Employers have a resource for workplace issues

HALIFAX—When a Workers Compensation claim, employment standards or labour issue was brought up against a company it was the worker that had access to all the advice and guidance.

Now, with the creation of the Office of the Employer Advisor (OEA), the employer has access to a program to guide them through the confusing process.

Mary Morris heads up the office of the OEA, which has just completed the first year of a two-year pilot project. It took 15 years to finally get the Workers

Compensation-funded program established. Similar programs have existed in most Canadian provinces since the 1980s and Nova Scotia is one of the last to create an employer program.

“In Nova Scotia, injured workers have long had many resources to assist them with Workers Compensation, but employers have never had an independent resource,” Morris said.

Morris works with employers talking on Workers’ Compensation Board claims, Occupational Health and Safety, disability case management, proper workplace practices and Labour and Employment Law.

In the first year, the OEA has received more than 1,000 inquiries a month and of those, 130 were complex cases requiring lengthy negotiation to come to a resolution.

While the OEA will work with any employer at no cost, even those who are not paying into Workers Compensation, Morris said the response from the hospitality industry has been an especially positive one.

“We’ve had a number of clients from restaurants, pubs and inns, that have used the program,” Morris said. “Restaurants don’t have day-to-day resources to stay on top of regulation changes. Now they have a resource that knows this information.”

So far the majority of cases have dealt with Workers Compensation and Occupational Health and Safety issues, which can be as simple as setting up a face to face meeting, to more complex situations like human rights issues, appeals or those involving unions.

Morris said that her role is often as an educator to explain the process to employers, provide them with options, explaining their rights and gathering and presenting evidence. 

The OEA program is scheduled to run until the summer of 2010, but a determination on whether it will continue is to be made later this year.

It is made up of representatives from the Construction Association of Nova Scotia, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, Nova Scotia Association of Health Organizations, Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.