Warning message

Please note that this page is from our archives. There may be more up-to-date content about this topic on our website. Use our search engine to find out.
Collusion, corruption and criminality thats how Bob Sass, the father of Health and Safetys three sacred rights (the right to refuse, participate and know) described his address to the Health and Safety forum Tuesday evening at the 2003 Convention.

Sass was Saskatchewans Director for Occupational Health and Safety in 1971 under Allan Blakeneys NDP government. He confessed to delegates his part in legitimizing a shift to scientific proof rather than relying on workers experiences to valid health and safety problems in the workplace.

Our bodies are the best instruments for determining the health and safety of the workplaces our ears, our eyes, our skins, Sass said.

He explained that scientific studies and standards, which are perceived as neutral and objective, have annihilated our way of knowing and overwhelmed workers rights. Standards and data banks, like those of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, are based on industry-sponsored research with predictable results, Sass told the crowd of almost two hundred activists.

Every single regulatory committee in North America same thing under the Reagan administration was dominated by industry and scientists, Sass said, referring to the 1970s and early 80s.

Today, it has gone so far that the Bush administration has taken out all the credible, knowledgeable professionals from positions and stacked them with industry people, some with no credentials at all. It would be reckless for us to accept any of these standards, he said calling it outright criminality.