Your task is to write a report, in the form of a letter, for company president Mr$.$ Burton

concerning a serious accident described in the scenario below. You will need to be

familiar with course content and$/$or required readings concerning the concept of due

diligence and the Westray Act $($aka Bill C$-45)$ in Canada. You must point out the

personal and corporate liability risk to Mr$.$ Burton, without being alarmist. You will then

go on to identify at least four issues in the $OH$& s practice at the company, concerning

the young man who suffered the accident, and recommend solutions for addressing

these going forward.

Assignment Deliverables:

Write a letter addressed to Mr$.$ Burton giving a summary of the situation and

pointing out the company and company executives' exposure with respect to the

Westray Act.

In the second half of the letter, under headings for each of the four $(4)$ issues you

identified: $$

a$.$ describe the issue; and,

b$.$ suggest your solution$($s$)$ for improvement.

Scenario:

You are the newly hired occupational health and safety officer for a mid$-$sized

earthworks company that constructs and repairs highways and minor roadways. The

company's incident rate is higher than the industry average, so you were hired to review

and update the OH&S manual and bring the incident frequency rate down to as close as

possible to zero.

You are reviewing company

procedures one morning when you

get a call about a serious incident.

It appears that a young worker

using a Bobcat skid$-$steer loader

has rolled the unit at a highway

reconstruction project site.

The initial report is that the worker

received a severe crushing injury,

was air$-$lifted to a trauma unit

hospital, and may not survive the

incident. The work has been shut down and the incident investigation is currently in

progress.

You drive out to the site to assist with the investigation and begin piecing together the

facts. The worker was $19-$year$-$old Joe, a new hire. Joe began working on this project

two days prior to the incident.

You find some initial paperwork filled out by the supervisor and Joe, but several

documents are missing; it does not appear that Joe went through the official company

orientation. Workers tell you that Joe seemed to know how to operate the Skid$-$Steer but

was struggling soon after starting it up$.$

You dig a little deeper and find out that Joe had limited industrial experience operating

that type of equipment but had told the supervisor he felt he was qualified because he

used similar pieces of equipment for many years on the family farm.

You can't find any records of courses Joe has taken to qualify him to run this

equipment.

Inspecting the equipment log$,$ you discover that only three daily checks have been

completed by one, particular worker $($not Joe$)$ since the project started two weeks ago.

You also determine through interviews that as many as four $(4)$ workers have used the

Skid$-$Steer on this project.

You ask for the supervisor's notes on all daily activities, training and assessments

conducted for all site workers. The set of notes you receive from the supervisor has

many gaps. When you ask the supervisor for the missing information, he tells you that

he does not have the time to organize this properly as his job is very demanding.

It appears that Joe did not receive any training or knowledge assessments in the two

days he was on the project.

When reviewing the work scope and procedures, you find it difficult to find specific

procedures. These turn out to be stored on laptops or supervisors' computers and take

considerable time to find and print. The supervisor assures you that he personally

knows all the procedures by memory, and that all relevant procedures are covered in a

face$-$to$-$face format before any work commences. Other workers confirm that the

supervisor is very knowledgeable and generally knows the procedures when asked.

When reviewing the weekly safety meetings, you notice two things. One is that the

meetings are only $10$ mins in length, and the second is that there is a minor note on the

first meeting minutes regarding the Skid$-$Steer, but it is vague.

Further investigation of this second issue reveals that other employees have verbally

reported to foremen that the Skid Steer has had minor problems with the hydraulics and

the brakes over the last few weeks. The supervisor states that he does not remember

the issue coming up at any time in the last two weeks, and that he would have dealt with

it if he was personally notified of the problem.

While interviewing workers in the office trailer, you note the lack of company safety and

$OH$& s policy posters, as well as the lack of safety manuals and provincial OH&S

regulatory books. When you ask the supervisor about this, he finds the items in a box

and you help him post the items around the trailer.

After a long day at the incident site, you decide to conclude your investigation for the

day and a