What is the Occupational Health and Safety Act?
The main purpose of the Act is to protect workers from health and safety hazards on the job. It sets out duties for all workplace parties and rights for workers. It establishes procedures for dealing with workplace hazards and provides for enforcement of the law where compliance has not been achieved voluntarily. Fundamental to the successful working of OHSA is the workplace Internal Responsibility System (IRS).
Internal Responsibility System (IRS): The IRS gives everyone within an organization direct responsibility for health and safety as an essential part of his or her job. It does not matter who or where the person is in the organization, they achieve health and safety in a way that suits the kind of work they do. Each person takes initiative on health and safety issues and works to solve problems and make improvements on an ongoing basis. They do this both singly and co-operatively with others. Successful implementation of the IRS should result in progressively longer intervals between accidents or work-related illnesses.