City, Town, Village, and RM workers had the second-highest number of claims accepted by the Saskatchewan Workers Compensation Board.
Workers saw 931 claims accepted but did see their overall injury rate decrease 6.82 per cent, the lowest in the last five years.
That trend continued in the City of Regina, which has seen its injury rate decrease year after year.
“Our incident and injury rates are trending down. We saw maybe a slight blip there, but post-pandemic, we are starting to trend in the right direction.” Marco Deiana, manager of workplace health and safety with the City of Regina.
The City employs close to 3,000 employees and is one of the largest employers in the Queen City.
Deiana said that most of the injuries they see aren’t serious.
“In terms of severity, we don’t have many serious accidents. We’ve gotten that under control,” he said. “Typically, it’s soft tissue injuries, a shoulder pull, a back pull, sometimes slips, trips, and falls.”
Deiana said not only do they see a lot of soft tissue injuries but also harassment from residents and mental health challenges.
“If our employees have been disrespected by citizens, and at times it happens, we know that levels of frustrations are high, we do have programs to support our employees. We are all trying to do a good job for the betterment of our city, so we just ask that our citizens are respectful. I know sometimes it’s frustrating, but we all have a job to do, and we all want to do that job, and we are all entitled to do that job in an environment that is harassment-free.”
“It’s important that when you do see our city crews out there, you see them with their orange on, you see the barricades up, please, just slow down and be respectful around our work sites. We are all citizens of the City of Regina, and we are all working towards one common goal.”
He said having a safe workplace allows employees to work quicker and achieve more on the job, which can lead to fewer delays for residents.
“If we all live in the City of Regia, we are all taxpayers, so we want effectiveness and efficiencies. A safe and healthy and happy workforce is a productive workforce, and we want to ensure that our employees are safe to continue to provide the excellent services that they have been providing to the citizens of the City.”
Deiana said that with construction season upcoming, he reminds residents to slow down.