Lakeland Working on Rebuilding Worker Trust
Prince George, B.C.- The President of Sinclar Group, owners of Lakeland Mills, says the company believes Crown made the right decision in not .html)
As has been his practice whenever he speaks about the Lakeland tragedy, Greg Stewart opened his remarks by acknowledging the families of Glen Roche and Al Little, the two men who died in the April 23rd blast, and the workers who were hurt on the jobsite that night, as well as all of Lakeland’s employees, their families and others impacted by the explosion “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about them, And my thoughts are especially with each and every one of them today as we relive this terrible tragedy.”
Stewart asked “Could we have done a better job of controlling dust? In hindsight, yes. Could we have done more to encourage our employees to speak up if they felt there were safety issues? In hindsight, perhaps.”
He says moving forward, he takes responsibility for ensuring that all known safety concerns and hazards are addressed “We can’t change the past. But it’s important that we learn from it.”
As he has in the past, Stewart made a commitment to employees “When you show up at work at the start of your shift, you have my word that we will do our part to ensure you return home to your family at the end of the day, safe and sound.”
The new safety measures include;
- The most sophisticated dust control systems available
- Working with suppliers to ensure the equipment is of the new level of standards expected
- Training of workers about combustible dust so they can recognize the hazards
- Right to refuse unsafe work without fear of repercussions
Stewart says he was disappointed to learn through the Crown’s Clear Statement that workers weren’t clear on the avenues open to them to speak up about working conditions “So we are going to make sure they know what those avenues are and make sure they feel comfortable to exercise those rights, at the end of the day, it is a right of every employee to refuse unsafe work whether it’s at Lakeland or in the rest of the industry.”
Whether the workforce will buy into that commitment, remains to be seen. The mill is being rebuilt and is expected to be in production this fall.
While Lakeland will not be formally charged, there is still a possibility of WorkSafe fines, or cost claims being levied against the company as was the case in the wake of the Babine decision. Stewarts says he has yet to hear from WorkSafe BC on that matter, “There are a lot of similarities between our case and Babine” says Stewart “So I would expect WokSafe will explore that possibility.”
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Jobs for B.C. It’s all about families first.
Whoops I don’t know hoe that happened, but the comment was meant for th news item below.
How, damn
I am sure the owners and managers have done a lot of soul searching for the past two years over this. Its not a easy to know and live with. nothing in the world is going to change what has happened. We can only make the changes to the future.
I worked for two of Canfor’s pulp mills in PG and, to the company’s credit, we were told that if we considered an act or job unsafe, we had the opportunity to refuse to do that job and the company lived up to that promise without repercussions.
Sometimes the worst happens and there is just no one to blame. BC has experienced two of those.
Sometimes the worst happens and there is just no one to blame. BC has experienced two of those.
Bullsh*t! The workers KNEW their avenues and rights. The management turned a deaf ear to the workers voices and basically told them to piss off and go back and do your job.
“Bullsh*t! The workers KNEW their avenues and rights. The management turned a deaf ear to the workers voices and basically told them to piss off and go back and do your job.”
If the workers knew their avenues and rights, they wouldn’t have gone back to work. If management fired them for forcing the workers to go back to work, then that would not hold up in court or with the labour board.
As has been said many times, the ultimate responsibility for worker safety has to be with the worker. Not management, and not the government.
I do not understand why all the generalities by Greg Stewart and some of those posting on here.
To me it seems simple. If Management and Workers had some concerns or misgivings about safety, and more specifically about the amount of dust which was collecting, or the unacceptable cycle time between shop cleanup, or the method that cleanup was done, or the lack of proper machinery, and so on, then it should have shown up during the joint health and safety committee meetings and recorded as such in the minutes, including the corrective steps to be taken.
Also, if there were inspections by WorkSafeBC and they found conditions with respect to sawdust collection were unacceptable, then there should be written orders to say as much.
So far, I see no evidence of any of that.
I guess we will have to wait till the coroners inquiry to find those types of basics out.
Behind the scenes conversations amongst workers is not good enough to do anything. If it did not go further than that, then there is a problem with the workplace environment.
Bang on, gus. This might come down to a culture of complacency. If concerns were not officially recorded, then that’s a cultural issue.
“To me it seems simple. If Management and Workers had some concerns or misgivings about safety, and more specifically about the amount of dust which was collecting, or the unacceptable cycle time between shop cleanup, or the method that cleanup was done, or the lack of proper machinery, and so on, then it should have shown up during the joint health and safety committee meetings and recorded as such in the minutes, including the corrective steps to be taken.”
You would think it would work that way Gus, but here is a sick scenario. Sometime before Rustads shutdown, somewhere around Jan-Feb 2009, there was a dust explosion in the Barker Building. Witnesses saw the fireball go around the room twice. Fortunately no one was hurt. Worksafe wasn’t called at the time of the incident. Apparently management and a few members of the safety committee did the investigation and determined it was caused by a cigarette. A few people thought this was a BS cause and pushed management for the report. Management said that a local electrical contractor and fire inspector did an investigation too. “Let’s see the report we said”. After push came to shove, they being management admitted that no such investigation happened. So management and the safety commitee tried to sweep this under the carpet. Worksafe was finally called by the concerned employee after the run around by management but this ended up being 5 months after the incident. Worksafe made up a report stating that the mill should of been shutdown at the time of the incident and investigated properly to find out the cause. They put a condition on the area that if Rustads ever restarted they would have to deal with the dust in the building.
So you can see that safety committees can be in managements back pocket. It makes me wonder if that explosion was investigated properly that it could of saved lives.
“The WorkSafeBC investigation noted there had been five fires involving sawdust at the mill in the months before the incident â including one the same day a dust-fuelled explosion flattened the Babine Forest Products sawmill in Burns Lake, killing two workers at that facility. There were known problems with the dust collection system, and numerous violations of the safety standards for electrical equipment.”
“Money was being spent on upgrades, but the priority was on producing more lumber. WorkSafeBC found that the mill had expanded its production capabilities, but the waste conveyors for those new systems were not installed. âThere had been little work done on the sawmill dust collection system and the problems that this wood waste was causing,â the investigation said.”
Basically it was money and production over safety, and no amount of new equipment and promises will change that culture of greed!
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/investigation-finds-sawmill-owners-invested-in-production-not-safety/article18034972/
Go try running a business some time, BeingHuman, or People#1, or whoever you are.
You will find that your employees can’t stand any more down time than you can. That a lot of them are in debt up to their eyeballs, and beyond, and to close up a plant to do everything every owner would like to do, all at once, all the time, and keep everyone’s head above water, is a FINANCIAL impossibility, for both them and you!
Especially in the case of these mills, which were not ever designed to cut the kind of wood they are now being required to cut, and have to try to sell into a lumber market that has been and is still far from being ‘robust’.
If they lose the customers they have through not being able to supply them, as, when and where required, that business goes elsewhere. A mill owner doesn’t get ‘severance’, nor does he get EI, or welfare ~ if he can’t continue to please his ‘bosses’, his customers, he’s ‘fired’. Just like that. There is no ‘Union’ to grieve to. It’s the cold, hard world of finance, and while your banker may personally have every sympathy with your current predicament, he is a ‘numbers’ man at heart. And if those numbers can’t be projected to add up in any given time frame the way he needs them to, you’re out of business, and your employees are out in the cold.
The Stewart family appear to me to be very honorable, community minded, small business people. Greg is obviously committed to the employees. Did it makes sense to rebuild that mill? Not necessarily. They chose to continue to improve, contribute and employ workers and contractors. Imagine how hard this tragedy has been on them as well. There is a lot of risk in business.
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