° Workers from Timberwest’s Honeymoon Bay Division on Vancouver Island participated in the recent seminars. Forest practice code initiative begins with new ‘coach’ training seminars The B.C. government's Forest Prac- tices Code is soon expected to be law in the province. By the end of January of next year the Code will be in place and soon after, public scrutiny of it will begin. So it is extremely important that workers and their supervisors are brought up to speed on just what the new Code will entail. Unless workers and employers know what the Code is all about, the Code will not succeed. The logging and forestry operations are where the rubber meets the road. So recently the government, through funding through its Crown agency Forest Renewal B.C., held the first training seminar for some of the coastal workers in the forest industry who will be involved in ensuring that word of the new Code gets out to the workers. Between October 5 and 7, a pilot project train the trainer course, coor- dinated by the Forest Practice Code Industry Training Task Force, held its first sessions in White Rock, B.C. where over 100 workers from the B.C. coastal industry took part. The three day pilot course, entitled “Forest Practice Code Awareness Training for Forest Workers”, focused on teaching the individuals to be “Coaches” of awareness when they re- turn to their logging operations. The course is designed to get the each of the participating “Coaches” up to a ground level of knowledge in order that they can help other workers learn about the Forest Practices Code. Rather than become teachers, the Coaches will first serve as support persons, since they probably won't know that much about the Code. But the course was base on a view that loggers already know a great deal about the woods and that their experi- ence can be used to put the Forest Code into effect. The goals of the course, as set out, are as follows: ° to ensure that B.C. forest work- ers know that the Forest Practices Code exists. © to get course participants to dis- cuss issues like why the Code exists and why complying with it is neces- sary. ° to get participants to explain op- erational requirements and rules for Riparian Management Zones and Soil Conservation, which are two areas of high risk and liability. e to allow participants the opportu- nity to explain and show how they would act when a situation involving enforcement and monitoring of the Code. © to get participants to identify ar- eas of the Code which may conflict with correct safety procedures. © to get participants to be able to write Action Plans to address unmet needs or unresolved issues. The course generally went over well for the first time through. Many workers are already aware of the Code coming down. “It’s an excellent course,” says Alan Lundgren, a faller, safety committee member and Executive Board mem- ber in Duncan Local 1-80 on Vancou- ver Island. Brother Lundgren, who was en- rolled in the session along with three other participants from Tim- berwest Forest Ltd.’s Honeymoon Bay operation, says that the ideas of having Coaches that are people from the actual operations will go a long way. “Rather than have some ‘expert’ come from outside of the camp to put on a course where everybody will fall asleep in five minutes, this approach encourages peer group participation in finding out about the Code,” says Lundgren. “We're not teachers in this case, we're coaches. So all our job is to get the crew to respond.” The Coaches course dealt with prin- ciples and concepts of the Code as well as responsibilities and liabilities. Along with safety issues, Lundgren says that responsibility and liability is- sues are important ones for workers to understand. “There is a concern that the crews should be aware of what could hap- pen if they decide that they are not go- ing to go along with the rules.” “A good thing that the course teach- es us are the skills necessary to coach a course so that at the end of the day people can walk out knowing more about what the Code represents, al- though we don’t exactly know yet what it will include until it becomes law.” Stu Smith a grapple yarder operator at the same division says that “we hope to use ground level people that understand the problems.” One of the major concerns that Brother Smith has is safety conditions under the new Code. There are such concerns as yarding around or near wildlife trees and trees that have been left on right-aways which may interfere with equipment and guy-line clearances. “It’s hard to say what’s going to be in the Forest Practices Code because we haven't seen it yet.” It is predicted that there will be a trend to longer line high lead yarding 6/LUMBERWORKER/NOVEMBER, 1994 Another IWA member enrolle , ine Coaches’ course nae Clive as erton, an engineering crewman and — camp chairman at MacMillan Bloedel’s Kennedy Lake division on Vancouver Island. He says that there have been at least 15 years of bad logging practices and although the Code is coming rapidly although its not coming too soon. Brother Pemberton said that the peer group type training should focus more on workers and less on management. At the three day course the manage- ment clearly outnumbered the workers. “The workers out in the field are the ones doing the work and they are still the ones, to date, that have never been asked how they can do a good job,” adds Pemberton. “They are often told by people who are uneducated to do a specific job that’s often wrong.” Pemberton says that although re- sponsibility and liability are important issues for workers to be aware of, he says that “unless you do something extremely stupid or have done some- thing severely malicious, I don’t think liability is that serious to the worker.” Phillip Legg, assistant research di- rector at IWA-CANADA and a member of the Task Force that set up the pro- gram, agrees that the course is for training peers and that “no doubt a lot of management personnel left the course knowing that they were the wrong ones for it.” He says that the only way that the course will work is if “loggers are training loggers,” and that workers un- derstand exactly what peer training means. Legg also says that companies that share power and information are those companies which are more like- ly to succeed under the new Code. “If you're going to be a successfully company, you're going to be one that allows a lot more hands on activity,” he adds. The pilot project is moving on to other areas of the province, including the northern and southern interior. ¢ At the sessions, the IWA’s Phillip Legg, who is a member of the Forest Prac- tices Code Industry Training Task Force, addresses delegates.