A process is underway to determine if support exists to form a safety association for the fishing industry in Nova Scotia whose role would be to improve safety, reduce injury and ultimately bring down Workers, Compensation Board rates being paid.
Consultation sessions have been held in the province to discuss the benefits of having a safety association for the fish harvesting and processing industries.
“Rates have continued to rise and every dollar paid into Workers’ Compensation rates is one less dollar that can be spent elsewhere,” Lisa Anderson of the Nova Scotia Fisheries Sector Council said during a presentation in Yarmouth, N.S.
The projection is if things continue the way they are now, in 2009 employers in the salt water fisheries will be paying $7.48 per every $100 in employee payroll to the Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB). By 2013 the rate will be $8.23.
A safety association would work to reduce workplace accidents and injuries, identify injury trends, share best practices and success stories within the industry and lobby for a reduction in rates being paid.
In 2007 the salt water fishing, aquaculture and fish processing industries paid $15.8 million in WCB premiums. There were 948 injuries of which 36 per cent, or 284 people, missed more than three days of work.
Overall 2,361 work weeks were lost, which is the equivalent of 45 people each missing one year of work time. Those losses add up in many ways. There is the financial cost to employers and fishermen, the cost of lost productivity and the cost of replacing people until they can return to work.
“It’s becoming more difficult to recruit and retain people. If someone is off work who are you going to get to replace them? Do you tie up the boat? Do you shut down the plant?” said Tommy Harper who assisted Anderson with the presentation.
It was pointed out that if in 2007, work weeks lost to injuries had been just 10 per cent lower the industry would have saved $152,000.
Safety associations within broad-based industries are not a foreign concept. In the forestry industry in this province not only was an association established, but it has been successful in reducing WCB rates by 40 per cent in the last five years. That isn’t to suggest that a fishing safety association could see the same turn around in the next year or two – these things take time, it was pointed out, and rates being paid now are still covering WCB claims from a couple of years ago.
But advocacy is an important part of the process, Anderson said, adding, “I think the fishing industry should have as large a voice around the table.”
In establishing a safety association there are many things to ponder, specifically when it comes to the structure. Would it be membership based? What funding options exist? And how do you determine what level of support exists for an association?
The Nova Scotia Fisheries Resource Council hopes to have a feel for how much support exists for a safety association by December.
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