In British Columbia, one young worker is injured every hour. It is evident that keeping young workers safe is at high priority in this highly industrialized age.

For CLE 10 with Ms. Willemse we recently focussed on workplace safety, including things that could go wrong, why they go wrong, how we can prevent things from going wrong, and how to deal with something that has gone wrong. Our first activity was to watch a short movie about a few teens that were seriously injured while on the job, each teen had a video segment showing how they were injured. I think that this video was made purely for shock factor, so that young workers could see this video and then act upon what’s they have seen so that it doesn’t happen to them.

The video was very graphic, it contained lots of blood and very creepy music. In my opinion, this video was very effective in showing everyone why everyone should always ask to receive the proper training for their particular job. It also communicated very clearly that you have the right to refuse unsafe work. Some other things I learned through the viewing of this video is that 34 young workers are injured every day. Which is crazy to think about because that is like picturing almost three PLP 10 classes being injured a work every single day. Another major fact I picked up on during the video is that 1 out of 21 workers will be injured. Which is weird to think about because that could end up being you or me.

The next class after watching the video each table group was assigned a certain hazard that you could come across in the workplace. In my table group was Kai, Daniel, and Logan. We were assigned biological hazards, our task was to create a keynote that showed what biological hazards/spills were, how to deal with them, and who to get to deal with them. Some of the things I learned during the research process for this keynote besides figuring out the obvious types of bodily spills that could occur (which was quite stomach churning) was that as a worker, you are legally not allowed to clean up a spill of any bodily fluid (including blood). If a spill were to occur, you would need someone with proper training and equipment.

You can read more about biological hazards by clicking here.

Another main thing that I learned throughout this small unit was that everyone has the right to a safe workplace. You have the right to refuse any work that you feel is unsafe, I will definitely be taking this information with me into my next job, whatever it may be.