The constant danger of asbestos

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/11/2024 (508 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

All workers deserve to make it home to their loved ones safe and injury-free at the end of every shift.

Even though we often think of workplace injuries and deaths as resulting from one specific event or acute hazard, over half of Manitoba workplace deaths are caused by occupational diseases that workers acquire more gradually through exposure to carcinogens, dusts, chemicals and other harmful agents over the course of their working lives.

In Manitoba, the majority of occupational disease deaths are caused by exposure to asbestos.

This includes mesothelioma, a type of cancer that affects the lining of the lungs and abdomen. It is incurable and life expectancy from diagnosis is three years or less. It also includes asbestosis, a scarring of the lung tissues that causes severe shortness of breath — also incurable — with a life expectancy of 10 years or less.

Shockingly, even with all that we know about the dangers of asbestos, Manitoba has long had woefully inadequate rules to protect workers when it comes to doing the hazardous work of asbestos removal and remediation.

For example, while there is a general requirement in the Workplace Safety and Health Regulation for employers to ensure that those working with asbestos be trained, there are absolutely no mandatory requirements for what that training should include and who is qualified to deliver it.

It is left up to individual employers on their own to decide what training to provide to keep their workers safe from the hazards of asbestos.

SAFE Work Manitoba, the prevention arm of the Workers Compensation Board, has recently developed comprehensive new standards for high-quality training in recognizing and handling asbestos. These standards were developed in partnership and have the support of labour and employer representatives. But at this point, the decision to follow these standards is totally voluntary, left up to the individual choices of those who deliver asbestos training.

Manitoba’s Wild West approach leaves the door open for unreputable contractors to use unprepared and poorly protected workers for hazardous asbestos removal work.

A simple regulation change would ensure that all workers receive high-quality training and protection on the job.

In addition to the lack of mandatory training standards for workers, there is no certification or licensing system for companies that engage in the highly hazardous activity of abatement and remediation of asbestos, or for those who test materials for the presence of asbestos.

Therefore, building owners and occupants have no way of verifying whether the companies they engage to do this work are safe and qualified.

In the first eight months of 2024 alone, Workplace Safety and Health officers issued 68 stop work orders related the asbestos. And these documented cases were the ones where an officer visited the site and detected the hazard. This likely represents a small portion of the true extent of the problem.

Because asbestos is no longer used for the many purposes it was in the past, including insulation, building materials and machinery components, some may consider it strictly a hazard of the past.

This is not so.

As more of our buildings show their age, requiring demolition or repair, many workers continue to be exposed. Without strong regulations to protect workers from this deadly hazard, we could be facing a new wave of asbestos-related deaths in the not-too-distant future.

If we want to stop the suffering and death count from asbestos, and protect workers as well as homeowners and tenants, Manitoba needs to take action now.

It should start with making sure that the high-quality training standards that have been developed by SAFE Work Manitoba are made mandatory.

From there, we should follow the lead of British Columbia, which earlier this year introduced a licensing and certification system for companies that work in the industry.

We owe this to current and future Manitoba workers and the general public, who all deserve to be safe from the hazards of asbestos exposure.

Kevin Rebeck is the president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour.