Educational Leave

Health and Safety Reps are entitled to eight hours of educational leave each year to attend Board approved courses.The term Board refers to the Workers Compensation Board. Courses taken must be related to Occupational Health and Safety topics. An Occupational First Aid Course is not the same as a First Aid course. To be covered by the following Regulation, it must be Board approved.

Section 135:

(1) Each member of a joint committee is entitled to an annual educational leave totalling 8 hours, or a longer period if prescribed by regulations, for the purpose of attending occupational health and safety training courses conducted by or with approval of the Board.

(2) A member of the joint committee may designate another member as bling entitled to take all or part of the member's educational leave.

(3) The employer must provide the educational leave under this section without loss of pay or other benefits and must pay for, or reimburse the worker for, the costs of the training course and reasonable costs of attending the course.

You will notice in part 3 it states must pay wages, benefits, the cost of the course and any reasonable costs of attending the program. Reasonable costs is mileage, meals and hotel if needed. You would use the per diem amounts set out by the School District Policies.

The Terms of Reference for your JOHS committee sets out how to go about asking for training. The words come from the WorkSafeBC policy on establishing process for applying for training. You do need to inform your committee of your request for training. Presumably they will approve it. It is important that the approval goes into the minutes and the Committee informs Christine Merner of the request.
Should you committee not approve the request, you can send it directly to Christine for approval. If you need go through this process, please let me know so I can support you. As long as the course is Board approved, it should not be denied.

Be Safe,

David