Page Six B.C. LUMBER WORKER a 4a Ay 4a La fp Sa fn fn Ae De Da be hn on to tom fm VVUVVVVVVVVVVVFGVFVIT y om LP) mr Death Js Se Permanent By W.N. Gray Provisional Secretary, District Safety Council The year 1949 should go down in the annals of the IWA as the year in which the first concrete steps were taken to inaugurate a safety program on a province-wide basis in the wood- working industry. An important part of that program is this section in the B.C. LUMBER- WORKER devoted to safety and acci- dent provention. Now that we have this medium let's make use of i Not just a select few but all of us— you and you and you. This space is one way of passing our ideas and knowledge on to our fellow workers, so we should use every inch of it. Why should we worry or con cern ourselves with accident preven- tion? We have good hospitals and doctors. They will fix us up when we get hurt—that is if we stop this side of the Great Divide. If we don't the undertaker will take over. OK, boys and girls, take your chances, But have you ever thought of the pain you will suffer, or the fact that your loved ones ‘will go short of food and clothes while you take a holiday from carning a living? Would you do nothing or say nothing if you saw a child on a rail- road track with a train approach- ing? Of course you wouldn't. Do you do anything if you see a fellow work- er standing where a kick back from] f the edger or planer may hit him? If you don't you should. It's your job to care for your fellow worker. It adds up to the putting real mean- ing into the word “Brother.” Would you climb into a plane and try to fly it, or into the cab of a locomotive and drive it, if you did not know and had never been shown how? Not if you want to live. But maybe you try to operate a saw in a mill or the levers on a donkey in the woods or the controls of @ crane or a truck without having been taught, and wonder why you and maybe someone else got hurt. _ Hf you don't know how to do a job properly and safely ask someone to show you. Never be ashamed of honest ignorance. We all had ‘to learn. Never hesitate to show another fellow how to do the job safely. We can cut down on injuries and fatalities (96 of them in 1948) in the wood poring industry if we think before we act: know before we act; look before we act; stop betting our lives against hazards, by doing things we to be foolish—doing them on the basis of “I'm lucky, 1 won't get hurt. Tn that fable, brothers and sisters, you can only lose. Let me Jeave this thought with you—Death is so perm- anent. - sary machinery is set up to the Master Agreement provi machinery when it sets out The duties of these comm: ment fulfil the terms of the provisions of the law. To ensure the work being properly cartied out in each plant and opera- tion each Local should set up a Safety Council to be elected at a safety con- ference. It is suggested that repre- sentation at the conference be on the basis of two (2) delegates from each mill or camp for the first 200 members and two additional delegates for each additional 200 or major frac- tion thereof, with a maximum of seven (7) delegates from any one ‘operation. Local safety councils may vary in size but should not be less than seven (7) or more than (13). These safety councils are in turn responsible to the District Safety Council, which, by decision of the Convention, is to consist of an executive of five (5) plus one (1) representative from each Local. The District Safety Council in con- junction with the District Executive is charged with seeing that the Locals set up Safety Councils; providing in- ‘ormation on the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act, and educational material on accident pre~ vention. Safety Meeting at Universal Box ‘The regular meeting of the Acci- dent Prevention Committee at the Universal Box Co. was held on Feb- mary 7th, E.R. Phelan in the chair. Arising out ‘of the Accident and Near Accident reports of the fore- men, a number of cases were in- vestigated by the committee and recommendations made. E.R. Phelan reported that he had taken pictures of hazardous methods of working, contrasted with right methods, but that unfortunately most of them had not turned out well. More pictures will be taken shortly and placed around the plant. recommendations regarding plant alter- ations to promote safety. The safety prize for January was won by L. Jones on the day shift and the ten dollar Safety Shoes prize ‘was won by A. Fontaine, Yard No. 1. The Safety Prize for February is to be an electric mantel clock—the committee declines to ouarantee that there will be electricity to run it, Winner should take the matter up with the proper authorities. MORRIS ELECTED TO FED. ‘A mesting of the Vancouver Island Labor Council “plans, with special reference to week-end Toate tobe held in 5 a CAMP COMMITTEES CAN SAVE LIVES! Machinery of Accident Prevention A safety program can only be successful if the neces- The Committee made a number of | di carry it out. Article VIII of ides the basis for part of that the size and composition of plant and camp safety committees. ittees are set out in the Work- men’s Compensation Act. Every union member should make it his job to see that both the union and the manage- Agreement and abide by the a a Remarkable Safety Record To have sawn over ONE BILLION board feet of timber without a single accident to himself or his saw- carriage crew, is the remarkable record of Carl Lillos, sawyer at the Fraser Mills plant of the Canadian Western Lumber Co. Mr. Lillos entered the employ of the Canadian Western Lumber Co. 39 years ago, in fanuary 1910, as a setter. Two years later he became sawyer and has ever since occupied that position at Fraser Mills, the largest sawmill in the British Empire. Six years ago the company esti- mated that Mr. Lillos and his crew had cut 1,100,000,000 board feet of timber, all without a single acci- dent to the saw-carriage crew. In this age of careless use of astronomical figures, it may be inter- esting to break down this amount of lumber by comparison so that the ordinary reader may be able to get a better idea of how much is ONE BILLION, ONE HUNDRED MIL- LION FEET OF TIMBER. At an average of 30,000 board feet to a railroad car this amount of timber would fill 36,666 box cars. Assumin~ the average length of these cars to be 40 feet and allow- ing for couplings this would make a train over 300 miles long. ._If this lumber had all been cut into 2x12 and placed end to end it would have reached a distance of 550,000,000 feet or 104,167 miles, The circumference of the Earth at the Equator is apnroximately 25,074 miles. Therefore, this lumber would have been sufficient to build a side- walk 4 fect wide and 2 inches thick around the world at the Equator. According to the B.C. Log Scale a log 40 fect long and 25 inches in liameter contains 1051 board feet, If enough logs of this size were placed end to end to make up a scale of 1,100,000,000 f.b.m. they would reach 2 distance of 7,929 miles, If this was all in two trees, 25 inches in diameter and stood on the West Coast of Vancouver Island and was falled westward by some of our experienced fallers, the tops would just land on Tokyo. The average five room bungalow requires about 15,000 board fect of lumber to construct. The lumber cut by Lillos and his crew, without acci- dent, would: have built 73,333 such houses. Assuming three persons to a bungalow this would have provided housing for 219,919 people. In the ‘six years since this record was established by Carl Lillos and his saw-carriage crew, it has not been broken nor has there been an acci-| dent to the crew to spoil the record. COIS SUPPORT OUR ADVERTISERS “ALAS, DEAR SAM . AS MEMBERS This is the blunt question and Bill White recently. office of the scab-produced had the official “okay.” In the issue of January 13, to have, they would never, in union produced newspaper. “T’m told that poor Sammy’ line.” District 1, last week. The demand was made at Van- couver Labor Council, and the resolution also asked: 1. That the present nine-day waiting period for benefits be abolished. 2. That benefits be continued to unemployed men and wom- en after the benefits are tech- nically exhausted. Bill Robertson, CCL represen- tative on the Unemployment In- surance Committee advisory Board, opened the eyes of the public’ with a commanding state- ment that the winter peak of Vancouver jobless had not yet been reached, in his opinion. “I believe we will have about 40,000 unemployed here in the near future,” he said. Robertson, expert on unemploy- ment insurance and all its com- plications, told the delegates that the depression “is here now”, and that the Unemployment Insur- ance Act would have to be amended. He stressed the problems of the workers in the woodwork- ing industry in B.C. “Many employees only work about eight months in the year,” he said, “and they do not make enough to carry them through the remaining four months of the year.” Graphically, he disclosed that 400 to 500 people a month are exhausting their benefits and be- ing told’ “Go to the Salvation Army.” Many of these people, he said, Were veterans not of just one war—but both wars. —<—<—<—_____ UIC OFFICIAL VISITS ISLAND Under Arrangements sponsored by the B.C. District Office of the IWA, Mr. D. ‘J. Stephenson, Assistant Regional Superintendent of the Un- employment Insurance Commission, visited TWA Locals on Vancouver Island during the past wi This mission was undertaken to facilitate the adjustment of claims for benefits which were pending and to ensure peainte mented for IWA mem- ers on the procedures employed by the Commission. aay Prevailing unemployment has placed @ special burden on the District Office in dealing with grievances respectiny Unemployment Insurance, District off cials report that in many instances IWA ASKS ABOLITION OF 9-DAY WAIT Call for a conference of all trade unions to investigate thoroughly the urgent need for immediate solution of B.C. unemployment problems was made by IWA, B.C. |JENKINS, WHITE, BLUSH ASK “WHY?” “Why did you cross the Province picket line?” which many members of the Marine Workers and Boilermakers’ Indutsrial Union, Local No. 1, have posed to two of their leaders—Messrs. Sam Jenkins ‘The members have not. Heer getting very satisfactory an- swers, either, from all accounts. iz Bill Stewart, Marine Workers’ union delegate to Vancouver Labor Council, tried to tell Hole eare esate and i issi ‘icket line Chics of tie sesbaeeiaee Gee He gave the impression they “We know that’s not in accordance with the facts,” said an IWA District Official this week. “No member of any picket line, least of all the ITU, would give permission for another union man to cross the line.’ the B.C. Lumber Worker ex- josed the anti-union action of the two prominent LPP-ers, PO"The Daily Provinee had run a story which quoted both Jenkins and White in their remarks to a reporter of the scab paper, while both the union officials were admittedly INSIDE THE PROVINCE EDITORIAL OFFICES. _ “The lame excuse given to the council,” said the IWA offi- cial, “was that Jenkins and White went to have a row about a story which appeared in that paper about the Sekora-Jenkins council incident. “If either Jenkins or White had the proper amount of trade union principle and sincerity, which they both profess so loudly fs Province to the first place, have read the Province account of the incident, and in the second place, would have ignored it altogether as the product of a worthless, non- ’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing since the boys in his union learned our little piece of poetry— Alas, Dear Sam, we knew you fine, until you crossed that picket Eighty people are sleeping each night on the floors of one city hostel. Problems of the older unem- ployed men, 45 to 55 and older, are even worse. The IWA resolution was re- ferred to the legislative commit- tee for action, Education CCL SCHOOL TO BE HELD AT NANAINO President Joe Morris, Local 1-80, IWA, Duncan, and Chair- man of the CCL Institute Com- mittee, Vancouver Island, an- nounced this week that arrange- ments are now complete for the CCL Institute to be held in the Nanaimo High School, March 5 and 6, The Institute which will be conducted by the Canadian Con- gress of Labor in cooperation with the University of B.C. has prepared for classes on the fol- lowing subjects: 1. Duties of a Job Steward; (a) How to win a Griev- ance; (b) Collective Bargaining. 2, Labor Legislation. 3. History of Trade Unions. 4, Union Finance and Struc- ture: (a) How to Make a Union More Effective; (b) Conduct of Union Meetings. 5. Current Economie Prob- Jems. Instructors will include: Fred Dowling, National Director of Packinghouse Workers, Andy An- dras, National Chairman of Ed cation CCL; Murray Cotteril Political Action Director CC! Harry Chappell, General Repre- sentative C.B. of R.E.; Alex Mac- Donald, Vancouver lawyer; and Prof. Stuart Jamieson, UBC, A Political Action ‘Workshop will be held in the Miners’ Hall on March 7th under the direction of Murray Cotterill, Toronto. On Monday, March 7th at 8:00 p.m, all members of CCL unions in the district are invited to at- these grievances have been Satisfac- torily dealt with upon representations | to the Commissions P™semations tend a mass rally in the Miners’ Hall which will be addressed by visiting Congress speakers.