Video: Contingency planning for safety incidents in the workplace

Posted by Admin on August 03, 2011

Heenan Blaikie’s Jeremy Warning recently spoke at the Construction Labour Relations Conference in Toronto, hosted by Insight Information. During the session “Preparing for the Worst: How to Respond to a High Risk Incident” Jeremy provided advice on contingency planning for safety incidents in the workplace.

This is the fourth and last video from Jeremy’s presentation. Thank you to Reed Construction Data Canada for allowing us to re-post these videos.

Video: How to react to an injury in the workplace

Posted by Admin on July 27, 2011

Heenan Blaikie’s Jeremy Warning recently spoke at the Construction Labour Relations Conference in Toronto, hosted by Insight Information. During the session “Preparing for the Worst: How to Respond to a High Risk Incident” Jeremy provided advice to construction managers on what to do if there is an injury at the workplace.

This is the third video from Jeremy’s presentation from a four-part series recorded by Reed Construction Data Canada. We will post the last video next week.

Video: Drafting a Workplace Safety Incident Response Plan

Posted by Admin on July 20, 2011

Heenan Blaikie’s Jeremy Warning recently spoke at the Construction Labour Relations Conference in Toronto, hosted by Insight Information. During the session “Preparing for the Worst: How to Respond to a High Risk Incident” Jeremy gave advice to construction managers on how to effectively draft an incident response plan.

This is the second video from a four-part series from Jeremy’s presentation recorded by Reed Construction Data Canada. We will continue to post video clips over the next two weeks.

 

Union "Salting" under attack in US Congress

Posted by Greg McGinnis on June 20, 2011

A Bill has been introduced into the US Congress that would amend the National Labor Relations Act to allow employers to deny employment to undercover union organizers, often known as "salts". 

A cursory reading of the text of the Bill (described as the Truth in Employment Act of 2011) suggests that employers would be entitled not only to refuse to hire a "salt”, but also to terminate a "salt" after discovering their undercover plot. 

One suspects that this is "red meat" for the employer lobby.  One gets a flavour for the underlying sentiment from the statement of purpose of the bill: "to alleviate pressure on employers to hire individuals who seek or gain employment in order to disrupt the workplace of the employer or otherwise inflict economic harm designed to put the employer out of business.”  Ahem.  In Ontario, these sorts of sentiments about unions are not expressed in polite company, although that may be how many employers actually feel.

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Union "Salting" - Yes, it's legal, and yes, they count

Posted by Greg McGinnis on May 27, 2011

One of the challenges for unions seeking to organize workers is to get "inside organizers" with regular access to employees.  A solution to this problem is the practice of "salting", where a union sends in an organizer or two to get hired by the employer – sometimes these organizers are salaried employees of the union, and sometimes they are just out-of-work union members.  Sometimes they receive pay for engaging in the organizing activity, sometimes they don't.  The practice is especially common in the construction industry.

Salting drives many employers mad.  Additionally galling to many employers is the fact that the "salts" may actually count as members of the bargaining unit, when determining the percentage of support that the union has among the employees.

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