Thomas Lukaszuk the Alberta Minister for Employment and Immigration was taken aback by the safety violations at workplaces and has warned of actions like on spot fines etc to the construction companies.

This fall when surprise inspection was held at the commercial construction venues the Occupational Health and Safety inspectors discovered large number of violations. This has greatly disturbed Lukaszuk.

This inspection extended over 6 weeks and was the first of its kind in Alberta. The inspection was held from October 8th to November 22nd. The Employment Minister said that with the results it will surely not be the last.

The number of inspections carried out amounted to 198, with the number of worksites equaling to 78 and companies totaling to 149. The inspections discovered violations amounting to 214, with serious nature violations that would be given work halt notice. The violations included safety violations as well non permissible scaffolding conditions.

The minister said that if the current scene was not looked into the system would see introduction of more fines affecting both the employer and the employee. These fines would be issued by the safety inspectors on the discovery of the violations.

Hugh MacDonald critic of Liberal labour and also Gil McGowan the Labour President that discovery of large number of violations didn’t come as a surprise and that such inspections had to be carried out by the government long time back.

Till 1st December 2010, there have been 30 deaths in the workplaces in Alberta and half of which have occurred in the construction companies. This calls for a safety law enforcement where hunting of companies who haven’t paid fines, hiring more security officers as well as building a new secretariat to tackle occupational disease would be required.

Lukaszuk said that such blitz inspections would be held in 2011, and the targeted commercial venues would be residential areas, forklift operations and also those companies recruiting unskilled workers.