FAQs – Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committees

Frequency depends on the jurisdiction you fall under. Provincially regulated employers are required to carry out 12 joint committee meetings each year and federally regulated employers are required to carry out 9 each year.

Meetings must have representation from both employees, management and union reps (if applicable). The exact number of attendees is outlined in legislation. Contact a Safety Advisor to find up to date information on legislative requirements.

Many resources are available under our Safety Topics section here.

Yes. Under the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation if you have 20 or more employees you must have a safety committee. There is no difference noted between full and part time workers and the Prevention Policy does not provide any further clarification. Looking at the WorkSafeBC guidelines they indicate that cyclic workers are to be considered when counting the number of employees at a given location.

Under the Canada Labour Code Part II section 135.1, if there are twenty or more employees in the workplace then a workplace health and safety committee must be established. There is no differentiation between full and part time in the code and regular part time employees could be counted in the number of employees regularly on the work site.

A safety representative is a worker, who is selected by their fellow workers to represent their safety concerns to management, and to cooperatively work with management to improve safety.

These items can include but not limited to: incidents, policies, safe work procedures, risk assessments, employee training and others.

A health and safety policy set out your general approach and commitment together with the arrangements you have put in place for managing health and safety in your business. It is a unique document that say who does what, when and how.

• Goals & objectives
• A commitment to meet relevant legal requirements
• Acknowledgement of workers right to refuse unsafe work
• Commitment to continual improvement