HAMILTON, ON (April 21, 2008) –The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) has developed a web-based Occupational Health and Safety Management Service called "OSH Works", designed to help organizations in establishing, maintaining and/or improving health and safety programs that can help them meet their legislative responsibilities.

The vast majority of companies in Canada are not in compliance with occupational health and safety legislation. OSH Works can help them achieve compliance by providing a framework that promotes a systematic approach to meeting defined objectives and integrating the health and safety of workers into the everyday management of the business. It provides guidance information and is enriched with audits, tools, checklists, training and expertise from the comprehensive CCOHS knowledge base. A fully customizable service, OSH Works assists organizations of every size, in establishing a health and safety program and then adopting a continuous improvement process to meet their health and safety responsibilities and regulatory requirements.

OSH Works follows the methodology known as "Plan, Do, Check, and Act" (PDCA cycle) used in national and international Occupational Health and Safety Management System standards, such as CSA Z1000-06 or OHSAS 18001-2007. The service can enable organizations to achieve certification by the occupational health and safety management system standard of their choice.

"With OSH Works we set out to provide a powerful tool that would make it easy and affordable for companies to first establish programs that could help them succeed in a compliance audit and then go beyond to help them improve their health and safety performance to gain numerous benefits," commented Dr. P.K. Abeytunga, CCOHS Vice President and Director General. “We want to equip people with the tools and resources they need to reduce and, ultimately, eliminate workplace illness and injury - so that all may be healthy and safe!"

More information on the OSH Works service, and a guided tour of the service, is available on the CCOHS Web site at http://www.ccohs.ca/products/oshworks/.

For further information contact:
Eleanor Westwood
Manager of Communications
CCOHS
905.572.2981 X4408
eleanorw@ccohs.ca