Employees are staging overnight sit-ins at Vancouver and Victoria convenience stores Saturday night, demanding the reinstatement of workplace safety protections that were removed from legislation in 2012.
In its fifth year, the sit-in has been hosted annually by members of the Young Workers鈥� Committee of the BC Federation of Labour.
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Before 2012, the legislation commonly known as Grant鈥檚 Law required employers to schedule two staff during graveyard shifts (around 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.).
Grant鈥檚 Law was implemented after 24-year-old Grant De Patie was killed in a gas-n-dash incident in Maple Ridge in 2005.
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It made British Columbia the first province in Canada to make drivers pay before they pump gas.
But in 2012, WorkSafeBC announced amendments, claiming it wasn鈥檛 鈥減racticable,鈥� or feasible, for retailers to hire additional workers or erect protective barriers.
Now, instead of having two people on shift, convenience stores can follow other safety procedures, including time-lock safes that can鈥檛 be opened during late night hours, video surveillance, as well as keeping limited amounts of cash and lottery tickets at hand.
The intention of Saturday鈥檚 sit-in is to raise awareness of the dangers workers face when working alone, said the committee鈥檚 chairperson Caitlin Davison King in a press release.
鈥淚t has been five years since Christy Clark gutted Grant鈥檚 Law to weaken the requirements that keep workers safe,鈥� King said. 鈥淭he changes are a mistake and have left workers to face violent incidents on their own and with little protection.鈥�
Both events start at 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., at the Mac鈥檚 Convenience store on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, and on Douglas Street in Victoria.
ashley.wadhwani@bpdigital.ca
