Polar Sawmill Workers Off Again
Tuesday, January 14, 2014 @ 3:59 AM
Prince George, B.C. – It’s another day off today for employees of Canfor’s Polar Sawmill in Bear Lake.
The planer mill , maintenance and all other site employees are expected to report to work today, but those who work in the sawmill are off.
The problem is the snow load on the roof of the sawmill. Canfor’s Vice-President of External Relations, Christine Kennedy, told 250News, the concern is the roof and the structural integrity of the building because of the snow load.
Kennedy says there is no immediate threat of roof collapse.
Sawmill workers will only be allowed back on the job when engineers rule it safe, or the snow load is removed.
Comments
To all employees. Grab a shovel, snowblower etc. Your future is at risk.
and the snow just happened in the last few days. this is a perfect example of production over common sense. then they wonder why sawmills are blowing up. It seems reaction not pro-action is the way things are done. Thank goodness some one looked up.
Invisibleman they are not going to shovel the roof after every snowstorm. It is called accumulation and after a certain point you have to look at its effects to be safe
It sounds like Canfor may be caught in a ‘Catch-22’ type situation here. If they can’t find an engineer who’s willing to certify that the roof would be safe to put people up on to clear off the snow, then there’s nothing they could do without facing onerous penalties from WorksafeBC if it collapsed while anyone was up there.
Where are they going to get an engineer whose going to put his neck in a noose like that?
Nowadays, in our modern world, where even “acts of God” are the employer’s fault, it would probably be cheaper for Canfor to just let it collapse than to try to prevent it at this stage of the game and risk getting anyone hurt.
invisableman, your comment doesn’t make any sense.
“This is a perfect example of production over common sense”. – Um they are keeping employees out until it is deemed safe to go back in. Thus losing production.
“It seems reaction not pro-action is the way things are done.” – Um, again, they have stopped production until they determine it safe for the workers to go back in. They say there is no immediate threat of collapse.
I’d say someone there is being proactive and is actually putting safety over production. (Unless you know something no one else does.)
By the way, does anyone know old this building is? Approx. when was Polar built to its current configuration. Just curious.
I love how the headlines read on these stories. They are designed to get the comments going. (and rightly so, it is Bens business) but some people follow like puppy dogs and its exactly what O250 expects. This example is perfect to make my point. “Polar Sawmill Workers off Again”
The knee jerk reaction is to be mad at Canfor for doing this to the workers and the accusations start flying.
What if the title was ” Canfor Keeping Workers Safe Due to Snow Load Concerns”. Kinda make the same story a bit boring eh?
Being proactive would mean that they realized that an accumulation of snow on the roof could be a problem and they dealt with it BEFORE it became a safety issue.
Depending on the type and height of roof, they might be able to use a cherry picker to lift workers up to clear the snow from the edges of the roof and relieve the burden enough to make it safe for workers to stand on the roof to clear the rest. Other possibilities include using a hot air blower to melt it off.
This issue isn’t rocket science and Canfors managers should’ve seen the issue coming long before it led to workers losing pay. The headline fits the situation perfectly.
gitterdun knows!
“it would probably be cheaper for Canfor to just let it collapse than to try to prevent it at this stage of the game and risk getting anyone hurt.” Isn’t this what SD57 did with the school at Bear Lake a few years back?
Everyone that writes comments here must be Safety Experts
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