Second strategy looks to continue work in reducing fatalities, serious injuries in Saskatchewan workplaces

Photo: WorkSafe Saskatchewan

In 2019, WorkSafe Saskatchewan, a partnership between the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) and the Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety, launched the first three-year Fatalities and Serious Injuries Strategy in an effort to help eliminate workplace fatalities and serious injuries.

Last month, the it announced a new five year strategy is being launched that focuses on two key streams of work that will be undertaken to reduce injuries and fatalities – a regulatory and enforcement stream, and a prevention and learning stream.

“Workplace safety is everyone’s responsibility,” Labour Relations and Workplace Safety Minister Don Morgan said. “This new strategy continues to make working with stakeholders to eliminate workplace injuries and fatalities in our province a priority. Everyone deserves to come home safely at the end of the day.”

“Collaboration with stakeholders is critical to bringing our injury rate down,” WCB Board Chair Gord Dobrowolsky said. “Building on the work of the last strategy, we will continue to engage workers and employers in finding ways to keep all workers safe on the job.”

Under this strategy, the three main priority workplace sectors of focus are:

• Health care
• Transportation
• Construction

These industries were chosen due to the high-risk nature of their work, it said, noting that about  2,400 Saskatchewan workers are seriously injured each year.