Canadian Safety Reporter

6 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2015 CSR | February 2015 | News Breast cancer < pg. 5 Chance to 'change the workplace for the better' Employers failing to consider safer alternatives "It's generally acknowledged that society tolerates a degree of risk in exchange for economic advantages. However, not all members of society share equally in the risks or advantages." We need to be asking ques- tions about what level of risk is acceptable, and who makes the decisions about the level of risk workers are exposed to, said Keith. "(And) what do we do if sci- ence is not yet developed enough to determine whether or not there is risk of human harm from exposure, as may be the case with many chemicals?" she said. "Unfortunately, the setting of occupational exposure lim- its does not take into account whether a substance has been found to cause breast cancer in test animals, whether it is an en- docrine disrupter or what might be the potential effects of mix- tures in real-life work environ- ments." Breast cancer research has had very encouraging results when it comes to treatments and mortal- ity rates, said Brody. "Fewer and fewer women who have a breast cancer diagnosis die because of that diagnosis. That's very good news. But we shouldn't let that good news pre- vent us from understanding that the incidence of breast cancer is going up," she said. "If we put money into preven- tion, we could see good results from that as well." Lack of funding, lack of awareness In 2011, consultations took place with Canadian stakehold- ers including labour and health- care groups, said Brophy. The resulting report identified a number of barriers preventing further research into occupa- tional risk factors for breast can- cer, including "lack of funding, poor data regarding exposures, lack of awareness and resistance from employers and industry." It also identified difficulties associated with using the re- sults from occupational cancer research in the workplace to re- duce the risks, said Brophy. The lack of attention to the issue and employers' failure to consider safer alternatives to potentially harmful or carcino- genic chemicals is a symptom of a deeper problem, he said. "This issue lights up what is the ongoing problem for work- ers, which is the lack of democ- racy, the lack of power to shape the environment in which they work," he said. Women often work in pre- carious employment situations, including in workplaces where they are likely to be exposed to toxic chemicals, said Brophy — and the more vulnerable the po- sition they are in, they more dif- ficult it is to speak up on health and safety issues. The American Public Health Association released a policy resolution in November 2014 discussing the need for action around breast cancer and poten- tial occupational factors in its de- velopment. "Despite significant scien- tific evidence about its known or suspected causes, research and prevention measures to identify and eliminate occupational and other environmental hazards and risk factors for breast cancer remain largely overlooked," said the policy. "Action required starts with making a national priority of pro- moting and supporting research on occupational and other envi- ronmental causes of breast can- cer." There's also an enormous amount of work that can be done around green procurement, said Brody, adding that Wal-Mart has actually done a very good job of this. "They're basically saying to their supply chain, 'We don't want carcinogens in our prod- ucts, we don't want neurotoxins in our products. So if you want to sell to us — and by the way, you can't survive without selling to us — here's our list of priority chem- icals. You've got three years, and we want them out.'" Prevention < pg. 3 business.' And I think we have to break through that." Another thing that's impor- tant to consider is that the survey respondents were largely people who had good, stable jobs — with most unionized, most in full- time employment, said Small- man. "It underscores the fact that domestic violence really can hap- pen to anybody, but it also leads me to wonder what the impacts are, whether they're felt more deeply or differently, by people who are in precarious work. Are they less likely to go to their em- ployer for help? Are they more frequently laid off or fired be- cause of absenteeism or distrac- tion or poor work performance?" Next steps Moving forward, the Canadian Labour Congress has sent a copy of the research to federal labour minister Kellie Leitch and re- quested there be a roundtable people are far more likely to disclose their situation to a co- worker than to a manager, su- pervisor or union rep, found the study. "That really points to the need for education across the work- place — all levels. And it's not hard to see why people would be more comfortable talking with a co-worker first. If that hap- pened in Ontario, it depends on the degree of risk and level of threat, but it could well be that co-worker has a responsibility to tell their supervisor. I don't think most co-workers understand that, and even a lot of supervisors don't understand that," said Mac- Quarrie. "We really need to be edu- cating everybody about how to recognize warning signs, how to have difficult conversations... We've been socialized to turn the other way, to say, 'It's none of my on the issue that includes feder- al, provincial and territorial gov- ernments, employers, unions and domestic violence experts. "I think the labour move- ment's really going to take a lead on this… we're going to redouble our efforts to negotiate (Unifor's) Women's Advocate Program (and) things like paid leave for domestic violence into collective agreements," said White. The Canadian Labour Con- gress is also looking specifically at provisions such as paid domes- tic violence leave, said Smallman, adding that one already exists in a collective agreement. "There's one collective agree- ment that I'm aware of in Canada, and that's the Yukon Teachers' Association — they get five days of domestic violence leave. But this was the approach they took in Australia and now significant numbers of workers are covered by these clauses," she said. CLC also wants governments to look at occupational health and safety legislation, employ- ment standards and human rights legislation, and it is reach- ing out to ministers of labour at the federal and provincial levels, said Smallman. "Right now, our main goal is to promote greater awareness. The survey really is a tool and it's a start of a much larger conversa- tion that needs to happen," she said. MacQuarrie agreed. "We really need to come to- gether and collaborate on this problem. Even big powerful gov- ernments, even large, well-re- sourced employers, even unions that are wanting to advocate for their members, and certainly not domestic violence advocates, we can't on our own resolve this situ- ation," she said. "None of us has all the pieces that are needed to make our workplaces safe and productive, so we really need to learn how to work together on this."

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