Occupational health and safety law for electrical contractors

Electrical contractors work with a hazard that gives no warning. Shock, arc flash, falls from ladders and lifts, and work in trenches and confined spaces are all part of the trade. In New Brunswick, the Occupational Health and Safety Act and its regulations set the legal duties of employers, supervisors and workers, and WorkSafeNB administers both the safety law and the workers compensation system. This lesson covers the duties that matter most to an electrical contractor, the reporting rules, and the specific provisions on electrical work and qualified persons, using Tantramar's jobs as examples.

Who is responsible for what

The Occupational Health and Safety Act places duties on everyone in the workplace. Employers must take every reasonable precaution to protect the health and safety of their employees. WorkSafeNB's summary of the employer's duties includes inspecting the workplace at least once a month to identify risks, giving every new employee a health and safety orientation before they start work, providing training, supervision and personal protective equipment, keeping tools and equipment in good working order, working with the joint health and safety committee, and reporting serious injuries and incidents. Supervisors must make sure the people they direct work safely, and workers must follow the rules, use the protective equipment provided and report hazards.

On a construction site several employers often work side by side. The owner, the general contractor and each trade contractor all have duties, and the general contractor usually coordinates safety across the site. Tantramar's crews follow the general contractor's site rules on the clinic project while remaining responsible for their own work, their own equipment and their own workers.

Joint committees and orientation

WorkSafeNB states that workplaces with 20 or more employees must have a joint health and safety committee, made up of employer and worker representatives, to deal with health and safety concerns. With eleven people, Tantramar is below that threshold today, but it holds a short safety meeting every Monday and keeps minutes. Smaller workplaces may have other obligations, such as a health and safety representative, so check WorkSafeNB's guidance as the company grows.

Orientation is required before a new employee starts work. When Owen joined Tantramar, Gilles walked him through the company's safety program, its lockout procedure, the emergency procedures for each active site and the reporting rules, and Owen signed the orientation record. Logan received the same orientation when he started as an apprentice, with extra time on the tasks he would not be allowed to do alone.

Reporting injuries and incidents

Two reporting duties run side by side, under two different Acts. Under section 43 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the employer must notify WorkSafeNB immediately, once first aid has been given and nobody is in immediate danger, of injuries such as loss of consciousness, amputation, most fractures, burns needing medical attention, loss of vision, deep cuts, admission to hospital or death, and of accidental explosions, accidental exposures to harmful agents and catastrophic events or equipment failures, whether or not anyone is hurt. The joint committee or health and safety representative must be notified too.

Separately, under section 44 of the Workers' Compensation Act, an employer must send WorkSafeNB an Employer Report of Injury or Illness, known as Form 67, within three days after a worker is injured in an accident that may entitle them to compensation, beyond first aid given by the employer. WorkSafeNB stresses that filing Form 67 does not satisfy the immediate notification duty. And if the incident involves an electrical installation, lesson 7's rule applies as well: the owner or user must notify the Chief Electrical Inspector within 24 hours.

Electrical work and qualified persons

New Brunswick's General Regulation 91-191 under the Occupational Health and Safety Act contains specific provisions on electrical work. WorkSafeNB's interpretation explains three of them. Section 286 defines a qualified person for work on electrical equipment by reference to the electrical licensing regulation: a person who meets the requirements of section 11 or section 24 of Regulation 84-165. Section 287 requires the employer to ensure that an employee does not work on energized electrical equipment unless the employee is a qualified person. Section 287.1 requires the employer to ensure that no one enters a room or enclosure with electrical hazards unless they are a qualified person, or an employee entering for a non-electrical duty who has been instructed and trained in the electrical hazards.

The link between the two regulations matters. A licensed electrician meets section 11 of the electrical regulation and is a qualified person for safety purposes. A maintenance worker who is familiar with the equipment and its hazards may meet section 24 for minor repairs that do not change the circuits. A worker who is neither, such as a painter or a cleaner, must not work on energized equipment and may enter an electrical room only for non-electrical duties and only after training in the hazards.

Lockout and de-energized work

Being allowed to work on energized equipment does not mean it is wise. Good practice, reflected in the regulation and in the national standard on workplace electrical safety, CSA Z462, is to de-energize equipment, lock it out and verify the absence of voltage before working on it, and to work energized only when de-energizing is not feasible or would create a greater hazard. The regulation contains requirements for isolating energy sources and locking them out before work begins; read them in the current regulation, and build your company procedure around them.

A lockout procedure should say who may apply locks, how each energy source is identified and isolated, how stored energy is released, how the absence of voltage is tested and with what instrument, and how the equipment is returned to service. Each worker applies their own lock and keeps the key. After Owen's shock, Tantramar found that a second supply to the panel had not been identified on the drawings, and it added a step to its procedure: trace and label every supply before the first lock goes on.

# A simple lockout checklist runner
steps = [
    ("Identify every energy source, including second supplies", True),
    ("Notify affected people", True),
    ("Isolate and apply personal locks and tags", True),
    ("Release or block stored energy", True),
    ("Test for absence of voltage with a proven tester", False),
]
for i, (step, done) in enumerate(steps, 1):
    print(f"{i}. [{'x' if done else ' '}] {step}")
if all(done for _, done in steps):
    print("Safe to begin work")
else:
    print("STOP: complete every step before work begins")

1. [x] Identify every energy source, including second supplies
2. [x] Notify affected people
3. [x] Isolate and apply personal locks and tags
4. [x] Release or block stored energy
5. [ ] Test for absence of voltage with a proven tester
STOP: complete every step before work begins

Other site hazards

Electrical contractors face hazards beyond electricity. Falls from ladders, scaffolds and lifts are a leading cause of serious injury in construction, and the regulation sets requirements for fall protection and for the equipment used. Excavations for underground services must be shored or sloped. Overhead power lines near a site require planning, because the regulation sets limits on how close workers and equipment may come. Confined spaces, such as some vaults and pits, need special procedures. A contractor should assess the hazards on each site before work starts, plan the controls and make sure workers are trained in them.

At the Sussex farm, the grain building is close to an overhead line. Before the boom lift arrived, Émilie contacted the utility to discuss the line, marked the approach limit on the ground and briefed the crew on it. The job sheet records the briefing, signed by each worker.

A safety program sized for a small contractor

A small electrical contractor does not need an elaborate system to meet its safety duties, but it does need a written, working one. The core pieces are a short statement of the company's commitment to safety, hazard assessments for its common tasks, safe work procedures for the most dangerous of them, such as lockout and work near overhead lines, an orientation and training record for each worker, a schedule of workplace inspections, an incident reporting and investigation procedure, and a process for correcting hazards that workers report.

WorkSafeNB publishes guidance for employers, and industry associations offer templates and training. Tantramar built its program from these sources and tailored it to electrical work. The monthly inspection checklist includes the condition of ladders and lifts, the calibration and condition of voltage testers, the state of extension cords and portable tools, and whether every crew has its lockout kit complete.

Workers should be encouraged to report hazards and near misses without fear of blame. A near miss, such as a voltage tester that fails to show a live circuit, is a warning that costs nothing if it is acted on and may cost a life if it is not.