Canadian workplace-safety ads frighten kids Turns out Americans weren’t the only ones grossed out by those explicit Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario ads. (We wrote about them here.) Canadians were also uncomfortable, as perhaps we should have expected. In fact, the city of Windsor “is refusing to place WSIB’s print ads in bus shelters, citing their ‘disturbing’ nature and gory images.” They specifically object to a gory ad in which a construction worker has been impaled by an oversized forklift operation manual, claiming that it would frighten children. And it probably would. But they don’t have to work in factories yet, so they’re fine. At least the ads don’t suggest that workplace accidents will give them genital herpes. —Posted by David Kiefaber

December 19, 2007 in Kiefaber, Workplace safety | Permalink

Comments

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labor day is as important as veterans day. I advise people to visit that memorial in Toronto. (i noted this on the internet in 2003, and I'm sure I'm not the first)

Well, we did visit and we read most all the historical markers.

To each his or her own place.

Posted by: nancy | Dec 19, 2007 10:47:57 AM

Same guys who did the Aussie anti drowning ads or dont speed near schools flyers? Man these slice of death things are outta control.

Posted by: glenn | Dec 19, 2007 3:09:03 PM

No one would argue that workplace safety is not important. However, these gory ads are an elaborate social marketing campaign orchestrated to manipulate the public into talking about accidents, safety and prevention rather than talking about the failure of workers compensation boards to compensate the victims. WCBs in each Canadian province (and in the US) have come under a lot of scrutiny for their avoidance of paying fair compensation to disabled workers. The fact that people are talking about the ads rather than the dysfunctionality of the WCB system shows that this orchestrated social manipulation campaign is working.

WCBs in Canada and the US represent employers (the only ones paying into the fund). Therefore WCBs will do whatever they can to lower fees for corporations. One way is by denying compensation payments to disabled workers. But this would be socially unacceptable unless the public can also be manipulated into believing that the worker is somehow negligent or at fault for causing the accident. In this social marketing campaign, WCBs are subtly adopting the language of the anti-drunk-driver campaign - " zero tolerance" "negligence", etc. to manipulate public attitudes towards injured workers. They also use the term "accidents" rather than "injuries" to take the focus away from the person and onto the event. These ads, and other orchestrated 'social engineering' techniques lay the foundation for WCBs to justify a reduction in injury compensation payments to disabled workers by manipulating public attitudes toward disabled workers.

Those injured workers in the videos would realistically spend the rest of their lives in poverty fighting the WCB for compensation.

The way to reduce injuries is to make companies accountable for workplace safety violations through realistic fees, not protect unsafe companies from these higher fees by denying disabled workers' claims.

If you think the WSIB's ads are scary, check out the Canadian Injured Workers Society at http://www.ciws.ca for a real eye-opener!

Posted by: | Jan 12, 2008 6:20:31 PM

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