SURREY – BC has moved to bring visible changes to the workplaces in the province that will soon be more inclusive for people who wear religious head coverings without compromising workplace safety, thanks to changes WorkSafeBC is making to B.C.’s Occupational Health and Safety Regulation on safety headgear.
“Creating more inclusive workplaces is a priority for our government, and we have been advocating for a change to the safety headgear regulations for a long time,” said Harry Bains, Minister of Labour. “We are building an economy that benefits everyone, which includes ensuring safe workplaces are inclusive to people regardless of their faith.”
The World Sikh Organization of Canada welcomed the amendments to Part 8 of the Occupational Health & Safety Regulation (OHSR) relating to safety headgear. Section 8.11 of the OHSR required safety headgear to be worn in any work area where there is a danger of head injury however the regulation was being applied as a blanket requirement resulting in Sikh workers who wear the dastaar (turban) being excluded from workplaces, even where accommodation was possible.
Starting on Sept. 1, 2021, employers will be required to review each area of a job site when determining if a person must wear safety headgear, such as a hard hat, in that area. Employers will determine, through a risk assessment, what safety precautions could be taken to prevent head injuries and whether a hard hat is necessary.
The amendments to OHSR clarify that employers must conduct a risk assessment and attempt to remove and eliminate any risks before requiring hardhats on worksites. The amendments open the door to dastaar-wearing Sikh workers being accommodated on worksites where the risk of head injury can be removed.
“I have been advocating about the turban and hard hat issue of Sikhs for over 13 years now, along with other community activists, workers and Sikh societies. As a turban-wearing Sikh who worked in the forestry industry for 32 years, I am happy to see the government take an important step towards inclusivity in the workplace” said Kalwant Sahota, retired forestry worker.
The WSO has regularly advocated for the accommodation of turbaned Sikh workers on worksites in BC and across Canada in the wake of increasingly common blanket hardhat policies. The WSO was part of the initial presentation to the BC Government in 2018 that led to the current amendment and also provided submissions during the consultation process.
WSO legal counsel, Balpreet Singh, said today,“The amendments by WorkSafeBC to the OHS regulations are a welcome step forward towards the accommodation of the dastaar on BC worksites. There have been increasingly broad hardhat policies on many worksites which excluded dastaar-wearing Sikhs even where there was no reason to do so. These changes will benefit not just Sikhs but all workers in BC as employers must now work to eliminate the risk of injury with engineering and administrative controls and not simply try to minimize injury through the use of PPE. We appreciate that these amendments will be a change for both employers and workers and the period between now and the effective date of September 1, 2021 will be critical. We look forward to working with WorkSafeBC and other stakeholders to ensure that the necessary training and resources are made available to make the roll out of these new regulations a success.”
