Bulletin
Making Your Health and Safety a Priority not an Afterthought
January 17, 2018
To: All MoveUP members at ICBC
Creating a culture of health and safety is a priority for our union. All too often, we believe that because many of us work in offices, we don’t face significant health and safety concerns. This is not true. ICBC employees face a number of risks to their health and safety and it is critical that we not sit back and just accept them as part of our jobs.
MoveUP has already started to identify the hazards and will be seeking members’ input to be sure we are focussing on the issues you face. We recently surveyed our Driver Examiners and Supervisor Driver Examiners. The results of the survey can be viewed here.
Our most disturbing result is that 72% of DEs and DE Supervisors have been verbally or physically abused by customers or business partners at least once in the last 12 months. Of those who reported abuse, more than 40% have been subjected to abuse at least once a month and over half of those members experience it weekly. This is a shocking figure and one that cannot be ignored by ICBC. Abuse from customers is not part of the job. If you are experiencing any form of abusive treatment from a customer, please report it to your supervisor, manager and your local MoveUP Job Steward.
No question, we have a lot of work to do and I am keen to get started. MoveUP has already asked ICBC to implement signage at every location that reminds customers that verbal abuse won’t be tolerated. As well, we have asked that they implement a similar message on all incoming phone calls. We will be doing other surveys of groups of workers at ICBC so we can identify, eliminate or significantly reduce the health and safety risks you face such as musculoskeletal injuries, verbal and physical abuse, and air quality to name only a few.
I’ve attached a video clip of a CBC report on the issue that you may be interested in watching.
In solidarity,
Annette Toth
Vice-President