Other languages offered include traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Punjabi, French, Vietnamese and Spanish. These new language sites provide workers and employers with information on how to report a work-related injury and start a claim, details for employers on how to register a business, and links to WorkSafeBC’s translated health and safety publications. The specific pages also include welcome web casts in seven languages, featuring WorkSafeBC ambassadors who explain the role and history of WorkSafeBC and provide a brief overview of the available online tools and resources.
“This is a major step forward in our goal to provide the best in customer service to all our customers, especially the growing number of workers and employers in this province whose first languages are not English,” said Scott McCloy, WorkSafeBC’s director of communications. The languages were chosen based on the frequency of calls and requests received by WorkSafeBC.
“The new service is an important tool for Korean-speaking and other non-English speaking clients to obtain work-related safety information in their languages,” said Tung Chan, CEO of S.U.C.C.E.S.S. “As an integrator for a multicultural society, we are happy to play a bridging role between the service providers and service users. We are pleased to help promote this service to the Korean community.”
WorkSafeBC is an independent provincial statutory agency governed by a Board of Directors that serves nearly 2 million workers and more than 197,000 employers. WorkSafeBC was born from the historic compromise between British Columbia’s workers and employers in 1917 where workers gave up the right to sue their employers and fellow workers for injuries on the job in return for a no-fault insurance program fully paid for by employers. The organization is committed to safe and healthy workplaces and to providing return-to-work rehabilitation and legislated compensation benefits.