INTERNATIONAL NEW/CANADA Fair Warning - Continued from page 8
Phifer is referring to goes well beyond filling out forms. “It goes right to mindset and culture,” he says. Typically, a number of smaller, less significant incidents precede a major injury or fatality. The workplaces with a good safety culture encourage their employees to report, track, and respond to these smaller incidents. “Strong reporting is about everyone being alert to those warning signs. It’s about getting workers to ask themselves, ‘what was the potential for this minor incident to be a major incident?’”
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Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, Workplace Emergency Response Information Requirements Already in Force: Are you in Compliance?
Since January 1, 2012, Ontario employers have been obligated to provide “individualized workplace emergency response information to employees who have a disability, if the disability is such that the individualized information is necessary and the employer is aware of the need for accommodation due to the employee’s disability.”
The obligation is in section 27 of the Integrated Accessibility Standards regulation under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabili- ties Act, 2005 (often referred to as “AODA”). Although other obligations under that regulation come into effect in 2014 and later, the emergency response information requirements in section 27 came into effect in 2012.
Read More WORKPLACE VIOLENCE NEWS – continued
Have You Ever Been Committed? Gun Ownership v. Employment Background Checks by Nick Fishman
Over the past couple months, we’ve blogged about the differences between the universal background checks used for gun purchases and those used for employment background checks. As the U.S. Senate debates universal background checks on people who purchase guns, we thought we would highlight another key difference: the use of mental health records.
Mental health background checks are a key component of current federal law regarding gun ownership and one we are sure will be expanded. The Huffington Post’s Josh Horowitz outlines the government’s current requirements below: Under federal law, an individual is prohibited from buying or possessing firearms if they have been “adjudicated as a mental defective” or “committed to a mental institution.” Horowitz explains how unlikely it is for a record of involuntary commitment to ever make it into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) database.
So, how does this differ from an employment background check? Employers are not permitted to consult any health records as a condition of employment, whether mental or physical. Doing so would surely violate the American with Disabilities Act, myriad state laws and potentially, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). There might be some very good reasons why a mentally ill person (or someone with a history of mental illness) could be denied the right to own a gun, but the same logic does not apply to their ability to seek gainful employment.
Polls show that expanding background checks to cover all gun sales, not just those by licensed dealers, is one of the most popular measures being considered by the White House to curb gun violence. There’s one problem: The system President Barack Obama and many lawmakers hope to expand is full of holes. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which federally licensed firearm dealers must use to check the credentials of potential gun buyers, doesn’t include millions of people legally barred from owning guns. There is no centralized database of all criminal records. Even the FBI database which many consider the most concise of all is known to contain only 50-55% of all records.
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