Steve Payne
B.C. workers are dying every year from negligence and yet we still don't see criminal prosecution…
Canadian Contractor FireB.C. union official Lee Loftus is among the many union voices in the province who are calling for new legislation to allow criminal charges against corporate executives in the event of workplace accidents.
Construction unions in B.C. want the provincial government to support NDP-proposed legislation to provide for criminal prosecution of company executives found responsible for death or injury to their workers. This in a report from the Journal of Commerce, published by Reed Construction Data. (Read the full story here.)
The journal quoted a union official, Lee Loftus of the B.C. Insulators Union Local 118, as saying: “Workers are dying every year from negligence and yet we still don’t see criminal prosecution of those responsible.”
He added: “The recent failure to lay criminal charges after the deaths of two workers at the Babine Forest Products explosion in Burns Lake is only the latest in a long string of failures that have to stop.”
The Burns Lake sawmill explosion and fire in 2012 killed two men and injured 19 other workers.
Shortly after that, another mill in Prince George, B.C. exploded into flames, killing two more workers.
This week, Worksafe BC levied $1-million in fines against Hampton Affiliates, who were one of the parties found responsible for the Burns Lake accident.
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