Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee Minutes

Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee Minutes

Date: Wednesday Feb 15, 2017

Time: 10:30 am to 12 noon

Location: Council Chambers Bloomfield

Present: Leon MacLellan (Chair, Management), Marie Gillis (NSGEU alternate) Margaret MacKinnon (Management), Tyson Ball (Non-Union), Jason Langley (UNIFOR), Suzanne van den Hoogen (AUT) Robert Proctor (Management), Janet Beaton (Health & Safety Advisor)

Regrets: Jennifer Clifton (NSGEU), Chad Hasegawa (Student Union) John Gormley (CUPE), Petra Hauf (Management), Jennifer Swinemar-Murray

Guest: Robin Clark, Occupational Health and Safety Consultant

1.  To Review Agenda and Minutes of Meeting February 15, 2017

1.1  No new items added to agenda

1.2  No error or omissions noted in the minutes. Approved by Jason L, seconded by Tyson B.

2.  Business arising from the minutes

2.1  No Business Arising

3. Report of the Health & Safety Advisor

3.1 Dept of Labour Compliance Orders (3) Warnings (2)

Documentation was email to the Inspector Paula Dobson on Feb 3, 2017. The documentation was circulated to the JOHSC for their review. To date no response has been received from Officer Paula Dobson. Once the Orders are satisfied, all documentation will be posted.

3.2  University structure and composition for the JOHSC committee

Reestablishment of Physical Sciences Complex (PSC) site safety committee. Dr. James Cormier has agreed to Chair this committee and will be calling a meeting as soon as possible. Given 4 storm days and spring break, meeting will be scheduled in March.

3.2.1 Representatives and a delegate will be asked to sit on the JOHSC from both PSC and J Bruce Brown safety committees. This is will help to facilitate communications. Currently Facilities Management (FM) has Jason Langley who also Chairs FM’s site safety meetings attending JOHSC meetings.

3.3  Arrange Boot Camp training for site committees:

Physical Science Complex, J. Bruce Brown, Facilities Management and missed JOHSC members/alternates. To be arranged no date yet

3.4  Review and update JOHSC Terms of Reference in turn, develop terms of reference for site safety

committees, operation, structure and reporting to JOHSC. Work in progress with Robin Clark

3.4.1  The JOHSC committee has agreed to a co-chair structure. Suzanne van den Hoogan has volunteered to co-chair with Leon MacLellan

3.5  Review of building assessments (non-occupied and occupied spaces): Reports were circulated

to JOHSC members. The report provides a current picture with areas of improvements. A process will need to be established to help educate the campus community to make safety improvements in their departments and/or buildings. In addition the process will have to document when safety improvement/corrective actions have been made.

3.6  Review and planning of JOHSC yearly activity calendar

Templates of monthly calendars were circulated to JOHSC members. Robin Clark outlined the important of setting up monthly responsibilities for tracking accomplishments. The activity calendar will also serve to document the committee’s due diligence regarding training, meetings, inspections, review of safety program, fire awareness and building evacuations and so forth. Data can be obtained and reports can be forwarded to senior administration.

Committee members are to provide feedback before or at the next meeting. ACTION JOHSC

3.7  Central collection of OH&S information (Office365-OneNote)

Centralized filing system will be set up to capture reports from each site safety committee. The information collected will be minutes, training, inspections, safety talks, incident reporting and so forth. It was proposed that a database system would better serve to collect, store and offer searchable options. To review the various options available.

3.8  Review of JOHSC Safety Program

Robin is conducting a review of the safety program and will recommend changes as required. Once the review has been completed, the changes will be presented to JOHSC for their review/discussion/approval. Once approved by JOHSC, the program will go to President’s Council for their approval.

3.9  Safety training new hires and existing employees

To educate the campus community, to develop orientation material for new hires and establish a program to provide orientation sessions/information to existing employee.

3.9.1 Communication subcommittee has been formed: Tyson Ball, Robert Proctor, Marie Gillis, and Susan MacKay. Meeting date and time to be determined as Robin Clark will be in attendance.

3.10  OHS presentation to President’s Council scheduled Feb 28 10:30am to 12pm. The panel of

experts presenting will be: Robert Proctor STFX, Sgt. Warren McBeath RCMP, Officer Paula Dobson NS Dept of Labour, Will Chase Special Investigator NS Dept of Labour, Art Brown WCB Consultant, Alex Keaveny OHS Special Prosecutor for the Province of NS.

Topic Safety Due Diligence, the panel will address the significance of due diligence within an organization. What happens if an organization is not diligence by outlining the expectation of regulators and courts. The panel will also offer advice/tips on how Organizations can demonstrate their safety due diligence

4. New Business: No new business at this time

5. JOHSC meeting dates, all meeting will be held in Council Chambers Bloomfield

·  March 15-2017 Time: 10:30am till 12 noon

·  April 19-2017 Time: 10:30am till 12 noon

·  May 17-2017 Time: 10:30am till 12 noon

·  June 21- 2017 Time: 10:30am till 12 noon

·  July 19, 2017 Time: 10:30am till 12 noon

6. Adjournment, meeting ended at 11:35am