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Apologies for keeping you waiting. I thought you were requesting IT help. Now I get it.
The short answer is yes, in most cases you can store documents digitally. However, they must also be immediate accessible if they’re requested by OHS officials. In addition, digital storage could be problematic to materials that must be kept at the work site and made immediately accessible to workers or the JHSC. The most obvious example are SDS’ required by WHMIS. Digital storage is OK as long as workers can access them any time without help. In other words, they should have access to the computers on which they’re stored and know how to access the materials. They shouldn’t have to rely on another person to get the documents for them. Hope this helps and sorry for the confusion.-OHSInsider Staff
First, I apologize for the delay in responding. I’m just returning from bereavement leave. This is a tricky question. Let me break it down.
1. Workers required to use fall protection must receive fall protection training.
2. Workers exposed to the risk of falling 3 metres/10 feet or more from a portable ladder do have to use fall protection–a personal fall arrest system (OHS Code, Sec. 137(1))
3. A case could be made that the worker standing in the middle of a portable ladder with his/her core only 6 feet above ground is NOT at risk of a 10-foot fall, in which case personal fall arrest and fall protection wouldn’t be required (I’m assuming that there’s no risk of the worker’s falling thru an opening or onto a hazardous substance or object, in which case fall arrest would still be required even if the fall is less than 10 feet (Sec. 139(1)(c))
4. Even if the fall would be deemed to be 10 feet or more, the Section 137(1) requirement for personal fall arrest wouldn’t apply if it would be not reasonably practical and: (a) the work is a light duty task of short duration at each location, (b) the worker’s centre of balance is at the centre of the ladder at all times even with an armextended beyond the side rails of the ladder, and (c) the worker maintains 3-point contact whenever the worker extends an arm beyond a side rail.
Bottom Line: From what you describe, especially the fact that the worker’s body will be in the center of the portable ladder well below the 3 metre/10 foot threshold at which fall protection is required is that you would NOT have to provide the worker fall protection and detailed fall protection training. Caveat: This is just a personal opinion and should in no way be considered legal counsel, which I’m neither qualified nor allowed to provide you. Still, it is an informed opinion. Sorry to go on so long and I hope this was worth the wait.-OHSInsider Staff
Those are excellent questions.
1. The required content of workplace harassment/violence training under OHS laws varies little from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The potential exception is the Canada Labour Code for federally-regulated employees. But that’s probably academic since employees generally remain federally regulated regardless of where their site is located. But there’s a big caveat: Workplace violence training must be specific to the workplace and its unique risk factors and conditions. Accordingly, when employees move from one workplace to another, they DO need to be retrained on the specifics of that new workplace. For example, maybe the lighting, physical configuration, violence response and call for help procedures are different at the new location.
2. Workplace harassment is NOT workplace specific. So you don’t have to retrain workers you transfer.
3. There’s no stipulation–other than perhaps under the Canada Labour Code which I admittedly didn’t look up–that violence and harassment training be repeated each year or at any predetermined interval for that matter. The general rule is that retraining or refresher training must be provided as necessary in response to workplace incidents, significant changes in operations or procedures that weren’t covered in previous training or other indications that the previous training isn’t effective or up to date and needs to be revised.-OHSInsider Staff
