Workplace hazard alerts
Hazard alerts help employers, supervisors and workers understand the unique dangers that could injure a worker and help employers address new or existing hazards.
Overview
The Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development may publish a workplace hazard alert when:
- a worker has died from an injury in the workplace
- a new hazard or process has been identified during a workplace visit by an inspector
- it is recommended by a Coroner’s Jury at an inquest
The alert includes:
- background information and/or a summary of the hazard and what happened
- the precautions and best practices employers can take to prevent incidents and protect workers
- the relevant regulations and sections of the Occupational Health and Safety Act that describe what everyone in the workplace (e.g. employers, supervisors, constructors and workers) should do to meet the minimum requirements for addressing the hazard
Alerts by sector
Construction sector alerts
- Hot asphalt kettles piping
- Inspection of tower crane hoist reduction gear
- Air pressure in water pipe systems
- Beam clamps (lever-action)
- Explosion – sewer construction using a laser device
- Falling ice on construction projects
- Hazards in hardwood floor installation and finishing
- Loading limitations of utility service covers
- Low clearance of a locomotive in a construction tunnel boring machine gantry
- Mast-climbing work platform safe use, maintenance and inspection
- Operating construction equipment in reverse
- Temporary aluminum guardrail post assembly
- Unguarded rotating trolley track hoist drums
- Worker falls through skylight
- Working at heights in construction using self-retracting lifelines — leading edge (SRL-LE) locking mechanisms
Health care sector alerts
- Preventing fires caused by IV fluids getting into electrical outlets
- Preventing surgical fires in hospital operating rooms
Industrial sector alerts
- Entanglement hazard on live-bottom trailers in farming
- Crush hazard from adding equipment on tractors
- Asbestos hazard in vehicle brake repair
- Atmospheric hazards associated with oxygen-limited structures (silos) on farms
- Augers on farms
- Brew-on-premise wine making establishments – hazardous carbon dioxide concentrations
- Carbon monoxide hazards from using gas-powered pressure washers
- Clark model ECS and GCS forklift trucks
- Collapsible plastic bulk containers
- Collector shoe assemblies on overhead cranes - bridging an isolation gap
- Concrete blocks used for material storage
- Dough mixers
- Electrical lockout using manual motor controllers
- Fall from height through opening in barn loft floor
- Flammable vapours from polyethylene (packing) foam
- Gasoline tank removal
- High voltage switchgear repairs
- Loading and unloading trucks
- Machine shop lathes: entanglement hazards during high-speed polishing
- Meat mixer/grinder
- Operator-protective structures on mobile forestry equipment
- Safety requirements for powered folding partitions
- Storage and handling of steel coils
- Sweep augers in silos on farms
- Thermal spray aluminum coating process
- Threaded quick-connect hydraulic couplings with check valves
- Vine pulling machines on farms
- Welding on containers
- Wood splitters
Mining sector alerts
- Conveyor safety in mines
- Safety of load haul dump equipment operators
- Surface rock drill rig equipment
- Working from a load haul dump equipment bucket
General alerts for all sectors
- Carbon monoxide poisoning associated with propane-powered floor burnishers
- Crane controls on crane trucks
- Davit arm system failure
- Diver critically injured when suit over inflates
- Diving
- Dry bulk (cement) container explosion hazard
- Electrical hazards associated with welding equipment
- Elevating work platform crushing hazard
- Equipment blocking
- Explosion hazards in dispensing products containing toluene
- Explosion risk associated with old laboratory samples
- Extending boom of an articulating crane while in stowed/travel position
- Fire and explosion hazard – opening oxygen cylinder valves
- High-pressure water-jetting guns
- Horizontal handling of steel plates
- Inspection of crane hook block
- Light stands with portable generators
- Mould in workplace buildings
- Photovoltaic systems
- Sandblasting and blasting material
- Sandblasting and carbon monoxide poisoning
- Silica exposure during countertop manufacturing and installing
- Snow loading and roof failures
- Tire explosion – pyrolysis
- Transformer grounding
- Truck-mounted mobile cranes
- Working and driving on ice-covered water
Government of Canada - Workplace beryllium exposure
- You and chemicals in the workplace
Updated: October 08, 2024
Published: September 19, 2022