Students are preparing to graduate college and be part of the workforce, many of them entering skilled trades, but one advocate is reminding workers not to take their safety for granted. Candace Carnahan is the founder of Step Up Your Safety, an awareness program designed to prevent workplace injuries and create a safer workplace for employees. “Workplace health and safety is typically only broached if you’re in a co-op program or a program with a workplace component. That being said, so many workers are out there, and they aren’t in those programs, so we’re leaving it up to whatever their employer is going (to) tell them to be the benchmark,” said Carnahan in an interview with CTV News Atlantic’s Todd Battis. Carnahan started the program after a workplace injury of her own while she was working as a summer student in a paper mill in her hometown of Miramichi, N.B. She says it’s important for workers to trust their guts if something feels unsafe. “I say asking a question can save a life, no job is worth it, and also you have something to bring to the workplace because you have fresh eyes, so you’re learning hopefully how to do things the safe way, the correct way,” she said. Carnahan says conversations about workplace safety are important, and young workers shouldn’t be afraid to speak up if something feels unsafe. “I thought that what happened to me was this one-in-a-million incident because we weren’t having these conversations. If you’re not talking about it, you’re not thinking about it, and if you’re not thinking about it, you’re not acting on it,” she said. “And youth did feel threatened at work or uncomfortable or like they couldn’t speak way back then. It hasn’t changed. Young people do feel more empowered, they do feel, I believe, that they have a voice, not that they didn’t then but you know what I mean, they can speak up, however there’s still the fear of, ‘will I lose my job?’” She adds she’s relieved to see more companies taking workplace safety seriously, as everyone should make it home from work safely. “More companies are seeing safety as the investment that it is, as opposed to an expense or an extra or a nice to have,” Carnahan said. “It is the most important thing and it will impact your bottom line – not to mention bringing people home safely, which is the top of the list – but in a positive way. The safest companies are the most profitable ones and they attract the best,” she said.
