The Weekly Reflektion 37/2025

Managers or supervisors walking around the work site may notice issues that they think should be improved. Walking by a safety issue but accepting it is taken as approval by their personnel. Even if the supervisor doesn’t notice then this is a tacit approval. When you are visiting a work site, look around you to ensure you miss nothing, and talk to the personnel to find out what bothers them. Be aware that the way that you behave towards safety issues matters and the signals you send are important.

The scaffold or ‘swing stage’ being used to repair balconies

Do you take action when an issue is brought to your attention?

On December 24, 2009, six workers were repairing concrete balconies at a high-rise building in Toronto. They were using a suspended ‘swing stage’ scaffold construction 14 storeys above ground level. The swing stage broke in two and five of the six workers fell to the ground, four died and one survived the fall. The only worker using a safety harness survived unhurt.

The supervisor responsible for the work on the swing stage had told his boss that the team only had two safety harnesses between the six workers. He was told by his boss that the work should not be stopped and that he should instruct the workers to just continue to work, which he did. The workers who had recently arrived in Canada from Eastern Europe and were unaware of the safety requirements for their work in Canada. No one in the company informed them of the legal requirements and their rights to a safe working place.

The supervisor was found to have shown a “wanton and reckless disregard” for the lives and safety of his crew members when he became aware that protections against falls were not in place and yet allowed his crew to continue working. Once he had raised the fact that harnesses were missing, he had an obligation to take reasonable steps to remedy that deficiency. His failure in this regard was found to constitute a marked and substantial departure from what a reasonable supervisor ought to have done. He was charged, found guilty and jailed for 3 ½ years. The company responsible for the swing stage was originally fined $200,000 in provincial court for not ensuring the equipment was constructed and maintained properly. Later the Court of Appeal for Ontario boosted that to $750,000. 

If an issue is brought to your attention, or you notice a deficiency of some kind, do not allow the issue to be forgotten or ignored. It may not affect your safety directly, but it may impact the safety of others. In the event of an accident your actions may be the subject of a court case and you may find yourself spending some time in prison to reflect over your failure to act.