B.C. LUMBER WORKER

SAFETY WEEK SEPT. 28 - OCT. 3

On Monday morning, September 28, the white flag
with the green cross will be raised over sawmills, shingle
mills, plywood plants and logging camps in Coastal British
Columbia and Safety Week in the forest industries will

begin. '

Safety Week has been set aside
by the forest industries as a
period of super-safety conscious-
ness — a five-day period when
every worker in every mill and
every camp will be as alert as a
blue jay to conditions or acts
which might result in a time-loss
accident.

The cutting down of accidents

during Safety Week has become
a matter of pride with the work-
men and woe betide the careless
individual who is responsible for
an accident, either to himself or
to another.

Because Safety Week is'a co-
operative effort among the vari-
ous Associations in the Forest

industry (B.C. Lumber Manufac-
turers’ Association, B.C. Loggers’
Association, Plywood Manufac-
turers’ Association, Consolidated
Red Cedar Shingle Association,
The Workmens’ Compensation
Board, and the IWA) every ma-
jor agency of influence brings its
big guns to bear, with results
that have been most gratifying
to date.
It Worked Before

For instance, in 1951, the
first year Safety Week was
observed, the accident toll was
cut from a norm of 25 to only

Yh

bate

FALLERS AND BUCKERS are often accident victims. Experienced buckers take every precaution

to make sure that the log they are working on is propped in place before they make a cut.

PICKING SPLINTERS from moving machinery is a common cause of injuries. Machine should be
stopped before any attempt is made to clear the obstruction.

»aVOID TH

4 compensable accidents, Last
year, with the weekly norm for
the year at 19, the number of
accidents dropped to 2 during
Safety Week.

Safety Week is not the result
of a few weeks of intensive cam-
paigning, but of years of patient
effort on the part of the various
Safety Directors, and the men
themselves.

The B.C. Lumber Manufactur-
ers’ Association started its first
safety division in 1924. There
were about 4,000 men working in
coastal sawmills at that time and
a man was killed, on an average,
of once a month—12 fatal acci-
dents among 4,00 workers every
year.

In 1952, with 16,000 men em-
ployed in sawmills, only 5: fatal
accidents were recorded. Acci-
dents have been reduced 15%
since 1948, in the Sawmill Divi-
sion.

Naturally, this steady redue-
tion of accidents cannot carry on
indefinitely but all of the safety
experts in the industry are con-
vineed that we have not ‘yet
reached the point of irreducible
minimum.

Accident Costs

The average accident in Brit-
sh Columbia’s forest industry
has a direct cost of $990.00 (1952
figure).

man to hospital and everything
up to the point where The Work-
men’s Compensation Board take
over plus The Workmen’s Com-
pensation Board costs.

Individual accidents have
cost as much as $50,000. These
figures do not represent the
real cost

taken into consideration — the
loss of capacity to the man
himself and the loss of a yalu-
able employee to the Company.

These latter are known as hid-
den costs and The National Safe-
ty Council estimates that they are
at least three times as great as

the apparent costs,

What Causes Accidents?

‘Every Safety Director in the
world has probably asked himself
at one time or another, “What
causes accidents?”, and, after a
considerable amount of study,
they have come up with several
answers which may be surprising.

Mental stress is one of the
main causes of accidents. A man
has a fight with his wife at the
breakfast table, goes to work
with his mind in a turmoil, spends
the morning thinking about the
retorts he could have made and
while thus preoccupied, overlooks
a hazard which he would other-
wise have seen and, as a result,
he becomes a casualty.

More About

Safety

Management’s |
Responsibility
However, by no means, can all

accidents be traced to the indi-
vidual workman, Many safety
devices have been introduced
during the last few years and
these include special warning
signs to designate areas of high
hazard, guards over moving ma-
chinery, and even on occasion,
fences around areas of especially
high hazard.

Improper clothing is also a
major factor in accidents. A man
who fails to wear safety shoes
can easily have his foot crushed.
A loose sleeve or tie can be
caught in a piece of moving ma-
chinery oy can obscure’ a man’s
vision for a vital fraction of a
second and result in his being
injured.

Week

Another factor is improper care
of tools or the use of improper
tools. A chisel which has been
allowed to become’ frayed is a
j constant hazard. A wrench used
| as a hammer is always dangerous
;and the man who insists on pok-
jing tools into moving machinery
is.always vulnerable to accidents.

Safety Directors are never
satisfied and they feel and preach
that so long as there are acci-
dents, the human element is re-
sponsible and greater care plus
better education will always re-
duce the hazard and the conse-
| quent accident incidence.

This year the whole forest in-
dustry is combining its effort to-
wards accident prevention and the
result, good or bad, will depend
pretty much on how well the in-
dividual workman has been train-
ed to protect himself,

(EWE COULD SCE OURSELVES
AE OTHERS SEE OS...

This cost includes ex: |
penditures incurred in getting the

because there are |
other factors which must be |

merely improved skill and j
ment of a social consciene

enforcement.

There seems to be no qieio’
in general is not technical sll t

habits. This is particula

and a social attitude.

We are concerned not

that will have the backgr
that will fit them to deal w:
the problems that the autabi

Workmen's Com I

ADAM BELL, Chaitn
F. P, ARCHIBALD,
CHRIS. W. PRIT

E, V. ABLETT, Conti;

rel