Your rights and responsibilities

Working conditions that let you do your job safely

You’re entitled to require that your employer provide you with working conditions that let you do your job safely.


Your employer must ensure that you get :

  • the information, training and supervision that you need to do your job without getting injured;
  • the protective gear you need to work safely (glasses, gloves, boots, security patch, etc.). It is your obligation to wear or use them.

You are also obliged to follow the safety rules in effect in the establishment where you work and to contribute to eliminating dangers (for example, by telling your employer if you discover a danger, by warning someone if a machine is defective, or by wiping up a puddle on the floor). Generally, you must see to your own health and safety, and do likewise for your colleagues.

You can say NO

You have the right to refuse to do a task if you believe that it poses a health or safety risk for you or for someone else.

  • If you consider that your work poses a risk, tell your employer about it immediately.
  • He must evaluate and correct the situation.
  • If after speaking to your employer, you both disagree about the danger, you can request the intervention of an inspector by phoning the CSST.

You are automatically insured

Once you’re being paid wages by an employer, whether you’re working full-time or part-time, whether you’re unionized or not, you’re automatically insured by the CSST from your first day of work. There’s no minimum age to be covered. This insurance doesn’t cost you a cent and you don’t have to register to be entitled to it.

If you have an accident at work and you must be absent, you have the right :

  • to financial support (income replacement indemnity) as well as the necessary medical assistance and rehabilitation services to allow you to return to work;
  • to resume your job or hold an equivalent job with the same employer once you are able to do so. You keep the same salary, seniority and all the benefits to which you would have been entitled if you had not been absent from work. Your return to work must take place within the time limit prescribed by law and you can exercise this right on condition that your employment contract has not expired.

If you have questions, download the brochure: To get the most out of Life, work hard but work Safe! Prevention, worth learning about!.