Don’t kid yourself Rysto, He should be, so should you, your country is even worse then mine. Cite
Companies like the one involved in that incident I have a special hatred for. They truly could care less about their workers. The truly appalling fact is, that is not an isolated example, that is an all too common fact in the oil industry in the USA.
Sorry, FarmerChick - Jim says that the company your son was employed by is the only one WCB and WHS is interested in. His company may turn around and do their best to implicate the other companies if they pressured his company unduly, causing unsafe work conditions, but that’s about it.
As you are no doubt well aware, this really does suck. We think we’re living in a modern world where companies make some efforts to not treat their employees like they have no worth as human beings, but when you dig deeper it really doesn’t get better. All that lip-service companies are spouting about “Our employees are our most valuable resource” and such is just words they are told to say to hopefully trick some employees into believing them. You’re not allowed to just shoot your employees on the spot any longer, but killing them with unsafe work conditions? The old boys network will take care of that for you.
It’s a pretty much universal plank of employment law that the direct employer is responsible for its employees. IOW, if he worked for a PEO or somesuch, the PEO bears sole liability under employment law.
If there’s a valid third-party claim (ie. some other company is directly responsible for his injuries and/or death) things are a bit different, but that would be a conventional tort, and not related to employment law.
IANAL, this is not legal advice, etc. ad nauseam
ETA: By “some other company” I mean “some other company not at all related to his employment”, ie. not a company leasing him from his employer. Hypothetically, if there was, I dunno, a drilling equipment provider who knowingly sold or provided unsafe equipment to your son or somebody else and he was killed by that, you (and/or your daughter in law) might have a claim against them.
Fucking fuckers. The Large Drilling Company needs a rig drilled right up their corporate ass. And their safety guys can go fuck themselves too. Lazy useless motherfucking rat bastards.
I’ll make a slight defense of the safety professionals - they are basically consultants. They have no sticks and no carrots to make the companies do what they are legally supposed to do.
I know what you’re saying, I being as specific as I could be. No offense meant at all to Mr featherlou or any other safety personnel actually doing their job.
FarmerChick, I’m very sorry to hear of your loss. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. Please accept my sympathies.
Jim/featherlou posted an excellent summary of workers’ comp - I thought I’d post a few follow-up comments, in case you find it helpful.
There’s not much point in talking to your federal MP about workers’ comp legislation, because Parliament doesn’t have any constitutional authority in the area. Civil law, which includes things like torts and workplace safety, are areas of (almost) exclusive provincial jurisdiction. If you’re dissatisfied with the way Workers Comp works (or doesn’t), you should talk to your MLA.
Parliament does have criminal law power, and following the Westray mine disaster, it did pass Bill C-45 to amend the Criminal Code, to facilitate prosecutions of organizations for criminal negligence causing death. However, criminal negligence prosecutions are very difficult to prove, so there haven’t been many prosecutions using these provisions (at least, not that I’ve heard of). You might want to talk to your MP about that aspect of the issue.
As for why no civil suit is available: as Jim mentioned, in Canada it dates back to the Meridith report, and it is a question of policy: what is the best way to ensure that someone who is injured on the job gets compensated properly and promptly?
Civil suits take time and money, with no guarantee that the injured worker would receive anything in the end, unless fault on the part of the employer can be shown. Common law doctrines such as common employment and contributory negligence by the injured employee could prevent any successful lawsuit, or drastically reduce the size of the payout. Even if the employee was successful, it could take a couple of years for the lawsuit to work its way through the system. And the lawyers’ fees then would then have to be paid from the award.
By contrast, in a no-fault system, benefits start flowing right from the accident, with no administrative costs, such as lawyers’ fees. Medical expenses and rehab are included. The goal is to start compensating the employee right away, and to replace the lost income immediately. Those immediate, cost-free benefits are the biggest advantage of the no-fault system, in my opinion, compared to the length of time a law-suit takes.
The other thing is that civil actions in Canada are generally not designed to punish the person who caused the injury. The purpose of the law suit is to compensate the injured party. So, even if a lawsuit were available, the issue would be compensation for lost income and the non-pecuniary loss to the immediate family, under the Fatal Accidents Act you mention. Punitive damages are available, but they are rare, because that’s not the purpose of a civil action.
Again, please accept my sympathies on your terrible loss.
Thanks for the info and the condolences Northern Piper. I know there is not much at this point my federal MP can do, but I just think it is really unfair that some of these big corporations are getting away with the things they are.
I’m glad you confirmed the info that I do have, it is good to know I was correct in the information I was given and in my thought process.
Again, I am not looking for compensation, I am looking for punishment for companies that do wrong and get away with basically a fine. This is not the first time these companies have been charged, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
My deepest sympathies to you FarmerChick.
Just one follow-up comment slash explanation:
It works this way in our industry because we use terms and legalities like ‘Contractor-in-kind’ and ‘Prime Contractor’. The company your son was working for was the Prime Contractor, which means that his company takes all responsibility when it comes to Health and Safety. It is their WCB fees that take the hit, etc.
This is done to protect the big companies in a way, and because it makes sense. For instance, the company I work for is strictly pipeline, and we have about 400 employees. When we build a pipeline, we hire a contract company and they hire hundreds of their employees. We make them Prime Contractor because, as a smaller company, WE don’t have the resources or people to take care of these extra hundred contractors, but the contracting company does.
I don’t know if that makes sense or not, it’s kind of a convoluted issue.
While we’re talking about Prime Contractors and WCB, just a reminder that if you have work done on your house, you may be a Prime Contractor, with all the legal repercussions that entails if someone gets hurt. This is something to talk to your renovators about.