Hello Everyone,

We know many of you have questions regarding the workplace and Covid-19. Your Local Executive has been in repeated contact with the Company looking for answers to issues that come up on a daily basis. We are waiting for these answers and as we get responses we will communicate them out.

If you have concerns over supplies (ie hand sanitizer, gloves, masks, wipes…), work assignments, health issues for yourself or family, safe work assignments, child care, to name a few concerns, please inform the management team in your location. If you are not able to get satisfactory answers to your questions please forwarded them on to your shop steward, Chief-Steward/Group Rep, or Union representative on the Occupational Health and Safety Committee.

Unifor has developed a section on its National Website dedicated to Covid-19. It contains all sorts of helpful information regarding the virus and the workplace. Unifor Locals across the country are using this information to assist its members and work with employers. We invite you to refer to it regularly. It is updated continuously as new information becomes available. One such document is “Frequently asked Questions”, we have attached for your easy reference but please remember this document gets updated as needed. Here is the link:

https://www.unifor.org/en/take-action/campaigns/unifor-covid-19-information-resources?v=take_action

We have received a number of questions regarding refusing unsafe work. Below is a section from the “Frequently asked Questions” document regarding this topic:

Do employees have the right to refuse work if concerned about exposure to COVID-19?

Workers in Canada have the right to a healthy and safe work environment. Health and safety legislation requires employers to take reasonable steps to protect the health and safety of their employees. This may include responding to new and potentially hazardous situations, such as the COVID-19 virus.

In every jurisdiction in Canada, workers have the right to refuse work if they honestly and reasonably believe their health and safety is in danger in their workplaces; if they communicate this belief to their supervisors; and if the seriousness of the perceived danger justifies the work refusal.

Whether a work refusal is justified will largely depend on the facts. The measures that an employer takes to ensure a healthy and safe work environment will be taken into consideration and weighed against the potential risks to workers.

Workers should be cautioned that Tribunals and Arbitration Boards have largely sided with employers when workers have refused work over contagious infection concerns in the workplace. In Hogue-Burzynski v. VIA Rail Canada [2006] (https://www.canada.ca/en/occupational-health-and-safety-tribunal-canada/programs/decisions/archived/2006/ohstc-2006-015.html), four workers refused to work out of concerns that a train had not been cleaned properly following an outbreak of Norwalk virus or a similar illness. The Canada Occupational Health and Safety Tribunal determined that the employer’s efforts to sanitize the train, including disinfecting all hard surfaces and steam cleaning soft surfaces, were reasonably practicable to eliminate and control the risk of further illness.

The steps taken by your employer to limit the spread of COVID-19 will likely factor into whether a work refusal is considered reasonable. Such efforts might include:

• Installing hand sanitizer stations in high-traffic areas;

• Making hand sanitizer available in washrooms;

• Directing cleaning staff to sanitize high traffic surfaces and frequently-touched objects (door knobs, etc.);

• Reducing activities that require physical contact between workers and/or members of the public, if possible; and

• Recommending that employees wash their hands frequently; practice social distancing; and stay home from work if they exhibit symptoms of COVID-19.

The nature of your workplace may also factor into whether a work refusal is reasonable. In Hogue-Burzynski v. VIA Rail Canada [2006], the Health and Safety Officer who first investigated the work refusal determined the nature of the employee’s work involved inherent risk to exposure to illness by virtue of the fact that they serviced large numbers of the public on a daily basis. If your workplace regularly requires you to provide services to members of the public, including those who may be ill, or employs a large number of workers at the workplace at the same time, it may be determined that exposure to viral infection is a risk inherent to the workplace.

Your risk of serious complications from COVID-19 may also be relevant to the reasonableness of a work refusal. Health officials have warned that older individuals, those with certain conditions, such as lung or heart disease or individuals with suppressed immune systems are at greater risk of becoming seriously ill from COVID-19. It is possible that individuals at greater risk will require heightened accommodation from employers.

---Covid-19 Flatten the Curve – Unifor – March 19, 2020

In Solidarity,

Penny and Dave