Health and Safety Matters: Encountering unsafe work

UFV Environmental Health and Safety manager, Jason Dallavalle

UFV’s Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) department exists to keep employees safe from injuries, accidents, and occupational health problems. For its manager, Jason Dallavalle, connecting with the community is the best part of the job. He’s passionate about preventing incidents, and one way to do this is by teaching employees how to refuse unsafe work.

People often find this challenging, Jason says.

“You’re telling a person in leadership that the job they want you to do is not safe and you’re not comfortable doing it. So we fear repercussion, termination, suspension, deduction of pay, whatever it may be. That’s not allowed because of Worksafe BC regulations, but if you’re unaware of what your rights are, you would be scared of that.”

After working a night construction job for years, Jason knows how that feels – there were times he wasn’t comfortable speaking up in a dangerous situation.

“Health and safety was not really a thought of mine. It’s like, ‘Well, my manager told me to get it done: you get it done.’ You don’t question it.”

But having a healthy workplace means being able to voice your concerns to your supervisor and find solutions that work for everyone.

As a father and husband, working in health and safety changed Jason’s perspective; he’s relied upon at home, not just on the job.

“At home, you go climb a ladder and you’re on the top rung and you’re changing a light bulb. You don’t really think about what could happen,” he reflects. “Now getting older and more experienced and witnessing more incidents, you think twice about the things you do at home that are putting yourself in danger. Plus, having a family… you don’t want to put yourself into a situation where you’re going to get hurt, because you’re not just affecting yourself now. You’re affecting family and work too, because now you’re potentially unable to work. So now I look at it from a lens of: how can I do this more safely?”

The Environmental Health and Safety department encourages employees to think twice about their risk. To that end, all UFV employees can reach out to EHS any time and learn more about their rights in the workplace. They have an open-door policy to make it easy for their colleagues to ask questions, report an issue, or find support and resources. Their website includes policies, procedures, training opportunities and more.

If you’ve been asked to complete an unsafe task and don’t know what to do, you can find step-by-step instructions on their homepage here . To contact EHS directly, email ehs@ufv.ca.

“My goal is to ensure everyone gets home safely,” Jason states. “If people aren’t getting home safely, I’m not doing my job.”