Despite a rising rate of injuries in young workers, the Yukon Workers' Compensation Health and Safety Board (WCB) has no plans to make public the names of the companies with the worst safety records.

Responding to questions from the Star at a public meeting Tuesday afternoon, board chair Craig Tuton said he and his fellow board members have no intention of ever releasing the names of companies that continue to boast poor safety records in the territory.

Tuton said he prefers to enter into partnerships with industry groups to help people with unsafe companies clean up their act.

'The Yukon is too small a jurisdiction. Surely, we can get the same thinking minds together to help and move ahead, and that's where we're headed at now,' he said.

'That's obviously the best way to go about it,' Tuton said when asked why he wouldn't release the names of offending companies.

He said the WCB has undergone an extensive campaign over the past year to make people more aware of preventable accidents in the workplace, but is still concerned about the safety of young people on the job.

Tuton's comments come fewer than two weeks after a visiting guest speaker at a return to work symposium said naming offending companies lowers injury rates.

Tuton's remarks also come less than a month after WCB executive director Valerie Royle announced injury rates for Yukoners 25 and under are above last year's record numbers and that the WCB would consider naming unsafe companies.

Two weeks ago, Wolfgang Zimmerman, director of the National Institute for Disability Management and Research who also worked with British Columbia's workers' compensation board, said he's seen proof naming companies with poor safety records keeps people safer.

'We ended up publicizing the names of those organizations that had terrible records and they were fined,' he said.

'It was absolutely published who they were. I'm a strong believer in institutional change, and that has to be part of that.'

He said one example of naming names occurred when B.C.'s health and safety board published the identities and records of physicians whose patients experienced a poor rate of recovery after surgery.

'The B.C. medical association wasn't thrilled, but at the end of the day, it brought about some changes.'

At a press conference on Sept. 6, Royle announced youth injury rates, for people 25 and under, in 2007 were 20 per cent higher than 2006 rates, and industries known to employ high rates of young people had worse safety records than last year.

As of Sept. 6, people 25 and under accounted for 239 of the 1,295 injuries reported at the time.

Currently, according to the WCB, there have been 1,473 Yukoners hurt on the job, just over 400 injuries fewer than the record 1,984 injuries reported in 2006.

Royle said in early September some sectors of the economy were showing improvement and others were showing worse safety records than last year.

She said industries demonstrating improvement include building construction, short-haul trucking and wilderness tourism.

Among the industries showing a worse safety record are retail sales, and restaurants and caterers.

'Many of their employees are young people, and it's their first job,' Royle said.