Open Letter To Mary Polak: Work Alone Legislation Required, Especially For Youth

17 year old Female gas station attendant in Montreal suburb murdered on her first overnight shift

This is an open letter to our Langley MLA, Mary Polak, to initiate strong "work alone" legislation, especially for our youth whose lives are at risk for the sake of small amounts of cash in the tills of the convenience stores, gas stations and other similar work places.

Young kids, women and increasingly our seniors, who work for minimum wages are often put in perilous situations especially on the midnight shifts as they are often left working alone. Yesterday a 17 year old girl was stabbed and killed for about $50 when she was working alone for the first time on the midnight shift at a Shell gas station in Montreal. See this Montreal Gazette report.

We all have children, or are related to, or know kids, who work for $6.50 an hour or minimum wages under similar dangerous situations. At least a mandatory employer/employee Work Alone information and training program is required. But our thought is that a minimum age should be legislated to limit immature younger kids from being put into dangerous work alone environments. Their lack of life experience makes them especially prone to those who would feign anything to get access to so called secured areas like gas bar booths.

The only legislation that seems to focus at least on awareness seems to be in Alberta. In BC, the only focus we could find was concern that the employee working alone should be checked up on at intervals to see if they are ok! Gee, isn't this effective at 3 AM?

This is definitely another opportunity for our MLA to earn her pay check.

Editor-Langley Free Press

NEWS UPDATE : Jan 27 - FORMER CO-WORKER SOUGHT IN KILLING