AU’s COVID protocols may not comply with OHS Act

On March 19, 2022, AU’s COVID-19 Planning Committee announced changes to the university’s COVID protocols. While most staff are required to continue to work from home, staff who permitted to be on campus are now no longer required to wear masks.  

A number of AUFA members questioned the logic of this change. Essentially, how can COVID be both dangerous enough to warrant working from home and not dangerous enough to require mandatory masking when on campus?

This blog post outlines AUFA’s investigation to date, sets out our assessment of whether this policy change is compliant with the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, and asks members how they would like AUFA to proceed.

Background

By late 2021, AU’s COVID-19 protocol required almost all staff to work from home. If staff needed to be on campus, they would require special permission to do so, to be vaccinated and to wear a mask while on site. 

In March 2022, with no consultation with AU’s unions or the Joint Health and Safety Committee, AU’s COVID committee eliminated mandatory masking. The elimination of mandatory masking was a surprising change, given that COVID-19 is primarily spread through the air, via both droplets and aerosols. 

Under Alberta’s OHS legislation, AU is required to conduct an assessment of the hazard posed by COVID in the workplace, as well as institute controls to eliminate or otherwise reduce the risk posed by COVID to staff members. You can review AU’s most recent COVID hazard assessment here.

AU General Hazard Assessment COVID-19 AU Main Feb. 2022.pdf

AU’s COVID Control Strategy

AU has implemented a series of controls designed to reduce the risk of workplace infection among staff. As noted above, the primary control being used is directing staff to work from home. This control eliminates work-related exposure to COVID for those who work from home.

This control does not protect staff members who must regularly or occasionally work on campus. The OHS Act and Code requires AU to implement additional controls to protect these staff members. AU’s on-campus controls presently include:

Vaccination: AU’s Vaccination Policy and Procedure requires workers prove they have received two doses of an approved vaccine to be onsite. The logic here is that a vaccinated worker is less likely to have COVID (and thus less likely bring it into the workplace) and is less likely to contract COVID during a workplace exposure. 

Vaccination does not, however fully control the risk of COVID for those working onsite. The emerging evidence is that two doses of vaccine is not effective at preventing COVID inflection. Further, the effectiveness of vaccination appears to wane over time and AU does not require staff to have a booster shot. Essentially, vaccinated staff can still have, transmit, and acquire COVID in the workplace. This suggests the effectiveness of AU’s vaccination control is moderate and declining over time.

Cleaning: AU has implemented enhanced cleaning protocols in the workplace. This control is intended to remove the virus from surfaces and thus prevent surface transmission of the virus. Cleaning does not control the risk of droplet or aerosol transmission.

Social Distancing: AU recommends staff maintain a distance of six feet from one another in the workplace. Distancing reduces the risk of droplet transmission but does not control spread through aerosols. Aerosols can stay in the air for hours and spread throughout a workspace.

Symptom Exclusion: AU requires staff members who are exhibiting symptoms consistent with COVID to stay out of the workplace. Workplace exclusion is intended to reduce staff exposure to the virus. This control is of limited effectiveness because some COVID positive workers do not exhibit symptoms at all. COVID is also contagious prior to someone exhibiting symptoms. 

Analysis

To summarize, AU’s present control strategies and their effectiveness for workers who work on-site are as follows:

• Working from home: Not applicable.

• Vaccination: Moderate and diminishing

• Cleaning: Low

• Social Distancing: Low

• Symptom Exclusion: Low

An effective control for staff who work onsite is wearing a mask. Wearing a mask dramatically reduces transmission of the virus. 

Section 3(1) of the OHS Act requires “Every employer shall ensure, as far as it is reasonably practicable for the employer to do so, (a) the health, safety and welfare of (i) workers engaged in the work of that employer”. 

Mandatory masking in the workplace is a control that is reasonably practicable for AU to implement, entailing little cost and having little to no operational impact. 

In May, AUFA provided this analysis of the effectiveness of AU’s March 2022 COVID protocols to AU’s COVID Planning Committee and asked the committee to reinstitute mandatory masking. The committee declined this request:

The COVID-19 Planning Committee met to review yours and AUFA’s concerns and to discuss AU’s COVID-19 progress forward.  The committee identified that throughout COVID-19 it is has always remained cautious toward the lessening of COVID-19 restrictions and therefore did not take the removal of it’s [sic] masking protocols lightly.  The committee appreciates AUFA’s concern on this matter but continues to feel that the controls remaining in place were adequate to control the COVID-19 hazard for those working on site.  

Moving forward, the committee will be continuing to recommend adjustment of AU’s controls based on continued assessment of the hazard and with continued guidance from Government Agencies as well as other resources as it works toward reopening its place-based work sites.

Next steps

AUFA’s OHS representatives are seeking member input about how to proceed with this issue. Essentially there are two options:

1. Take no action: AUFA can decide not to pursue this matter any further. This means that staff members who regularly or periodically work onsite will experience an increased risk of contracting COVID. These staff members can, in part, reduce this risk by choosing to wear a mask.

2. File an OHS complaint: AU’s unwillingness to require mandatory masking appears to violate AU’s obligations to take all reasonably practicable steps to control the hazard posed by COVID 19 for AU employees who must be onsite.

The anonymous survey below gives you the opportunity to provide direction to AUFA’s OHS representatives.

Rhiannon Rutherford and Bob Barnetson

AUFA OHS Representatives

Your Turn

Main campus OHS inspection continues

Main campus OHS inspections continue

The Athabasca-location joint workplace health and safety committee met in late November to conduct three inspections and follow up on hazards identified in the October inspections. Staff from facilities were very helpful in conducting these inspections as well as remedying hazards discovered in earlier inspections. The entire campus needs to be inspected quarterly.

December Inspection Results

This month’s inspections included the ARC boiler room as well as the second floor, boiler room, loading dock, vehicle bay, wood shop, and central stores in the main building.

Key hazards identified included 50+ tippy bookshelves, missing components from first aid kits, and significant tile damage and debris in the fire stairs. There was also no fire warden for the east wing of the second floor, and the working-alone app used by Facilities was not functioning properly.

The committee will review these hazards at its December meeting and make recommendations to the employer for remediation. Additional inspections to be completed in December include the main floor of the main building, the POC, parking lots, Observatory, and President’s house. You can assist the OHS committee with identifying hazards for control by filling out the incident report form.

Corrective Actions following October Inspection

A number of hazards were identified during the October inspection of the ARC building. Corrective actions taken include:

• The committee adopted a 750mm standard for passage ways (based on Building Code requirements). Supervisors have been asked to address instances where furnishings result in narrower exit pathways.

• Facilities is working with staff to remove, replace, or secure a large number of tippy bookshelves.

• Facilities is cycling the sump well weekly and filling floor drains to prevent the sewage odor from recurring.

• An administrative control for a working-alone hazard in the Archives has been implemented. An engineering solution is being explored.

• Several staff have submitted ergonomic assessment requests.

A complaint about the locking of the interior gym door in the main building after hours creating the potential for entrapment (if a staff member does not have their pass card on them) was discussed. The committee recommended to AU the removal of this lock in order to eliminate this hazard.

Observations

The number of hazards being identified by inspections reflects that AU has under-resourced OHS for the past five years. While identifying hazards is the first step in preventing injuries, it remains to be seen whether AU is able to implement effective controls.

The bookshelves issue is a useful case to watch. The 100+ tall, tippy bookshelves in use at AU have not yet injured any AU employees. They are, however, hazards that pose a risk of significant injury and that have (somehow) gone unidentified and uncontrolled for at least the last 10 years. The risk of being struck or crushed by a tipping shelf can be remediated in several ways:

•  Elimination: Unneeded shelves can be removed from the workplace. Many shelving units are empty or store records that are rarely accessed.

• Substitution: Lower, more stable shelves could be substituted to reduce the risk of the shelf tipping.

• Engineering: Shelves can be secured to walls to prevent them from tipping over, although the weak interior walls of the ARC building may preclude using this control.

The OHS committee will be assessing whether AU is making adequate progress in controlling these hazards.

First aid kits represent another problem area. In the past, AU paid an outside firm to restock first aid kits. This work was then brought inside AU to reduce costs, and moved around between departments. Eventually, except for the few kits required to meet minimum standards, responsibility for the rest was offloaded to individual administrative units.

The results have been mixed. Some first aid kits are well maintained. Other first aid kits do not contain basic supplies (e.g., band-aids and alcohol swabs).

The distribution of employees in AU buildings (it is often hard to know which unit is responsible for maintaining specific kits) and the lack of any budget allocation to accompany the offloading of responsibility appear to be factors in poor kit maintenance.

Rhiannon Rutherford and Bob Barnetson
AUFA members, Athabasca-location Joint Health and Safety Committee