Can an Employer Fine an Employee for Safety Violations?
If an employee fails to follow the safety regulations in your workplace, do you have grounds for fining or citing them? You, as the employer, do not have this power.
As an employer, it is your responsibility to ensure that your staff members are looked after and cared for. It falls to you to guarantee all safety measures are in place- whether it’s training your employees on the proper form for using a ladder, ensuring they have the certification for warehouse machinery, or the appropriate PPE when handling waste or hazardous materials.
However, if an inspection officer were to come into your workplace and notice one of your employees has ignored safety protocol, individual provinces can and will fine the employee for this violation instead of the employer.
In many instances, when an employee violates safety protocol, it will fall to the employer to make amends. Typically, the employer will be fined or cited for this issue. However, certain provinces have put in place statutes that allow the government to directly fine the employee for these violations instead of the employer.
For example, the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) of Ontario dictates that employees can be fined directly for safety violations. That being said, the employer must illustrate that they did everything in their power to properly train and educate their employees on these health and safety protocols.
In either case, when it comes to fines, the company will always receive a higher penalty than the individual employee.