Chapter 3.3 Regulatory Challenges for Hazard Navigation

Road Conditions

Road conditions are a challenge in most parts of Canada, particularly when the weather is bad but also when roads are poorly maintained. Because of the size of the country, the harsh winters, the long periods of darkness during the winter, and the possibilities of encountering wildlife, there are undoubtedly situations in which one would be ill advised to take to the road (see, e.g., Jackson, Price, et al. 2019; Jackson et al. 2020).1 Yet it appears unlikely that, in the absence of specific provisions in a contract or collective agreement, workers have legal or contractual protections if they cannot make it to work because of the conditions of the commute. The same may be true about the trip home for fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) or drive-in/drive-out (DIDO) workers. These conditions may raise both health and safety issues and pay issues. If no provisions specify worker protection related to pay and expenses in the event of bad weather, for example, this situation may incite the worker to take to the road even when conditions would dictate that the roads should be avoided.

Even when poor weather is not contributing to the deterioration of driving conditions, the roads themselves can be intrinsically hazardous. Highway 63 connecting Fort McMurray to southern Alberta has attained notoriety, labelled as Suicide 63 and Highway of Death (Bascaramurty 2016). Factors identified include wide loads with insufficient passing lanes, long drives in remote areas with few rest stops, inadequate highway design for the quantity of traffic, and travel undertaken by DIDO workers at shift rotation following many consecutive long working days. In her article, Bascaramurty (2016) describes how first responders who used to volunteer no longer wish to do so because of the frequency and seriousness of the accidents on this highway that require their attention.

There have been a number of serious accidents involving transport of international migrant and other farm workers to and from farms in recent years.2 In some of these cases, driver fatigue was a factor that contributed to the accident, as was the state of the vehicle or the fact that workers were not wearing seat belts or were required to ride in the back of a pickup truck. Lack of driver training was also a contributing factor.3 In June 2023, a bus carrying thirty people, mostly Ethiopian and Somalian women who were employed as housekeepers in a remote camp, rolled over, and more than eighteen workers were injured (Trumpener 2023). According to the union, the housekeepers were removed from the work camp in order to prioritize the stay at the camp of other workers; the women were moved to another location two hours away from the site, forcing them to commute several hours a day on what was known, and had been denounced, as precarious roads (UNITE HERE Local 40 2023).

Fitzpatrick and Neis (2015, 55) report on the reality of home care workers in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) and emphasize that these workers may feel obligated to drive in severe weather in order to care for clients, “especially when the homecare agency used ‘emotional blackmail’ to make them feel guilty or instructed the worker to contact the client with the news that she would not be caring for the client today due to severe weather.”

A study of ERGM among health care workers in Nova Scotia reported on findings from a survey on experiences of risk and road safety. Even though over half of their respondents were confident in their ability to address the hazards of bad-weather driving, most of them described limited organizational support in terms of training and equipment. One of the researchers’ recommendations was that policies, regulations, and/or employment contracts “could include an allowance for mobility-related safety features (e.g., snow tires, roadside assistance services)” (Jackson, Bourgeault, et al. 2019, 2). Nourpanah et al. (2018, 19), also studying health care workers in Nova Scotia, reported how “mobile employees carry disproportionate responsibility for occupational safety when driving or at remote settings. Inconsistencies across employers and across jurisdictions serve to aggravate that imbalance by introducing greater uncertainty for employees.” Hence authors hypothesize that more comprehensive and consistent policies would help relieve the burden put on the shoulders of mobile workers to care for their own health and safety.

Canada’s unique geography has allowed for the development of an extensive network of ice roads throughout northern Canada, and many of these “winter roads” provide access to supplies from the south for many First Nations and other northern communities. Some serve mining sites that require heavy equipment that cannot be transported by air (Prowse et al. 2011). Climate change has affected the duration of the season during which these roads can be used, as well as the extent of the roadways (Kuryk 2003) and the quality of the roads, an often forgotten challenge with which truckers and other mobile workers are grappling. For example, in Manitoba, where a 2,200-kilometre winter road network linked remote communities to the south, mild weather in March 2010 led to the closure of the network, requiring emergency evacuations of freight haulers and local drivers (Prowse et al. 2011). Transportation authorities in the relevant provinces and territories manage the risks of these winter roads, a responsibility that is not without its challenges, particularly in light of increasing traffic on these roads and increased climatic uncertainties. One study described an incident that could have led to serious consequences for the driver:

It was fortunate for the driver that the density of diesel fuel provided sufficient buoyancy for the trailers to remain afloat, thus the tractor stayed on the ice. . . . The probability of a fatality following a breakthrough of this type is assumed to be in the order of 1 in 10, similar to that of a rock striking a vehicle and causing a fatal accident [comparing conditions to rockfalls on certain highways in British Columbia]. (Hayley and Proskin, sec. 5)

It might well be that, in some circumstances, workplace parties will agree implicitly that a transport worker is justified in refusing to take to the road in bad conditions. For example, in Québec, despite the bad weather, the school board failed to close the schools. A school bus driver refused to jeopardize the safety of the children and her own safety, although nothing suggests she filed a formal refusal signalled to the Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CNESST), nor, seemingly, was she the object of sanctions by her employer, despite having made the headlines for her refusal (Gendron 2018).4

As we will see, regulatory requirements affecting employer obligations will vary depending on whether or not the road is private (logging roads, for example) or public and whether or not the vehicle is considered a workplace.5

State of the Vehicle

Situations in which the employer provides the vehicle or where the employer has arranged transportation are more likely to fall within current OSH legal frameworks than those where the vehicle is owned by the workers and they arrange their own travel. However, there are many situations, most notably in those involving self-employed mobile workers, where the maintenance of the vehicle is the responsibility of the owner of the vehicle, often the worker. In Alberta,6 if a worker uses a personal vehicle for work purposes, the employer must only ensure that the worker has the appropriate licensed driver requirements. The worker, however, “must ensure that the vehicle is maintained in sound mechanical condition.” Cost pressures borne by workers can contribute to insufficient maintenance of vehicles and increase the chances of injury sustained to and from work.

The laws in the provinces examined for this book unevenly set standards on general issues about the use of motor vehicles, like the presence of seat belts and the overcrowding of a vehicle. In Alberta,

if a worker is dispatched by their employer, Alberta OSH considers that driving to be driving for work. A vehicle used for work purposes while away from the work site (such as when being driven to deliver a parcel or being driven to another office) is itself considered a work site. For this reason, the hazard assessment requirements apply to such vehicles, whether they are personal or work vehicles. (OHS Contact Centre 2022b, paras. 2–3)

Hence the employer must assess the work site and identify existing and potential hazards.7

Furthermore, the Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Code (OHSC) includes various sections on “powered mobile equipment” and the correlative obligations of operators8 and employers.9 The employer also has obligations relating to traffic safety. In the forestry industry, they “must ensure that bridges, elevated platforms and other structures used by vehicles transporting workers, logs or other forest products in forestry operations are constructed and maintained to permit safe transit.”10 Also, pursuant to section 235 of Alberta’s OHSC, an “employer must ensure that a worker who is riding a bicycle or using in-line skates or a similar means of transport wears protective headwear.”11

In Ontario, the regulation on Passenger Transportation Vehicles12 provides for general provisions about passenger transportation. As for OSH regulations specifically, the Mines and Mining Plants13 regulation regulates the transportation of workers in this specific sector. Section 10 provides that “vehicles being used for transporting workers shall, (a) be provided with suitable seats or other facilities; (b) be limited to a maximum number of passengers, which number shall be posted in or on the vehicle; and (c) when enclosed, be equipped with an emergency exit.”14 The Industrial Establishments15 regulation concerns the logging industry and regulates the haul road (defined as “a road, other than a highway as defined in the Highway Traffic Act, on which vehicles used to haul logs are operated”). These haul roads shall, according to section 117, be adequate to provide for the safe operation of vehicles. As for the vehicles that transport loggers, workers “who engage in logging” (including the employer and any person under the control of the employer) have to respect some quality and safety norms, such as having an adequate number of seats securely attached to the vehicle so that all loggers being transported may be seated and illuminated by an electrical lighting system.16

In NL’s OSH regulation,17 part 13 applies to “all persons, including the operator, engaged in transporting a worker by a vehicle operated on behalf of the employer except for the transportation of a worker by (a) a public transportation system including a taxi, bus line, chartered air service or airline; or (b) personal transport of the worker on public roads before or following a work shift.”18 The regulation provides that, “where reasonably practicable, a vehicle used to transport workers shall have seats with full seat backs.”19 The worker has to wear a seat belt while being transported in a vehicle equipped with seat belts. The number of workers being transported shall not exceed the number of seat belts available in the vehicle, and the seats must achieve a certain degree of safety.20 There are also provisions on ventilation, lighting, effective means of communication, and the need for more than one means of egress.21 It is worth noting that an exception to the no-fault regime exists in NL, since according to sections 52, 53, and 54 of the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Act (WHSCA), workers injured as a result of a motor vehicle accident may choose between receiving compensation under the WHSCA or filing civil claims. Few decisions from NL have addressed the issue of determining what is the “use” of a motor vehicle in order to conclude if the worker can file a civil claim or if their recourse is limited to workers’ compensation.22

In Québec, the Regulation Respecting Occupational Health and Safety23 provides firstly that when workers perform work in remote areas, camp and eating facilities shall be provided, except when the work is carried out over short periods. Section 158 provides that where a camp is not provided, the employer shall provide workers with transportation facilities in accordance with division 31. That division does not apply to automobiles used in general as common carriers.24 Section 359 then provides that any “automobile used for transporting workers shall be arranged and used in compliance with the Highway Safety Code (chapter C-24.2) and its regulations.” The transport of workers in trailers and semi-trailers is prohibited.25 The vehicle must also meet a certain standard: be driven by a person who has an appropriate licence issued and be examined and maintained so as to protect the health and ensure the safety and physical well-being of workers.26 Any vehicle used primarily or regularly for transporting workers shall be equipped with a first aid kit in compliance with the First-Aid Minimum Standards Regulation.27

In British Columbia, WorkSafeBC goes further to regulate the transportation of workers,28 providing for requirements additional to those stipulated in the highway code. Thus the employer has to ensure that reasonable measures are taken to evaluate road, weather, and traffic conditions to ensure the safe transit of the workers, and the transportation vehicle must be inspected by a qualified person before the first use on a work shift. WorkSafeBC’s investigation of a fatal accident involving a temporary agency labour supplier delivering seventeen workers to a work site in a van designed for a maximum of fifteen passengers—that, therefore, lacked seat belts for all passengers—found that the vehicle used did not comply with the regulation and that the workers had had no health and safety training, not even training as to the obligation to buckle their seat belts, were they to have been available (WorkSafeBC 2007). This regulation seems particularly appropriate in Canada considering the particularities of the weather in the country.

Travel by road is not the only means of transportation to work. Helicopter maintenance was identified as a key issue after seventeen workers lost their lives in a helicopter accident in NL (CBC News 2011).29 Workers may also travel by snowmobile, as with wildlife enforcement officers who can be sent off to investigate in remote locations (Annable, Marcoux, and Kubinec 2017).

Long Hours and Fatigue

The mobile workforce is often confronted with long hours and fatigue, which are considered to be important hazards. It is important to understand the organizational factors that impose long hours on workers and cause fatigue, which are inherent to the reality of mobile work.

Taxi drivers (Burgel, Gillen, and Castle White 2012), short-haul (Williamson et al. 2009) and long-haul (Bigelow et al. 2014) truckers, ambulance drivers,30 workers who drive or ride delivery vehicles (e.g., bicycle messengers), public transport drivers and emergency service workers, wildlife officers, pilots, some heavy equipment operators, skidders in forestry, some salespeople, and tour guides are among many whose job requires long hours in moving vehicles as an intrinsic part of the job. Pressures to work long hours and the risk of fatigue are exacerbated by piece-work payments and lack of regulation in some sectors, such as delivery work and taxi driving.

Long hours for truckers are particularly problematic,31 and legislative requirements are complex, coming from both provincial and federal jurisdictions depending on the size and weight of the truck and on whether the employer is interjurisdictional or intrajurisdictional in its practices.32 On the Move’s labour standards report shows that trucking is among the professions that have longer work weeks before overtime is required to be paid by the employer (Gesualdi-Fecteau and Nakache 2017). For example, in PEI, trucking is exempted from the standard work week of forty-eight hours (after which overtime is received). For the trucking industry, overtime starts at fifty-five hours a week (Department of Workforce, Advanced Learning and Population 2024). Federal regulation, applicable to interjurisdictional trucking, provides more explicit constraints on working time.33 In 2019, Transport Canada published modifications to the Commercial Vehicle Drivers Hours of Service Regulations34 in order to make mandatory an electronic logging device (ELD) for federally regulated commercial drivers. ELD is a device that automatically records a driver’s driving time. One of the stated aims of this new measure is to help reduce the number of fatigue-related accidents (Transport Canada 2020a). Several provinces have followed in Transport Canada’s footsteps. Since April 30, 2023, all heavy vehicles on the road in Québec, whether they move inside or outside the province, must be equipped with an ELD. As reported, with the ELD on board, if a driver exceeds the limit, they will receive an alert message (Radio-Canada 2023c).35 Canadian truck drivers who travel to the US were already required to comply with American standards that include electronic monitoring of their logs.

Electronic monitoring is not without problems. It has been reported that some employers are concerned about the behaviour of their clients, who make truckers wait for longer than necessary, thereby reducing their total permitted driving time. In some cases, loading takes so long that the drivers have no more available driving time, yet the clients object to the drivers staying on their premises. In one example, a client actually called the police to have the driver removed, which the police refused to do, given that the driver would have violated the law were he to have driven off the premises (Codère 2018; Crizzle, Toxopeus, and Malkin 2020).

Researchers in the US and Australia have identified pay schemes and economic pressures leading to long hours as important contributors to truck crashes, and they recommend safe rates programs to ensure that economic pressures do not lead to unsafe practices (Belzer 2018), a recommendation acknowledged to be of interest to the Tripartite Sectoral Meeting on Safety and Health in the Road Transport Sector of the International Labour Organization (ILO 2016).

Continuous mobility itself creates particular problems because of the blurred boundaries between work and nonwork spheres.36 Occasionally, truckers live in their trucks (Conway 2017; in Europe), sometimes with their families, exposing their families to the same hazards to which they are exposed.37 In Québec, the tribunal considered the rest period required by the long-distance trucking rules to be connected to the performance of the work of transporting goods.38

As noted in chapter 1, a few studies have looked at the relationship between rosters, shift work, and driving risk (Langdon, Biggs, and Rowland 2016; Di Milia and Bowden 2007; Retzer, Hill, and Pratt 2013). These studies have found that with employees who must commute after working extended hours, the likelihood of vehicle accidents is increased, as would be the case for FIFO workers who may end up driving after they work and fly. FIFO workers operate in a peculiar context, since they are expected to work long hours for multiple days. This reality is intrinsically linked to the cost of travel and accommodation, sometimes paid for by employers, and to maximizing what can be earned while away from home for workers. Thus these workers face risks that are not explicitly addressed in the regulations studied here and that can be invisible to regulators and in employers’ obligations with regard to fatigue of their employees when they leave the workplace.39 In their work, Langdon, Biggs, and Rowland (2016) encourage future research to address risk assessments and effectiveness of fatigue management in industries that rely on FIFO/DIDO workers to manage the risks associated with extended shifts and long commutes.

Regulators in some Canadian jurisdictions provide particular advisories for workers travelling alone. Some, like in NL, mention that employers should allow sufficient rest time for workers who are travelling on long trips (for NL, Digital Government and Service NL, n.d.; for Alberta, OHS Contact Centre 2022a).

If the employer provides transport, workers’ compensation legislation will limit their liability and that of the driver of the vehicle if transport was undertaken during the driver’s employment. In the case of extended daily commutes, workers are also adding hours to their workday, and fatigue may well be a significant hazard for them as well. This is also true of extended commutes between provinces, where workers may have long drives to get to remote workplaces after having flown in from another municipality or province.

Seafarers (Shan and Neis 2020) and pilots (David-Cooper 2019), professions where workers are often mobile to and as work, are also at risk because of fatigue at the beginning of a shift, “hitch,” rotation, or mission. Shan and Lippel (2019) report on OSH challenges faced by seafarers on the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes, including how they get from their home to the work site. Once again, their commuting encompasses several steps, from driving or taking a cab to airports, flying between home city and port city, and taking another taxi to the port terminal (381). The authors emphasize that many Canadian seafarers were “‘feeling tired after their commute’ as their primary safety concern, in particular those living in Atlantic Provinces, such as Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia” (382). This issue was not found among their colleagues living in nearby port cities in Québec and Ontario. Those seafarers reported that commuting “would rarely affect their ability to work safely on board” (382).

In their study, Lippel and Walters (2019) were told in many provinces that workers in remote workplaces often began their shifts fatigued because of the commute preceding the beginning of a shift. Yet union representatives they spoke to found this to be a delicate issue because of increasing practices of blaming workers for accidents when they occurred, often blaming them for being overtired or inattentive. Similar findings were reported by Ryser, Halseth, and Markey (2020). In their research, they identified the transition to night shifts as problematic because it required workers to begin their rotation a few hours after arriving at the work site, resulting in fatigue at the end of the first night shift. In order to address these concerns, some of their interviewees were provided “with the flexibility to start their first night shift later to reduce fatigue” (332). However, the authors reported that some of their interviewees felt that “cumulative fatigue from both commuting and long shift rotations was prompting incidents towards the end of the rotation” (332). They note the scarcity of site safety protocols and commuting safety protocols (333), even though fatigue related to long hours and shift rotations was in fact identified as a workplace hazard in those workplaces and managers could allow workers to leave the site if they felt the need to do so. That said, it appears some workers may fear job loss if they request a leave, limiting the effectiveness of such measures. Moreover, fewer than 20 percent of their interviewees had received fatigue management training (333), suggesting that these risks may not be given sufficient consideration.

Fatigue has also been identified as an OSH issue for ERGM workers in home care (Fitzpatrick and Neis 2015, 55) and among seafarers. Desai Shan (2020a, 198) reported similar findings in her study of Canadian seafarers, stating that “fatigue risk arising from long commutes also creates challenges for safety management on board the vessel.” In their scoping review, Hagan-Haynes et al. (2022) reported that many oil and gas extraction workers in the US work remotely, requiring workers to drive long distances before, during, and after shifts on rural roads that often lack safety features. These long commutes “further extend work days” (841).

Foster and Barnetson (2016, 125) rightly point out that most cases of fatigue are resolved through adequate sleep, along with other workplace adjustments:

While an employer cannot control how well a worker sleeps, they can adjust the workplace to mitigate fatigue. Shift scheduling is one of the most important administrative controls of fatigue: employers can ensure shifts are not too long or too close together as well as avoiding dramatic shift rotations. . . . Employers can also ensure that workplace temperatures are not too high, work is interesting and engaging without being too strenuous, and adequate opportunities for resting, eating, and sleeping (if necessary) are provided.

Hence the risk of fatigue at the beginning of the shift, increasing the likelihood of workplace injuries, must be considered (Nielsen, Dyreborg, et al. 2019) in OSH management as well as fatigue attributable to long and irregular work shifts, which increases the likelihood of injuries during the commute back home. Ryser, Markey, and Halseth (2016, 604) propose, in order to manage fatigue, that commuting times should be incorporated into the OSH protocols of the workplace. Australia has also focused on the challenge raised by fatigue associated with DIDO work after twelve-hour shifts, and findings have led to a call for employer responsibilities to bus workers in and out of remote sites (see HRSCRA 2013, 56–58). In another report, researchers in Australia also recommend that legislators implement shift structures that optimize mental health and well-being (Parker et al. 2018).

There appears to be very little literature specifically oriented to issues of ERGM and long shifts in the Canadian context, although a few studies have looked at OSH effects of working time arrangements for offshore workers in the North Sea (Mikkelsen, Ringstad, and Steineke 2004; see also Hagan-Haynes et al. 2022; Parkes 2010). In one such study, the authors concluded that both the quantitative data and the perceptions of the respondents interviewed indicated that the risk of accident was no greater after a negotiated modification of working time allowed for increased time at home and more symmetrical rotations. In that study, workers had been working twelve-hour shifts for two weeks, followed by three weeks at home and four weeks at home; the newly negotiated shifts involved twelve-hour shifts for two weeks followed by four weeks at home (Mikkelsen, Ringstad, and Steineke 2004). Respondents did not believe longer time at home increased their risk when returning to work. In addition, symmetrical rotation of shifts was associated with increased stability of work teams. Findings from one study suggested that longer tours offshore (three weeks duration as compared to two weeks duration) may increase the severity of injuries incurred during the third week (Parkes 2010, 24).

An Australian study has examined the impact of extended shift rosters on construction workers’ health and safety. From the outset, author John Martin (2020, 384) emphasized that sleep deprivation and fatigue are key problems associated with working a FIFO roster, especially when combined with long shifts such as twelve-hour shifts. Martin emphasized that roster shifts create risks to workers’ health and safety, ranging from fatigue to mental health effects, adding that “these risks could be reasonably managed by a roster that is shorter in terms of weeks away and closer to even time” (395). Another Australian study also showed how shift work in remote mining operations is a “significant factor that leads to sleep loss and reduced alertness, which is exacerbated by the high prevalence of risk for sleep disorder” (Maisey et al. 2022). In their systematic review, Asare, Kwasnicka, et al. (2021) found that studies on rotation work in isolated areas suggested higher prevalence of psychological distress and more sleep problems. According to Wagstaff and Sigstad Lie (2011), shift work and long working hours appear to have a clear detrimental effect on safety at work.

A UK study of offshore drilling crews found that higher levels of stress and fatigue are linked to lower levels of “work situation awareness,” an essential element for safe work in safety-sensitive jobs. They included recommendations to employers in this sector to review their working patterns, including the organization of shifts and the conditions for sleep on the offshore rigs, in order to reduce fatigue (Sneddon, Mearns, and Flin 2013).

FIFO (HRSCRA 2013, 54–56) and DIDO workers or others who work in remote locations that require they live in work camps want to work as much as they can while they are away from home and family. They thus seek to work long shifts (Di Milia and Bowden 2007).40 However, long shifts can have health consequences, both because of the associated fatigue, which increases the risk of accidents,41 and because of intensified exposures to toxic substances and ergonomic and biological hazards, to say nothing of psychosocial hazards, associated with generalized fatigue in a workforce.

Some Canadian provinces regulate work time of workers in remote areas to exclude the application of the standard forty-hour work week, after which overtime must be paid. For instance, in Québec, the standard work week for an employee working in a remote area is fifty-five hours.42 Others have special rules for industries such as mining or mineral exploration.43 There are also provisions in some provinces requiring minimum hours of time off per week.44 BC’s labour standards provisions are framed more broadly: “Despite any provision of this Part, an employer must not require or directly or indirectly allow an employee to work excessive hours or hours detrimental to the employee’s health or safety.”45

The federal jurisdiction also allows for longer hours in certain industries such as work involving driving of motor vehicles,46 maritime transport,47 aviation (David-Cooper 2016), and railways,48 and special rules determined by employment standards apply in some sectors, including agriculture and caregiving.49 As discussed by Gesualdi-Fecteau and Nakache (2017), beyond formal regulation, there are also provisions in contractual arrangements governing employment of IMWs, sometimes negotiated with the consulates of the providing countries.

Lippel and Walters (2019) point out that in some legal cases, the fact that workers work long shifts will be taken into consideration when analyzing the facts of a precise case. For example, in Québec, a worker doing remote work on long rotations was injured because of the associated intensification of work. The construction worker, who had worked ten hours per day over periods ranging from twenty-five to thirty-three consecutive days and who developed various musculoskeletal problems, including epicondylitis and carpal tunnel syndrome, while building houses in the far north of Québec, was found to have a compensable injury under the AIAOD.50 As for OSH legislation, some jurisdictions have specific threshold limit values relating to exposure to toxic substances during long shifts.51

Remoteness

Remoteness refers to the degree to which a location is physically isolated or distant from major population centres, transportation networks, and infrastructures. It often involves factors such as distance from urban areas, limited access to transportation routes, rugged terrain, and sparse population density.

In case of an emergency, working in a remote workplace can impact life-and-death situations. In all provinces, regulation provides for first aid norms, equipment, and protocols. In Ontario, pursuant to the Industrial Establishments regulation, all employers that have industrial establishments have to provide mandatory first aid equipment, facilities, and trained workers in each workplace where ten or more workers are employed.52 In Alberta, different provisions regarding first aid exist in the Occupational Health and Safety Code, and the threshold varies according to the classification of the work done (low, medium, and high hazard work).53 In BC, the employer must provide each workplace with first aid attendance and must ensure that workers can be promptly provided first aid.54 In NL, the Occupational Health and Safety First Aid Regulations55 apply to all workplaces, notwithstanding risk assessment. Québec’s regulation contains similar obligations that vary according to the size of the employer, type of work, and also considers remoteness.56 Indeed, employers may have more obligations in regard to health and safety when the workers are more than thirty minutes from a medical service.57

Transportation in the case of emergency also has to be considered when looking at remote workplaces. In Alberta and NL, regulations on OSH contain obligations for employers regarding the transportation of injured or ill workers from the work site to the nearest health care facility.58 Specific legislation applies to workers on offshore facilities in NL.59 In Ontario, specific regulations concern offshore oil and gas work sites, which contain the obligation to have an emergency plan in writing that includes “a suitable and rapid means of obtaining first aid help and transportation from the rig to a hospital for injured workers.”60 Québec’s First-Aid Minimum Standards Regulation provides obligations for construction sites in remote locations and under certain conditions including specifically “where at least 25 workers are working simultaneously at any given time and where it is not possible to reach, within 30 minutes by road and under normal conditions, a hospital, a local community service centre, a medical clinic or polyclinic or other emergency medical services, including the health services of an establishment or construction site.”61 In the Regulation Respecting Health and Safety in Forest Development Work,62 section 51.10 provides that where twenty workers work on a work site, an evacuation vehicle must be available on the site. This obligation applies where the work site is situated more than thirty minutes away and at a minimum of thirty-five kilometres from an emergency medical service and is not accessible by ambulance.

When an emergency occurs, the speed with which emergency response services arrive can make the difference between life and death. As the BC Forest Safety Ombudsman (2017, 3) reported, “Nearly three-quarters of all people who die of trauma-related conditions in northern BC do so before they can be brought to hospital. In north-western BC, this percentage is 82% compared with 12% in Metro Vancouver.” The report describes an incident in which an injured forestry worker waited a total of eleven hours before accessing appropriate care; he lost part of his leg, a consequence the report suggests was avoidable, although WorkSafeBC concluded that “nothing went wrong and the appropriate means of transporting the worker were utilized” (3). The report continues by stating that “the Office of the Forest Safety Ombudsman is of the view that the location of an injured forestry worker . . . should not be a determinant of whether or not that worker receives adequate emergency services in the event of an accident” (3). Acknowledging that emergency services in Washington State and Alaska are more responsive to the needs of their remote populations in times of emergency, the report makes a series of recommendations to improve services, including a recommendation that “BC consider mandating—through legislation or policy—guaranteed timelines for the public to be able to access Trauma 3 level care, similar to other jurisdictions” (11). It goes on to describe a collective approach to addressing the problem, with the Coast Harvesting Advisory Group bringing together representatives of timberland owners, contractors, and labour to create partnerships between service providers and industry to ensure timely provisions of helicopter emergency services. The ombudsman suggests, however, that this model might not work everywhere, “as it requires an adequate level of industrial activity, an available/accessible air transportation infrastructure, and an organization with the ability, responsibility and capacity to take the initiative of developing those partnerships” (6). The model called for would apply to both workers and others living in remote regions.

Working alone is particularly hazardous when workers are working remotely. An oil worker in Saskatchewan barely survived an accident that exposed him to hydrogen sulphide, some of which he swallowed when his face was sprayed with a mixture of oil, water, and gas in 2014. In 2017, he still had significant health problems that prevented him from returning to work. No investigation followed the near-fatal accident, and the employer did not report the accident to the provincial OSH authorities. That employer stated to a reporter, “I wasn’t aware I had to report it” (the details of this case are described in Cribb [2017]). The worker managed to radio for help before losing consciousness. Cribb (2017, para. 35) notes that “Saskatchewan’s regulations require that when workers are in situations that are ‘immediately dangerous’ to life or health, employers and contractors ‘shall ensure that the worker is provided with and uses an approved atmosphere-supplying respirator’ and that ‘a second worker, suitably equipped and trained, is present and in communication with the worker at all times.’” Yet the worker was working alone at the time of the accident. Regulatory requirements are clearly not enough to prevent potentially fatal accidents if there is no effective enforcement, and the invisibility of the remote workforce makes it easier to ignore standards and reporting requirements.

In Québec, thirty workers working in a remote region exercised their right to refuse under OSH legislation because of the lack of an emergency plan to evacuate in cases where a worker is injured. The workers’ compensation board (WCB) inspector concluded that the danger was not sufficiently imminent to justify the refusal, and the workers were sanctioned as a reprisal for what the employer alleged to be an abusive refusal to work, a sanction that was found to be well founded by the administrative tribunal,63 and a conclusion judged to be reasonable by the Superior Court.64 The reasoning of the administrative tribunal was based on the finding that the workers were trying to improve their working conditions (health and safety conditions) by using the right to refuse, an abusive use of the right according to the decision-maker.

Living at Work

As we have seen, ERGM often entails that workers will be away from their homes for some time. Hence the fact that workers are living at work (on site or near site) is a crucial component of some ERGM, and what it entails, from the point of view of OSH, needs to be examined. Dorow and Jean (2022, 685) studied work-life dynamics in the oil sands industry in Alberta and depicted camp life as a “transitional state, usually bounded in space and time, . . . described as a period of ‘in-betweenness’, ambiguity and uncertainty” (referring to Bamber, Allen-Collinson, and McCormack’s [2017] concept of “liminality”).

The very issue of whether a worker is obliged to live in work camps or in other types of work sites, such as on vessels, or in other types of premises provided by the employer is in itself of interest from the perspective of worker autonomy. Here we will not focus on this aspect of living at work, but several studies have mentioned that the obligation to live on site, be it in a mining camp (Jones 2014, 92) or as a migrant agricultural worker (Bélanger and Candiz),65 is in itself a way of controlling the workers and limiting their freedom of movement66 and freedom of choice. A study found that some workers, given the choice, preferred to drive to the remote work site, as this provided them with more control over their situation and allowed them the option of leaving the work site. Conversely, managers preferred FIFO arrangements so that workers could not leave the site during their leisure time, thus reducing their possibility of consuming alcohol or drugs (Jones 2014).67

As we will see, when living conditions are an intrinsic part of working conditions, the frontiers between work-related hazards and hazards that would not be covered under OSH legislation are sometimes blurred. However, the quality of the housing conditions of mobile workers is a determinant of their health, and poor-quality housing may expose them to mould,68 vermin, electrical hazards, harassment, and other risks.

In some provinces, regulations govern industrial camps, although sometimes those regulations are enacted under statutes governing the environment, as is the case in Québec,69 or public health, as in Alberta and Ontario,70 and not statutes addressing OSH considerations (see, for instance, Northern Health 2012). Others may be specific to certain industries such as mining, like in BC71 or in NL (Occupational Health and Safety Division 2014). A study prepared for the BC Natural Gas Workforce Strategy Committee identified best practices with regard to industry community relationships, planning, and mobile workforces. It noted that “work camp standards have become outdated” in many jurisdictions in Canada, citing, for example, a Nova Scotia requirement that “provision shall be made which will permit the bathing of all employees at least once a week” and fines for noncompliance with regulations that can be as low as “$20 to $25 for each offence or $5 to $20 each day after notification in which the offence continues” (CDI-UNBC 2015, 17–18). Similar low fines can be found in the province of Québec, where a $20 fine applies in case of violation of the Regulation Respecting Sanitary Conditions in Industrial or Other Camps.72 In the BC report, they show that there are often several regulations that apply (water use, building codes, etc.); however, the inspection and enforcement of the different regulations that apply to work camps have limited effectiveness, since government agencies lack the resources to monitor or inspect camp operations (CDI-UNBC 2015, 18–19).

Apart from the regulatory requirements, there are examples of negotiated conditions governing construction camps. For example, in Alberta, a collective agreement between the Building Trades of Alberta and the Construction Labour Relations—an Alberta Association, in force between 2010 and 2018, required that accommodation be provided at a sufficient distance from the work site to protect workers from noxious fumes and other contaminants.73 Even though now expired, many collective agreements provide that accommodations must meet the specifications negotiated in the Camp Rules and Regulations of 2010–18 or any successor thereto.74

The responsibilities relating to work camps are often divided between multiple agencies or departments. In Ontario, public health authorities are responsible, but seemingly not the Ministry of Labour.75 In Québec, the classic OSH actors include both the CNESST and the public health network, so legislation would suggest that the requirements are applied more coherently. However, in sectors like agriculture, for instance, it appears the labour inspectorate does not consider itself to have jurisdiction over living conditions, which would then be governed by public health authorities. During the pandemic, the CNESST (2020b) provided information for employers who had workers living in the accommodation they provided76 but somehow could not act if the accommodation was not on the work site (Lavigne 2021).

Lippel and Walters (2019) studied hazards and regulatory challenges related to living at work for those whose work requires overnight or off-shift accommodations away from home. They found unclear and inconsistent requirements regarding the provision of adequate housing for the internationally and internally mobile workers in remote workplaces (328). In the context of health and safety legislation, six hundred construction workers in Québec exercised their right to refuse dangerous work because of exposure to mould in the housing provided to them by the employer. The inspectorate ordered measures to be taken in response to their refusal, and the camp was eventually dismantled before the hearing of an appeal on the extent of the corrections required of the employer and on the substantive issue of the right to refuse. Judging the issue to be moot, given the dismantling of the camp, the tribunal refused to hear the appeal. It must, however, be noted that neither the inspectorate nor the tribunal hesitated in applying the OSH legal framework, and more specifically section 51(5) of the OSHA, part of the general duty clause, to the living conditions of these construction workers working in a remote location.77 That said, if housing is provided in premises that do not belong to the employer, even if it is provided by the employer, it is not considered to fall within the definition of “establishment” in the Québec health and safety legislation, and a complaint by the worker regarding the housing does not provide protection from reprisals if the worker is fired because of the complaint.78

Even when the housing belongs to the employer, boundaries of responsibility for the safety of the occupants are fuzzy. As part of their research, Lippel and Sabourin (2020, 120) report on a case they encountered in which the refusal of the employer to secure the house it provided to workers in a remote location prevented the worker, who had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of a violent home invasion in her employer-provided housing, from returning to her employment. For years, Québec OSH authorities invoked their lack of jurisdiction on housing conditions, saying that the employer-provided residence was not an “establishment” under section 1 of the Québec AOHS and that for that reason, the OSH authority could not order the employer to place bars on the windows of the house where she had been sequestered by a local resident. Lippel and Sabourin point out that this argument, which they never put in a formal decision that could have been contested, seems strange given that the initial injury occurred in the residence in question and that the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CSST) accepted the claim without difficulty. The reasoning proposed suggests that the CSST, as the OSH regulator, feels it does not have the authority to prevent injuries that are clearly compensable under the workers’ compensation legislation applied by the same agency. Lippel and Sabourin report that the case was eventually settled when all parties—the employer, the OSH authority, and the union—contributed to a large lump-sum payment in exchange for the worker’s resignation. In this example, regulatory nebulousness cost the worker the job she loved and cost the other parties over $100,000 in damages, according to Lippel and Sabourin.

In those workplaces that are subject to prevention programs and health programs under Québec OSH legislation,79 these programs also include, in the obligations of the employer, explicit obligations under a variety of related regulations, including the Regulation Respecting Sanitary Conditions in Industrial or Other Camps.80 Thus, the OSH mechanisms that allow for the enforcement of prevention programs also cover conditions in these work camps. It’s also worth mentioning that in Québec, the Regulation Respecting Sanitary Conditions in Industrial or Other Camps was adopted in 1981 but only applies to certain industries. In the regulation, an “industrial camp” is defined as “a set of temporary or permanent facilities, together with their appurtenances, organized by an employer for the accommodation of persons employed by the employer in logging, mining, railroad, road, dam and similar operations, sawmills and pulpwood mills, whether in permanent camps, permanent summer camps or temporary camps.”81 Farm and agricultural workers’ housing is not explicitly mentioned in the list of “industrial camps,” but one could argue that it is one of the “others” mentioned in the title of the law (Gallié and Bourbeau 2014, 22). It is also worth noting that most regulations governing industrial camps in Canada do not require accommodation for families of the workers.82

The specific situation of international migrant agricultural workers, which will be further discussed in chapter 5, has been the subject of extensive research. In the US, there are several studies on the quality of farmworker housing. Pesticides to which these workers are exposed at work have been found to be transferred to their living quarters, a source of concern (in the US; Beti Thompson et al. 2003). In North Carolina, where the quality of migrant farmworker housing is explicitly regulated, researchers found that violations of housing regulations were common, with numbers accommodated “ranging from 4 to 22 per camp” (Arcury et al. 2012, 191). Thus, there could be problems with practices to ensure workers do not wear contaminated clothing when they return to their on-site living quarters, a problem for IMWs in the agricultural sector in particular because of pesticide exposures, but potentially also a problem for other workers living on site.

The obligation to provide adequate on-site laundering facilities does not seem to be part of the legislative framework for camp facilities.83 In Canada, the contract employers sign with the federal government for seasonal agricultural workers from the “Commonwealth Caribbean” requires that employers provide laundry facilities or weekly transportation to a laundromat (ESDC 2024a). Some regions also have precise guidelines; for example, the Niagara Region Public Health has housing guidelines and inspectorates who must verify the conformity of the facility with their guidelines. Conformity with these can, however, be questioned. In 2022, a Jamaican worker was injured when he got hit by a car while travelling with his bike to a laundromat, since his employer didn’t provide either a laundry facility or transportation to the laundromat (Rosas 2022).

Living conditions in work camps in Canadian FIFO facilities cover a broad spectrum, from camps that have been said to be luxurious to very rudimentary camps. One participant in a study of workers in Fort McMurray said that living in the work camp was “‘like living in jail, only you’re getting paid’” (Angel 2014, 129). The author of that study goes on to suggest that Karasek’s model of job strain applies to the living conditions of her participants:

Work camps, as extension of work sites, appeared to be “high demand” and “low control” settings. In this way, . . . we can hypothesize that these work camp spaces have the potential to contribute to negative mental and physical health outcomes for workers. . . . The links between work camp settings and the physical and mental health outcomes for mobile workers in the Alberta and Canadian contexts are less known, and stand as a significant research gap. (Angel 2014, 130)

A final issue is that of psychosocial and physical hazards of ERGM employment in situations where there is no housing provided or available. A study of Newfoundland workers working in PEI noted that they often struggled to find appropriate, sustained, safe, and affordable housing. Some worked side by side with IMWs from Russia and Mexico for whom employers were obligated to arrange housing (Grzetic 2007, 2022). Lack of housing has also been identified as a problem in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where some workers from other provinces have had to resort to sleeping in their cars (articles illustrate this issue in Estevan, Banff, and Fort McMurray: CBC News 2012b; Monchuk 2006; CBC News 2017). Not only is this hazardous because of the potential for carbon monoxide poisoning or other challenges associated with the elements, but it is also a particular hazard for women workers, who are more likely than men to be targeted as victims of violence (in the US, see Brody 2013).

Socio-Occupational Issues

Socio-occupational issues often highlight the interplay between social structures, economic systems, and individual experiences within the realm of work and employment. Mobile workers are likely to face different socio-occupational challenges that generally stem from the intersection of social factors with the material reality of their occupation and mobility.

The isolation and separation from family and community appear to be associated with elevated stress levels among many mobile workers and also among their families (Temple Newhook et al. 2011; see also Neil and Neis 2020b; Neis, Spinks, and Murray 2022). Access to the outside world, be it to information that could be available on the internet or communication technologies such as cell phones that would allow workers to maintain regular contact with their families without excessive cost, has been identified as a potential strategy to reduce the problems associated with isolation of workers required to live at work for prolonged periods of time. Some workplaces may provide good internet access to supervisors (Kahveci 2007) but not necessarily to all workers, and communication issues with family and home are not addressed in the regulatory frameworks (Lippel and Walters 2019, 329).

Some workers will maintain electronic communication regularly to ensure they are in touch with their families when they are away and remain in touch with their work at the same time—cell phones and email not discriminating between personal and professional communications. Although maintaining contact with families while in remote workplaces was usually seen as desirable, informants in one study on mining in the Yukon told of increased stress associated with regular contact with home, particularly if distance prevented them from acting upon the deterioration of relationships (Jones 2014).84

In other settings, access might be restricted to particular categories of workers. On board ships, for example, as a study undertaken by the Seafarers’ International Research Centre found, senior officers had far greater access to internet facilities than ratings (nonofficer crew)—even when the ship management policy apparently allowed free access for all (Kahveci 2007). The same is true of telecommunications services on board vessels, with seafarers frequently having to wait until they have shore leave in order to contact their families via public telephones (Kahveci 2007, 28). In that 2007 study, only 16 percent of seafarers reported that they had access to on-board email facilities. In a recent international study, it was reported that respondent seafarers had no (13.7 percent), limited (51.1 percent), or unlimited (34.9 percent) free internet access on board for personal use (Pauksztat, Grech, and Kitada 2022). In 2022, a new paragraph was added to the Maritime Labour Convention providing that “shipowners should, so far as is reasonably practicable, provide seafarers on board their ships with internet access, with charges, if any, being reasonable in amount.”85

Another study suggested that better access to internet communication for seafarers had improved conditions for ratings who were at sea for months at a time, suggesting that previously reported high suicide rates were attributable in part to distance from family and difficulties in maintaining relationships because of poor communication facilities (Mellbye and Carter 2017).

IMWs and other workers who are separated from their families for long periods of time working in Canada also need to have access to communication technologies that allow them to keep abreast of family emergencies and to remain part of the daily lives of their families.

When a worker is seriously injured or killed away from home, the importance of contacting and keeping the worker’s family informed, even if they are overseas, is self-evident, yet there are documented situations in recent years where the worker’s widow was not given adequate information.86 With regard to seafarers, it is telling that trade magazines provide advice on what to do in the event of a death at sea. For example, they suggest placing the body in a refrigerator, not a freezer. They also underline the importance of “respect and preservation of the remains, while maintaining traditional customs” (Wright and Holloway 2017, 9). Desai Shan (2017) studied the impact on workers’ families of the deaths at sea of seafarers and the pain associated with the lack of information permitting them to better understand how their loved one died was a key finding of her study.

But communications are not always available or functional. In Omar Mouellam’s (2017) reporting on men in the oil sands of Alberta, he depicts portraits of troubles incurred by these workers, including anxiety related to being away. As one worker he met puts it, “Your entire window to the outside world is your cell phone and your laptop. If you have problems at home, and you can’t get there to deal with them, or contact your wife to sort it out because you’re fighting for the signal with everybody else, it makes anxiety infinitely worse” (quoted in Mouellam 2017, para. 23; see also Neis and Neil 2020).

As we saw, when examining hazards at work, communication is key to successful prevention, and communication dynamics are affected both because of the different cultural networks of mobile workers, in some cases, and because opportunities to communicate may be either increased or reduced when the workforce is mobile.

When workers are isolated from their family or community of belonging, studies show the importance of the workplace collective for the mental and physical well-being of workers (Carpentier-Roy and Vézina 2000; David, Cloutier, and Ledoux 2011), and shared understandings of working conditions and hazards are key to successful OSH prevention strategies. Mobility may well act as a mediator in the ability of a workplace to build communities of understanding. Collective understanding of OSH issues may be facilitated by some forms of mobility—for example, when workers fly in to live and work in distant communities where work becomes the focus of their lives for the time they are there—but the opportunity to build collective understandings may be undermined in the case of IMWs parachuted into a workplace where their colleagues do not understand them (Preibisch and Otero 2014).87

The nonmobile workers in an organization may well be part of a tight community, allowing for voicing of workers’ needs, but the mobile worker may not be welcome in that community or may simply not have the time or opportunity to integrate given the constraints of mobility itself (see Tucker 2017). Opportunities for informal gatherings, relevant to building support networks, will vary between different categories of mobile workers because of the nature of the mobility itself.

Relational schisms within working groups based on permanent vs. temporary status (see, for instance, Seifert and Messing 2004; David, Cloutier, and Ledoux 2011) dovetail with those based on local versus nonlocal workers. In-group/out-group dynamics may apply not only to IMWs, whose social exclusion from the community (see, e.g., Foster and Taylor’s study on skilled temporary foreign workers [TFWs], 2013, 178; Basok 2004) and from colleagues in mixed workplaces has been documented, but also to Canadian workers working in the host workplace88 or to groups of racialized mobile workers when the employer manages its mobile workers differently depending on their ethnic origin.89

Requirements of mobility in situations where getting to work requires a long daily commute or living in work camps far from home may pose challenges for specific categories of workers because of either pregnancy or temporary disability. Even when a long-distance commute does not present particular hazards for a worker under usual circumstances, when the worker is pregnant or has sustained an occupational injury preventing him or her from doing their usual job, light work may be offered (work the worker can perform despite the injury), but on the condition that they can get to work. Issues arise when the commute is problematic because of the temporary health condition (see, e.g., Kelly, Mosquera Garcia, and Dorow 2022, 102).

In all Canadian jurisdictions, employers have a duty to accommodate workers with disabilities, “to the point of undue hardship” (Foster and Barnetson 2016, 209).90 Québec is the only province that has specific regulatory protections for pregnant workers under OSH legislation. Pregnant workers can request a reassignment under the preventive reassignment program if working conditions present a danger to the worker because of the pregnancy or the fetus.91 Long-distance travel and remote workplaces have both been discussed in tribunal decisions in order to determine whether the commute or the housing in a work camp presents potential hazards for a pregnant worker. In the case of a newly hired worker whose work required her to either commute or live in a remote forestry camp, the appeals tribunal found that she was not entitled to protective reassignment because the hazard associated with driving was not seen as a working condition that was part of the employment relationship, given she was not in a position of subordination during the commute.92 However, in a subsequent case involving a travelling saleswoman whose job required she drive over four hundred kilometres a week between clients, the tribunal concluded that prolonged driving was potentially a hazard that warranted reassignment, given the gravity of the consequences to the fetus in the event of an automobile accident.93 The tribunal distinguished this case, where the work entailed driving, from the situation where the worker had chosen to live at a considerable distance from her employment, suggesting that the tribunal would not consider commuting to and from work in the evaluation of these cases.

In another case, a driving restriction was issued but not complied with. The tribunal concluded that the worker who was pregnant was eligible for the program, since the assignment, which required her to drive for several hours during the day, was not safe for her and her unborn child.94 Such restriction was decided following public health recommendations that stated that her employment involved ergonomic risks that involved uncomfortable postures, such as prolonged sitting in the car and getting in and out of it. The court also noted the danger that driving and car accidents represented for the pregnant worker and/or her unborn child.

Finally, gendered aspects and conditions of mobility have been studied by researchers Dorow and Mandizadza (2018). They identified the forms of care that help workers endure camp life and the practices the workers in Alberta camps deploy to manage care back home while away at work. They underline how having a support network back home helps workers deal with the emotional challenges of distance and isolation. This support manifested itself by maintaining virtual contact with home: “Keeping in touch across time and distance is an individual form of caring labor aimed at creating proximity” (1247). The authors also point out that some gender exclusion emanates from the mobility regime:

Women with young children were sometimes structured out of mobile reproductive work. One human resources manager told us that she actively discouraged them from taking rotational camp jobs because they were “too distracted” by separation from their children—i.e. too closely tied to family to provide mobile “family” to others. Camp work was thus the province of older women, single people, and men of all ages, many of them racialized immigrants or temporary foreign workers. (1248)

The authors demonstrate how the work, paid and unpaid, of caregivers back home, usually done by women, was a clear way of addressing the absence of mobile oil workers and accommodating their mobility (Dorow and Mandizadza 2018, 1251). Women and men mobile workers also seem to face different types of challenges when trying to reconcile life at home with the mobility associated with their jobs:

The mobile masculine provider was socially reproduced via the gendered socio-spatial flexibilization of care across camp and home. Martha’s material and affective labor as a camp housekeeper, and her reliance on a familial care chain, are part of this regime; but as a single mother working in less skilled paid labor, Martha’s choices for providing “proxy” care did not include moving her family to a sun destination. Before taking up mobile work in the oil sands, she had looked into moving her family to another part of Atlantic Canada where there were better job options than in her hometown. However, the cost of childcare and of re-locating made this impracticable. Instead, a parallel mobile “care shift” on the part of her parents allowed Martha to be a long-distance commuter to the oil sands, which in turn allowed her a viable income. The fly-in fly-out regime opened a pathway for her to provide for her family, albeit within a circuit of circumscribed choices. (1252; see also Kelly, Mosquera Garcia, and Dorow 2022)

The authors emphasize how the notion of care back home is intertwined with care in the camp site, and they also show how the challenges of mobility may differ between men and women workers and between oil workers and camp staff, both categories of mobile workers.

As mentioned, regulation in most provinces is completely silent with regard to housing for workers in remote camps who have families with them. Mobile workers are often engaged in work entailing long and variable shifts, and the shift patterns have been studied and found to fail to accommodate domestic and family issues. Authors of one study concluded that more acceptable shift patterns could be introduced to accommodate these needs (Mikkelsen, Ringstad, and Steineke 2004, 177; Wedderburn 1996).