Forest Union Threatens 'Death' Strikes - Workers say days of mourning would enhance safety
Thursday, September 22, 2005
VANCOUVER -- Forest workers say they are considering shutting down the entire forest industry for a day of mourning every time a logger dies on the job in a bid to focus attention on the industry's unacceptably high number
of fatalities.
Twenty-seven workers have died in the B.C. forest industry this year, according to Darrell Wong, president of Local 2171 of the Steelworkers Union, which passed last week a resolution calling for such a shutdown.
"If the whole industry were to shut down every time somebody was killed, then safety would suddenly become a very high profile issue," said Wong, who represents loggers working on the B.C. coast.
Statistics kept by the B.C. Forest Safety Council show 23 forest workers were killed, rather than the 27 identified by the Steelworkers Union. Both groups include different job categories in their calculations, accounting
for the difference.
Wong called the high number of fatalities the forest industry's "dirty little secret" that is not being addressed as long as each death goes unmarked.
The resolution also calls for large public funerals every time a worker dies in the woods.
"Twenty-six people have been killed in the forest industry this year. That would mean there would be 26 days less operating time and 26 days of less wages for people. But everyone in the province would be paying attention. Look what happens when an RCMP officer is killed on the job. The whole world pays attention so things get changed.
"And quite frankly I don't think things are changing fast enough in the forest industry to deal with the hazards."
Graham Lasure, of the Truck Loggers Association, said the high number of deaths needs to be addressed.
Changes in the industry prompted by markets, restructuring and government policy changes have created safety issues that have not been fully dealt with yet, he said.
"Shutting down the industry is not a viable solution," he said. "But something more drastic needs to be done."
He said everything from increased reliance on contracting-out, which puts financial pressure on the low-bid contractor, to new methods of logging and a loss of trained workers to industries such as oil, where the work is more steady, are factors in the high mortality rate.
Loggers also single out the shift to heli-logging on the B.C. coast, specifically a new system called single-stem selection that was originally touted as an environmentally friendly system.
Called "crack-and-fly" by loggers, it involves a crew topping and limbing a single tree, then cutting it at the stump, leaving a thin wedge of wood to keep the stem standing. A grapple-equipped helicopter then snaps off the stem and lifts it out of the forest.
Faller-and-safety advocate Randall Shoop says companies are sending in hand-fallers behind the helicopters to cut the rest of the forest.
Shoop said tree tops and branches litter the forest, sometimes getting caught up in surrounding trees making the job extremely hazardous for the ground crews.
"The mess they make and then expect us to walk through and work in is a recipe for death," Shoop said.
The use of helicopters and other new harvesting techniques has become a major safety issue, said Tanner Elton, CEO of the recently formed B.C. Forest Safety Council.
Elton said despite safety awareness programs, the number of deaths remains high, and there will likely be an increase in fatalities this year, a situation he finds unacceptable.
