Workplace Health and Safety: The Hidden Epidemic

12- 1:30pm

Each year, according to the Alberta Workers Compensation Board, approximately 150 workers die and over 150,000 new claims are filed. Yet these numbers, startling as they are, under represent the numbers of workers who are killed or seriously damaged by work each year in Alberta.

Occupational Illnesses and Chronic Workplace ailments are a hidden epidemic in Alberta Workplaces. Furthermore, the costs of workplace illnesses and many injuries are being shifted from employers (through WCB) and onto the taxpayer.

Many current workplace health and safety strategies and programs actually encourage or support this trend. Kevin Flaherty of the non-profit Alberta Workers’ Health Centre will explore these issues and suggest ways to turn this situation around

Speaker: Kevin Flaherty

Kevin Flaherty has been the Executive Director of the Alberta Workers’ Health Centre since 1995. He has a Masters Degree in the Sociology of Work and has spent the past 30 years studying working conditions and work organization in Canada and around the world.

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