Blog
In British Columbia, all employers, regardless of their size, are required by law to provide a safe working environment. They must ensure that all employees are properly trained and supervised; they must work with employees to identify hazards in the workplace and ensure that hazards are eliminated, isolated or minimized.
Every workplace in BC must provide a first aid program and supplies, first aid training for responders, and accessible first aid kits. A workplace is defined as anywhere your employer requires you to be as part of your job, whether on-site or off-site. This includes places such as the lunchroom, the parking lot, any motor vehicle you drive as part of work, and any equipment you use such as a forklift, ladder or step stool. Your vehicle is also a workplace as you drive from site to site.
Employers and employees are required to set goals around health and safety and then work together to achieve them. Everyone has a part to play in improving health and safety in the workplace.
All workers in British Columbia have 4 basic Occupational Health and Safety rights (OH&S):
- The right to know about hazards in the workplace
- The right to participate in OH&S activities
- The right to refuse unsafe work
- The right to no retaliation(discipline or being fired) for raising OH&S concerns
You can make your workplace safer by:
- Being involved in the process to improve health and safety. For example; offer to sit on your health and safety committee or to be the workplace first aid attendant,
- Sticking to correct procedures and using the right equipment,
- Wearing the appropriate protective clothing and equipment if required,
- Helping new employees, trainees and visitors to the workplace understand the right safety practices and why the practices exist, and
- Communicating any safety concerns to your employer.
- Keep an eye out for unsafe premises and equipment,
- Inadequate or misused safety equipment,
- Bad work practices and,
- Lack of information about equipment or workplace processes.
Blog
In the month of December we ran a community support program for our first time. For every 10 first aid blankets (FB1055) that our customers purchased, SOS Emergency Response Technologies donated 1 to a local Richmond Homeless Shelter.
In January, VP of Operations, Stacey Friedman along with her daughters, delivered 30 blankets to the Richmond House Men’s Shelter. Thank you for helping us keep people warm this winter and for supporting our community.
Blog
It is always imporant to be aware of your surroundings. Make a plan.
Once you know the disasters that can happen in your community (BC can have earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, and floods.) Be prepared
Secure your furniture, appliances and most importantly your water heater, to floors and walls.
Keep an 72 hour kit in your home and your car.
Blog
The phone lines at our office and our twitter feed are a buzz with inquiries regarding earthquake or emergency preparedness kits. Our staff has been answering questions and we are loving the clients that are stopping by to visit our Richmond showroom.
With several small quakes along the BC coastline the past while, preparing seems to be in the forefront of everyone’s minds these days.
On Boxing Day we were given a gentle reminder that we do live in an earthquake zone when some homes were shook by the 3.3 earthquake at 10:35pm, just 13km east of Sidney. Although there was no damage from this small shake 247 people did communicate to Natural Resources Canada acknowledging the shake.
Since December 1 nearly 70 earthquakes from 0.9 to 4.8 have been recorded along coastal BC.
Blog
Residents of BC have realized that an incident such as a gunshooting at Starlight Casino in New Westminister resulted in half a day of blocked traffic. All exits, bridges and roadways in the area were not available to the public for over 4 hours. People were stuck in their cars, vans and trucks and everyones day came to a complete stop.
Our office recieved several phone calls from people thanking us that they had purchased emergency survival kits for their car, as many of them used blankets for warmth, water for thirst and bit into the food bars. A few were surprised that the food bars really did taste pretty good.
They thought about how bad it would be in a natural disaster?
So, protect the ones you love this holiday season and buy a emergency survival kit for the car, home and workplace.
