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Times they are a changin’ - slowly

By Verna Ledger
Director, Health and Safety

A wise sage once said “Those who
ignore the past are doomed to repeat its
mistakes in the future”. At times, when we
deal with occupational safety and health,
we tend to only discuss the current prob-
lems and what is required if we are to
progress in this area in the future. We
become discouraged because we do not
believe we have made much progress
over the years. This fiftieth anniversary of
the formation of the International Wood-
workers of America, however gives us an
opportunity to reflect on just how far we
really have come as a union and particu-
larly, we can look with some pride at what
we have achieved thus far as we fight
towards our ultimate goal of providing
our members with the right to work, free
from injury or disease.

The history of the forest industry tells
mostly of unprotected, uninformed and
uninvolved workers.

A few years ago a researcher for the
IWA was interviewing some of our old
time members in an attempt to compile a

The bodies had been
stored in the tool
shed until the weekend
when the boat came
in to camp.

history of the union. They began discuss-
ing the “old days”, the 20’s and 30's
when organizing was first beginning.

One of the retirees mentioned a log-
ging camp where he had worked and told
how his buddy and another man were
killed one day by a rolling log. The bodies
had been stored in the tool shed until the
weekend when the boat came into camp.
This worker told how he had approached
the “boss” and asked if it was not possible
to get the boat in earlier specifically to
take the dead back to town. The “boss”
replied “no, it costs too damn much to
have the boat make a special trip”. At that
point the story-teller said, he decided to
join the union.

In those days, bodies or mangled and
maimed wrecks were carted out of the
bush almost every week, and the loggers
who remained, counted on their prayers
or good luck to see them through until
the snow would fly. Some even adopteda
philosophical attitude to these tragedies
and accepted it as part of the price to be
paid for a job. Others, however, worried
about the dangers and complained of the
deaths and injuries and unhealthy camp
conditions, such as mattresses filled with

Much of the early
organizing in the woods
took place more
because of the hazards
and conditions, than
a demand for
higher wages.

hay (changed only in the fall), canying
their own bug-filled blankets from camp
to camp, damp clothes hanging about
the room, dark and cold and smelling like
the inside of a bear's cave, and they
considered joining the union.

Mill conditions were no better, mills
ranged from an open saw powered by a
jacked up model T Ford to gang saws,
and there was even a special train on the
CNN. line to haul out the mangled bodies
everyweek. One specific mill killed aman
a month, for six months.

Union organizing became more suc-
cessful because workers finally became
fed up with these conditions. In fact
much of the early organizing in the woods
took place more because of the hazards
and conditions, than a demand for higher
wages. (That came later).

The Workers’ Compensation Board
which had been proclaimed in 1917 in
B.C., finally bowed to pressure from the
burgeoning labour movement and hired
one inspector in 1934 and subsequently
released it’s first regulations in 1935.

In the early ’40’s things began to
improve, mainly due to the pressures of
organized labour and in particular the
IWA. There was more recognition of
dangers and some attempts to provide
protection. There was much more discus-
sion about unsafe conditions and after
continual pressure from the Union, some
companies even agreed to set up joint
safety committees, to try and improve
conditions. But in the forest industry the
deaths went on increasing year by year.

In 1949 the IWA appalled by the 97
deaths which had occurred in the woods
the year before, passed a resolution at the
Convention creating the Regional Safety
Council and in 1951, hired a full time
Safety Director. John T. Atkinson became
the first full time Safety Director to be
hired by a union in North America. John
became known and respected through-
out the continent for his battles to achieve
safe working conditions for all wood-
workers. But it was an uphill battle all the
way. Workers became a little more
informed, a little more involved and a
little better protected, but only a little.

Unfortunately in the forest industry,
workers continued to die or be maimed
and crippled for life.

Camp conditions improved somewhat,
mills became a little safer but still the
deaths and injuries persisted.

Many people of good will searched for
reasons, Unions fought with Govern-
ments to strengthen regulations to pro-
tect workers. In response many Govern-
ment departments responsible for safety
began publicity campaigns directed at
worker attitudes, and in the forest indus-
try personnel officers appeared and part

At one time it was
considered that if a
man was injured,
almost regardless of the
circumstances, it was
considered to be his
fault, and he
received discipline.

of their duties included the conducting of
safety programs. Unfortunately this was a
time when the solutions to accidental
injuries were not geared to prevention,
but rather to concentration on the char-
acteristics of workers (e.g. worker atti-
tudes).

Ata presentation some years ago, V.R.
Crump a Vice-President of CPR made
this revealing statement, “for many years,
employee safety was a matter handled, in
general, by supervision and by discipline.
At one time it was considered that if a
man was injured, almost regardless of the
circumstances, it was considered to be his
fault, and he received discipline”.

Even the union at that time also saw its
responsibility as a curative one, rather
than prevention. We thus developed con-
siderable expertise in the handling of
compensation claims, ignoring some-
times the more pressing issues related to
prevention, That is not to say that there
were not some very progressive thinkers
in the area of safety and health even in
those early days. But unfortunately many
of their ideas were ignored as foreign or
even viewed as socialist contrived inno-

vations.

Meanwhile the injuries and deaths con-
tinued and most people said there were
no answers. One spokesperson for the
Workers’ Compensation Board even
commented to the press that we must
accept that injuries and fatalities were
inherent in the forest industry. The
response from the IWA was a loud and
forceful No! We would not agree that
even one death or injury was the price to
be paid for a job. So we continued to
petition Governments to strengthen reg-
ulations. Some regulations were changed
and others added which provided work-
ers with protection from unguarded and

No longer were they
willing to accept the
answers of the
so-called “company
safety professional.”

unsafe equipment. Some regulations in
certain provinces even gave workers the
right to participate in joint safety commit-
tees and other regulations required the
development of joint safety programs.
For a short while these initiatives seemed
to improve the situation. Some of the
more progressive committees developed
fairly extensive programs, going beyond
the actual requirements of the regula-’
tions and introducing new ideas in edu-
cation and involvement. But for the most
part workers were still uninvolved, unin-
formed and unprotected, the injuries and
deaths continued.

In the’50’s anew managerial approach
emerged, the three “E’s”, Engineering,
Education, and Enforcement, with the
main emphasis on Education. The dic-
tum that 85% of accidents were caused
by unsafe acts and only 15% by unsafe
conditions had near universal adherence
in safety management circles, and so the
emphasis on education seemed appro-
priate. Concensus safety standards were
rarely challenged. There was intense
competition among companies for safety
awards based on the number of man
hours worked without a recordable disa-
bling accident. In the U.S. in the early
”50’s there was even psychological testing
for “accident proneness”. The idea was
to identify these people and provide them
with special training and place them in
low risk jobs. A few progressive safety
experts ventured the belief that safety

management was too statistic conscious
and wondered if the “unsafe act theory”
might not result more from shoddy acci-
dent investigations than from “scientific”
observation. But for the most part the
theory remained entrenched.

In the sixties new words began to
appear when discussions were held on
workplace protection — these words were
“occupational disease”. As the Ralph
Naders’ and Rachel Carson's emerged
and gained recognition, some workers
became concemed about their workplace
exposure to harmful substances. No
longer were they willing to accept the
answers of the so-called “company safety
professional.” Suddenly unions, manage-
ment and research organizations were
inundated with requests for information.
In the IWA, those of us who had been
working in the safety field began scram-
bling to acquire information on health
hazards. Threshold limit values, millo-
grams per cubic meter, pentachlorophe-
nols and polychlorinated biphenyls are
examples of some of the mystery words
that required interpretation. While it has
demanded an increased effort on the
part of the union, this concern with health
hazards has perhaps been the main cata-
lyst in developing worker involvement on
health and safety issues.

So where are we at the present time?

We are now a
Canadian National
Union representing

workers across Canada,
many of them in
diversified industries.

Unfortunately, occupational health and
safety continues to be an undeveloped
field, particularly when it comes to pre-
venting injuries, illness and death in the
workplace. For the most part, Govern-
ments and employers continue to con-
centrate their main activities to indicate a
fragmented, narrow and often compet-
ing focus on how to patch up workers
after they have been harmed and how to
shift the emphasis from dangerous work
to “dangerous workers”. Since the early
development of the so-called “safety pro-
fessional” there has been an unfortunate
concentration on the characteristics of

Continued on page 8

Did you
© The biggest tree in Canadais located
near Port Renfrew, B.C. Itis a Douglas Fir
which stands 73.5 metres or 24 stories
tall. It has a diameter of almost 4 metres
and a circumference of 12.5 metres. It
contains about 63,000 board feet of lum-
ber and would take about six 12-metre
semi-trailers to haul the tree away in
rough cut form. The tree used to be taller
but lost its top.

@ In Canada, research and develop-
ment accounts for only one per cent of
the gross national product. In most other
industrialized nations that figure is two
per cent. Japan and the United States
each register three per cent. In Canada,
the forest industry shares last place with
textiles and apparel in its expenditure on
research and development.

© TheUnited States exportsmorethan
100 million board feet of hardwood logs
annually, principally to Canada and West
Germany. In 1983, Canada purchased
virtually all of the birch, 59 per cent of the
maple, 37 per cent of the red oak and 31
per cent of the remaining species which
included ash, cherry hickory, persimmon
and sassafras.

@ Avon bath oil works as an insect
repellent. Loggers, fishermen and wilder-
ness campers say the aromatic skin-so-

know?
soft perfumed bath oil has made black fly
and mosauito bites a thing of the past.

For the first time tree seedling pro-
duction in the USS. this year will top the
two billion mark.

e Sweden has only one tenth the
forest base of Canada and yet Sweden
produces one-third as much timber.

© Once considered a weed species by
the B.C. forest service, lodgepole pine is
now one of our most commercially useful
trees. It is also becoming a big hit in
Sweden where more than 100,000 hect-
ares of forest have been planted. Each
year some 80 million seedlings are
planted.

@ Small woodlots are big business in
Ontario. Private woodlands in the prov-
ince represent 15 per cent of the produc-
tive forest and provide up to 30 per cent
of the annual wood harvest. However,
only a small percentage of woodlots in
Southern Ontario are managed to
achieve their maximum potential, partly
because the taxation system does not
encourage their owners to do so.

© Fire is currently used asa site prepa-
ration tool to treat about 5,000 hectares
per year in Ontario, while the potential
for treatment is about 30,000 hectares
per year.

Lumber Worker! July, 1987/7