Hundreds Attend Day of Mourning in Prince George
Saturday, April 28, 2012 @ 2:03 PM
Prince George, B.C. – The mood was very solemn and there was a definite undercurrent of anger in some of the speeches given at the National Day of Mourning ceremony at the Workers Memorial Statue in Prince George today.
Hundreds of people, including local, provincial and federal politicians, union leaders and members, Prince George Fire Rescue officials, a B.C. Corrections honour guard and citizens gathered to remember the 142 people killed on the job or by job-related illnesses in BC last year. But they were also there to remember the two men killed in the Lakeland Mills fire last Monday, and the two who died in the Babine Forest Products fire in January.
The President of the North Central Labour Council, Aaron Ekman, called the loss of lives on the job unacceptable and says more can and must be done to end work-related fatalities. However he says that starts with a political willingness and involves, in some cases “a re-prioritization or workers lives over the bosses profits.”
Steve Hunt, United Steelworkers District 3 Director, says the only thing workers killed here and across the country did was go to work. He says “there’s no other part of our society where you can go to work and die, and there doesn’t seems to be any repercussions for that, no responsibility. It’s based on profit and economics, not on what people stand for.” Hunt asks “who’s there to protect them, where are our politicians, where are our regulators.” He says there must be legal ramifications for employers who are found responsible for workplace contraventions. “Our society doesn’t tolerate people dying for no reason. If you murder somebody you go to jail, if you drink and drive and kill somebody you go to jail, if you make a consumer product that kills somebody you go to jail, however you can be negligent in a workplace and cause somebody to lose their life, or limbs or health, and there’s no consequence. That has to change.”
Donna Wilson with Worksafe BC says “Allan Little and Glen Roche went to work just five days ago. They both lost their lives and 22 of their workmates were seriously injured. I want to thank the first responders, the firefighters, ambulance attendants and hospital workers who came to the rescue and moved fast to keep the injury numbers down from where it could have been. Thank you for your professionalism and courage.”
Mayor Shari Green and Councilor Brian Skakun, both offered their deepest condolences to the families and victims of the Lakeland and Babine tragedies. Green says “this is a very tough week in this community and we all have reflected upon what this means. Once a year to come together and reflect on something like this isn’t enough. We do need to remember every day and everyone needs to be safe and work safe and do the best as they ca, as an employer and an employee working together.”
B.C. Jobs, Tourism and Innovation Minister Pat Bell, asked about the anger at politicians over job safety, says “it’s always difficult on a day of mourning and I think, particularly when you’ve lost two workers in the past week, I think that’s to be expected. People are always angry, I’m angry about deaths in the workplace. So I think we all need to come together and work collectively, you know whether it’s unions or individual workers, leaders in business, governments right across the spectrum. It is the only way that you will make sure that people get home safely is when people work together.”
Comments
Steve Hunt has it right. Who’s there to protect the workers?
Sawdust explosions nothing new for B.C. mills
http://www.vancouversun.com/Sawdust+explosions+nothing+mills/6533275/story.html
Everyone has a responsibility to protect workers! Worksafe B.C., the employer, and the employees themselves. If should be safety by committee!
Posted by: Resident on April 28 2012 2:31 PM
Steve Hunt has it right. Who’s there to protect the workers?
HUGE BUMP
This lies fully on the unions lap. They take dues every cheque under the pretense that they are there for the worker. If a worker feels unsafe then he has the right to refuse work and the union will support him. Unfortunately unions are now just a big business waiting to line their pockets with bonuses when its wage negotiation time.
Condolences to the Lakeland employees and anyone else injured or killed in the workplace
“Comment Posted by: interceptor on April 28 2012 2:54 PM
This lies fully on the unions lap. They take dues every cheque under the pretense that they are there for the worker. If a worker feels unsafe then he has the right to refuse work and the union will support him. Unfortunately unions are now just a big business waiting to line their pockets with bonuses when its wage negotiation time.”
And you’re full of you know what and also clueless.
The unions are the people doing the work. We pay people, (employ them) to represent us at the bargaining table and in other matters including fighting bad employers to help make our places of employment safe for everyone.
You must be one of those bad employers that has no respect for the people working for you. Your type are the reason workers all over the world joined hands and stood together as one against uncaring, selfish, greedy employers. With out the workers standing together as one, (a union) the deaths we see every year now would be a drop in the bucket.
We all know money is all that matters and many employers could really care less how they get it.
Now we see Bell and the liberals wanting to bring in slave labour foreign workers to help their corpoate pals get ever richer.
No doubt they will be represented by the employers favourite scab union “CLAC”
If you only new half the story Interceptor, you would eat those words but thats your opinion and you have a right to express it because of those that gave their lives both Union and Non-union to protect that freedom call free speech.
Oh and did I mention you are a troll?
Stay classy, Dragonmaster.
As cougs said, everyone has a responsibility to protect worker safety, from the employers to the employees themselves.
There should of been one more dust explosion mentioned in the Vancouver Sun report but it wasn’t reported to Worksafe BC at the time of the explosion. It happened at the Rustad site before it was indefinately shutdown. The company didn’t call Worksafe BC to report it. I wonder why?
Ultimately safety is up to the worker. Unfortunately if you feel unsafe and report it, most places will tell to shutup and get back to work.
Thanks for your second post dragon – I said my opinion and then you said yours. However you seem unable to speak without name calling. Welcome to grade three.
Lakeland employee here.
Interceptor,
Don’t know where to start. Yes we have the right to turn down unsafe work, but the problem that led to the incident was dust in the mill and clean-up.
The company did have a dust extraction system, albeit underpowered and there is no standard by wcb for clean up or dust removal.
If we refuse to work, we also don’t get paid. People fail to realize that.
To refuse work based on dust on clean up and dust levels means that the whole industry would shut down.
What is needed is regulated dust levels and standards of clean up by worksafe.
This accident is totally on them.
Bump to the guys on here with common sense.
I’m not sure I buy the dust explosion argument. I think its secondary. Everyone says the explosion came from below… gas tend to gravitate to the low spots and dust tends to suspend in the air.
Sure dust can magnify an explosion… but something else is at work here. IMO welding gas leak… how that happened is anyone’s guess. I don’t buy the argument pine beetle wood creates more explosive potential that self combusts… what would that say about the end lumber product.
Lets hope Work Safe BC gets it right in their investigation.
Questions I have is if it is an initial gas trigger can that even be detected as a residual carbon film on metal, or would it be completely burnt off in the ensuing inferno leaving everyone to assume its dust only? First thing I’d check as an investigator is the welding gas control valves… are they all shut, and if any were open can it be explained… a pin hole in a line would be very hard to detect after the fact.
I absolutely agree everyone in entitled to their opinion, but some just have more inside knowledge and closer ties to this industry be it personally or through close family and friends and have a better view of this touchy subject. I do agree with many points made by cougs, lumberman, and mrpg and appreciate the article posted by Charles! MrPG my condolences to you and your coworkers/families for your terrible experience.
What many don’t understand if safety is everyones responsibility at every level. Personally my opinion comes from experience in having very close friends and family that have worked at several of these mills as well at the hospital, the other end of the spectrum that had to unfortunately witness first hand the outcome and victims and their families doing their best to tend to their needs when the halls were right out of a horror movie!
In my opinion a part of blame must be put on clean up crews and those they report to not holding them accountable and having a higher standard. I am a general manager at an establishment and personally hired 2 younger men effected by he NCP fire as a few relatives worked there and were effected directly by it and I wanted to do my part in aiding these men with a source of income. I in turn regretted this as these young men once comfortable showed their true colors and proceeded to arrogantly tell me they were both weekend clean up crew on separate shifts and how great it was their daddy’s got them these jobs and get paid $25-$30/hour to just “push a broom” and they didn’t even do that. They often hid and “f’ed the dog” and just looked busy when he foreman was around. They laughed at how much sawdust build up there was and that it was someone else’s problem to deal with as they just worked weekends! They had no comprehension or care on how their neglect directly effected others and ultimately over heated machinery and provided kindling for any spark to turn into a rampant fire with a large sawdust trail to blaze across in a short time! I have family members at similar mills that have complained for ages about the level of dust and such and the poor quality from clean up crews. These young men should have felt they held a share of the blame! Why were these foreman not following up on their days work and holding them accountable to earning their $25/hour when so many are unemployed and would gladly push that broom with pride and strong work ethic! Where are those that supervise these Forman ensuring they are following up with their crew and canfor or that private mills standards. Instead now these mills that are lucky enough to be left standing are scrambling, calling in outside clean up crews, electricians, welders, pipe-fitters etc trying to get their mills up to code before the inspectors come! Where was this sense of urgency before? So many of these mills are so old and need updates anyhow and these new rules are going to be for the better but they are too little too late for these men and there needs to be more. These mill workers, volunteers, rescue workers and health care workers will have these sights, sounds, smells and memories burned in the brains. Many of them already seeking phycological support. The families that lost loved ones deserve more then a sorry for your loss. And I hope and pray the only positive that comes from this tragic lake land experience is CHANGE. I appreciate Charles article as it is more mills then are talked about and there needs to be higher standards and they need to be met or else. These are peoples lives, and no one should fear they will lose their life over a job. We work to live, no one lives to work, and no one should ever die at work.
Eagleone there was a dust explosion at the Rustad site before it was shutdown. There was nothing but dust in the room when it went up. The fireball went around the room twice as witnessed by the operator of the barker. The dust was ignited by a faulty motor starter although the company tried to blame it on a cigarette. In the Millwrights room above the barker, bolts where blow out of the bolt bins from the concussion. Fortunately no one was in the barker room at the time otherwise they would of been severely burned if not killed. The operator was protected by the booth he was in. Spot fires started all over the room that were quickly put out. Lamicoid lables were melted on the Motor Control Center. If this building was attached to the Sawmill then the whole mill could of went boom.
Hear Hear Butteryfly2012 but at the flipside of your story clean up crews are the first to be cut back. They were at Rustads. Weekend clean up crew went from 10-12 to 3-4. Some things just never got cleaned up until there was a call from Worksafe that they were coming for a visit or if one of the Corporate Brass was stopping by to tell us how good we were.
So blame the clean up crew if you like but in the end you can follow the failures to the top!
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