New regulations for JOHSC effective April 3, 2017

SafeCare BC wants to ensure you are prepared for the new Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee (JOHSC) regulations that will become effective on April 3, 2017. Under the new regulations employers will now be required to:

• Evaluate the effectiveness of their JOHSC on an annual basis and
• Provide new JOHSC members with at least 8 hours of JOHSC training annually.

You can review the new regulations as explained by WorkSafe BC. A high-level overview of these changes is provided below.

SafeCare will be hosting a teleconference to answer any questions about the changes in regulations on May 8th, 2017 at 1 p.m. Please check our website to register.

Evaluating Joint Committee effectiveness

Section 3.26(2) of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations (OHSR) will now require employers to ensure that an evaluation of each of its joint committees is conducted annually.

The purpose of the evaluation is to ensure that joint committees are meeting their regulatory requirements under the Workers Compensation Act and the OHSR and to assess the overall effectiveness of the joint committees.

The joint committee evaluations must be conducted by the co-chairs of the joint committee or their designates or the employer or a person retained by the employer.

WorkSafe BC will make an evaluation tool available online that can be used by joint committees to complete their evaluation. Use of the tool is not mandatory – other tools can be used as long as they meet or exceed all the requirements for an evaluation. One such tool is this JOHSC Checklist from the BCFED’s Health and Safety Centre.

The joint committee must discuss the finished evaluation at the joint committee’s next meeting and may respond to the findings. The joint committee’s discussion and evaluation must be incorporated into the joint committee’s meeting report.

Training for New Joint Committee Members

Section 3.27 of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation (OHSR) will now require new joint committee members to receive instruction and training in the duties and functions of joint committees.

This training must be provided to all members joining the JOHSC after the April 3 effective date and within 6 months of the individual joining.

This instruction and training must be a minimum of 8 hours in length and must cover the following six topics:

SafeCare BC JOHS Committee Training

• the duties and functions of a joint committee;
• the rules and procedures of a joint committee;
• the requirements respecting investigations under the Act;
• the requirements respecting inspections under the OHSR;
• the requirements regarding refusal of unsafe work under the OHSR;
• the requirements respecting the evaluation of joint committees under section 3.26 of OHSR (see above).

The time to do this training is considered ‘work’; therefore, the employer must pay for the training under BC’s Employment Standards Act. It is important to note that this training does not count as part of the annual educational leave for JOHSC members, who are also entitled to 8 hours of educational leave each year upon request to the committee.

Employers must keep the training records for two years from the date the person ceases to be a member of the employer’s joint committee and must provide the person with a copy of their training record as soon as possible.

Resources:

• Review the new regulations in full as outlined by WorkSafeBC.
• Evaluate your joint committee with this checklist from the BCFED’s Health and Safety Center or use this 10-dimension self-assessment tool developed by the Centre for Research Expertise in Occupational Disease.
• See if SafeCare BC has an upcoming joint committee training session, or contact info@safecarebc.ca for more information.