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B.C. LUMBER WORKER

Page Seven

coupling set-u

chine.

chinery,
doctor,

you?
$50,000 a year,
would be worth ‘more than $10,-
000—every year.

So then, here’s the problem: In-
juries to your men—in the woods,
in the mill, on the yard—are cost-
ing you more every year than al-
most any single piece of equip-
ment on display here today.

Employers’ Angle

FOREMEN MUST
TEACH SAFETY

Remarks of a Safety Director to a convention of logging op-

Perators viewing an exhibit of logging equipment are here
quoted in part as indicating the employers’ responsibility in
Promoting accident prevention. i

From the employers’ point of view, it emphasizes the prac-

You're all here at this demon-
stration of logging and lumber
manufacturing equipment for
just one reason: to try to find out
more economical ways of turning
out lumber.

Tf a modern logging machine
ean reduce your logging and
manufacturing costs 2 percent or
5 or 10 percent, you know it’s a
good

But here’s the situation:
it costs’ you 10 or 15 dollars a
thousand to get the timber out of
the woods, and if-you can knock
off a dollar of that, you'll think
twice before you turn down the
chance to do it.

Another Angle

Now let’s look at another side
of this question of cutting costs:

You know that your automobile
insurance cost, your fire insur-
ance cost, your public liability in-
surance cost, and your compensa-
tion cost is going up every year.

You know that when a logging
truck hits the ditch and scatters
your logs all over the country,
your insurance covers only the
cost of repairs to the truck—and
the driver. The logs that truck
doesn’t haul while it’s being re-
paired represent lumber your mill
will never turn out.
that driver doesn’t do while he’s
in the hospital is never going to
be done.
You know that when a man has
his arm pulled into an edger, or
leaves it in front of a swing saw,
your insurance pays only for that
man’s arm. You pay for the loss
of that man’s ability—his experi-
ence, the training you gave him.

More Injuries, Less Lumber

You pay for the time it takes
to stop the machine, or perhaps
the entire mill, while what's left
of the man is pulled from the ma-
You pay for the time it
takes to send him to a doctor,
make out accident reports, talk
to claim adjusters, and so on.
You’ve been through all
You know it’s true.
But I wonder if you know this:
These indirect costs — stopping
the mill, repairing damaged ma-
taking the man to the
and all _the
| !bookkeeping work connected with
the accident—all this costs you,
on an ‘average, four times as
much as the injured man ‘receives
in compensation. i
Suppose you saw, today, a ma-
chine that would cut down your
labor costs 25 percent. How much
would that machine be worth to
If your total payroll is
that machine

buy.

tical reasons for an industry-wide safety program, and the
urgent need for safety training and supervision. Clues are also
provided to show how the job safety committee may follow
through on a safety program.

District Council Number One,

Dear Mr. Mitchell:

in which you give very excellent

bers in the need of safety trainin;
death.

Isn’t that a problem worth
talking about for a few minutes?
And if it is, what’s the solution?
Well, there’s plenty we can do.

The man in charge of accident
prevention for one of the largest
lumber companies in the midwest
told me recently that if the chop-
ping axe and the canthook could
be eliminated, accidents in the.
yg [Jogging industry would be negli-

gible. I said that if saws could
be eliminated, accidents in the
lumber manufacturing industry
would also be negligible.

Teach Safety

We weren’t just talking non-
sense. We know ,that axes and
canthooks and saws are the back-
bone of our jobs—and probably
always will be. You can’t guard
an axe, and you can’t guard a
canthook,

Sometimes you can guard a
saw, but not always. So if we're
going to use them, and if we
can’t guard them, we’ll have to
accept them, as is, and teach our
men how to use them:

So then, the word “teach”
(and the word “superyision”)
are going to be the keystones
of our solution to the problem.

Teaching isn’t easy. You know
it. You know it gets harder
every day. And first-rate super-
vision is the hardest job in the
world to do right, but let me
mind you that good supervisio:

The work

and good training can be worth
20 to 40 percent of your payroll.
That'll buy a lot of logging and
sawmilling equipment in 10 year:
—even at today’s prices.

Pound!

Pound!

this.

incidental

you to know if there is anything
supplying information that will

logging superintendents and fore-
men to keep their crews dis-
persed, to keep a first aid kit
handy, to make sure the faller
sounds off when a tree falls.
We've got to pound and pound

and pound into the heads of our

sawmill foremen ‘that an edger
will kick back if the saw gets dull,
that the guard over the saw man-
drel must be kept in place, that
machinery must not be oiled when
it’s running.

We've got to stop every ex-
ample of horseplay as soon as we
see it—and order our foremen. to
do the same thing. We have to
keep after our log derrick opera-
tor to be as certain as it’s hu-
manly possible to see that every-
one’s in the clear before he hoists
away.

Education — teaching—does
not mean telling a man once to
something. Supervision doesn’t
mean just watching a man
work to make sure he’s not
loafing. You haven't taught a
man to do a job until you’ve
convinced him you want it done
that way, and until you’ve told
him and showed him and told
him again how to do it—and he
does it.

Supervision
Your foremen aren’t “supervis-
ng” their men until they’re get-
ting your lumber out as economi-

a
“ APPRECIATION

National Safety Council,
425 North Michigan Avenue, «  _
Chicago 11, Illinois, .

George Mitchell, Secretary-Treasurer,

International Woodworkers of America,
426 Main Street, Vancouver, B.C.

I haye had brought to my attention, several recent issues of the
B.C. Lumber Worker, for the period in early March until late June,

coverage to the subject of accident

prevention in logging and lumber operations.
This work by your paper is’ one of the most instructive. things
Ihave seen done by organized labor in an effort to educate its mem-

i to prevent crippling injuries and

I feel sure that your work will show good results, and I want

the Council can do in the way of
be helpful to you in carrying on

this excellent series, we shall be glad to do so.

Yours very truly,
Ned H. Dearborn, President.

Ne ee,

you until they've. taught your
men to be careful. And they won't
do it until they know that you
want them to do it—until they
know that the prevention of one
death can be worth more to your
company than turning out a hun-
dred thousand feet of rough lum-
er.

You can’t teach your men —
but you can teach your super-
intendent and your foremen. And
they can teach your men. But
you have to back up your fore-
men, and your men have to
know that taking care of them-
selyes is just as important a
part of their job’ as being on
time.

You won’t get the job done in

one day—and it won’t even be
done at this time next year. The
job's never entirely done—in the
lumber industry or any other in-
dustry. But the job will be up
to you—as it should be,- because
you're the one who profits most
from it.

Caution!

Wife to husband about to hang
a picture: “You'll find the ham-
mer in the drawer, the nails in
the cupboard, and ‘the bandages
in the medicine cabinet”.
me cae

Wife to husband at a party:
“James, don’t take another. Your
face is already getting blurred”.

YOU CAN PRATT UPMEXT bay/