On 26 July 2007 new Occupational Health and Safety Regulations will come into effect in B.C. pertaining to proper orientation of new and young workers.
The reason for this addition to the regs is that young and new workers continue to be injured or killed in the workplace at rates well above the provincial average. I have reviewed these rules and they are not fundamentally different from any previous OH&S regulations. In fact they are not new at all, but simply gather together into one Part already existing requirements for orienting new and young workers.
What the new regulations do is spell out very specifically the topics that must be covered in new or young worker’s workplace orientation and training. They also specifically require documentation of these orientations. The exercise of due diligence requires documentation as a practice, but the new regulations now specify this as a regulatory requirement.
If you have been orientating workers according to the OH&S regulations these new requirements should not be an onerous adaption. In fact their prescriptive bent will provide you with a clear list of what is required against which you can compare your present practices. If this is all new to you then the regulations and the guidelines spell out quite clearly what is required. A word doc of the new regs and guidelines is attached.
John Betts
Executive Director
Western Silvicultural Contractors’ Association
Phone: 250-229-4380
hotpulp@netidea.com