Occuptional Health & Safety Complaints

Employers in Nova Scotia have a duty to provide a healthy and safe working environment for their employees. Where an employer has five or more employees regularly employed it is required to prepare and review, at least on an annual basis, a written occupational health and safety policy and the policy must meet certain prescribed requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Where twenty or more employees are regularly employed, an occupational health and safety program must be put in place and the program must meet the minimum requirements prescribed under the Act. Again, at every workplace where there are twenty of more employees regularly employed, there must be a Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee established that must function in accordance with the prescribed composition and procedure as prescribed by the Act. Employees have the right under certain conditions to refuse to work wherever they have reasonable grounds to believing the employee’s health or safety or that of some other person is endangered. Employers are explicitly prohibited from taking any retaliatory or discriminatory action against an employee who has lodged a complaint of unsafe or unhealthy practice in the workplace.

There is a clear complaint process laid out in the Act which starts with an initial complaint to an intake officer and at least two levels of appeal of the intake officer’s decision, first to the Director of Labour Standards and, beyond the Director of Labour Standards, to an Occupational Health and Safety Appeal Panel.

Contact

The Taylor MacLellan Cochrane Occupational Health & Safety Complaints Law Team can be contacted by e-mail at TMC Occupational Health & Safety Complaints or visit the Contact page for information on how to contact them by phone, fax, mail or to find out where our office is located.

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