Help LOARC reach their goal of 1,000 plus completed surveys.
Attention worker health and safety representatives. If you haven’t already done so, we urge you to fill out a survey. LOARC needs at least 55 more completed surveys to reach their goal of 1,000 or more. Your survey could be the one that helps them achieve this important objective.
Designed to help improve worker health and safety across Ontario, this landmark survey gives workers a chance to share their experiences as health and safety representatives. To date, some 945 workers have done just that.
In case you haven’t heard, LOARC is looking for worker health and safety representatives, both union and non-union to complete the 10 to 15 minute survey. LOARC is the Labour OHCOW Academic Research Coalition. The survey is the first phase of LOARC’s Health and Safety Representative Study, which is funded by the Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB) as a prevention initiative. The more surveys they receive—the more relevant and significant the study will be.
To participate in the survey, go to www.loarc.ca, or call 1-800-88LOARC (1-800-885-6272) for a paper version with a business reply envelope.
When you have completed the survey indicate if you are willing to volunteer for Phase II of the study which involves a follow-up phone interview. Be sure to provide your contact information. You may also choose to have your name entered into a draw for three prizes of $100.00. Need to know more? Keep reading. If not, go to www.loarc.ca.
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What is the purpose of the study?
The goal of the Health and Safety Representative Study is to “build on the real life experiences, insight and approaches of health and safety worker representatives like you to improve the capacities of all representatives across Ontario to achieve much needed changes in the workplace.”
What type of information will they ask me?
The survey is designed to gather information on worker representatives about
- specific activities they perform
- hazards in their workplaces
- recommendations they’ve offered to eliminate or control exposure, and
- whether or not employers have implemented recommendations.
How will the information be used?
The information gathered will be used to produce a guide LOARC believes can benefit all workplace parties who are committed to making the changes needed to achieve safer and healthier workplaces. This includes enhancing or developing new approaches to training worker health and safety representatives. A copy of the guide along with summary reports on the survey findings will be made available to those who participate.
Why should I participate?
Worker health and safety representatives have a legally mandated role to recommend control efforts to attain safer and healthier workplaces. LOARC wants to know how responsive employers have been to these recommendations, so they can help workers to improve their working conditions.
The information from this study will
- provide useful ideas and information applicable to a wide range of workplaces and situations
- enhance worker representative training
- help build a new network of worker representatives helping and supporting each other in fundamentally new and important ways
- strengthen long-standing demands for more legal protections and resource.
The Workers Health & Safety Centre (WHSC) recognizes the need for this important work and is assisting LOARC with the distribution and collection of the Health and Safety Representativesurvey. We strongly encourage worker representatives to take a few minutes to complete the survey and also to offer to participate in the second phase of the study (see link below for additional information). We also encourage the sharing of this information with other worker representatives and ask them to complete the survey.
Want to know about WHSC training designed to prepare worker representatives to fulfill their significant duties and responsibilities? Call 1-888-869-7950 or contact a WHSC office near you and ask to speak to a training service representative. |
