Union says new WCB regs are improvement by Dan Keeton hen Bob Patterson agreed to become part of the team that helped revamp Work- ers Compensation regulations in British Columbia, he was told the process would take about 24 months. “Naively, I believed them” jokes the safety director for Local 2171, at the local union’s office in Courte- nay. His role in the process wound up taking five years of his life — time he considers well spent. -On April 15 the new WCB Occu- pational Health and Safety Regula- tion came into effect. Patterson, who sat on the Regulation Advisory Committee during the long, exhaus- tive process, believes the new rules are the best that could be achieved at this time. “Could they be better, in my opin- ion? — absolutely,” Patterson remarks. “But I take great comfort that this is to be an ongoing process.” “It’s a process that was long over- due,” adds Gerry Smith, another participant and I.W.A. CANADA’s National Benefits Representative. The new OH&S Regulation — the Board uses the singular as a title on three books containing 33 Parts, Sections and Subsections — groups the rules into three categories. Parts 1-4 cover Core Requirements; Parts 5-19 are General Hazard Require- ments; Parts 20-33 deal with Indus- try/Activity Specific Requirements. A fourth book provides a users guide and an index. dim Parker also thinks the over- haul was overdue. The former health and safety director for Local 217 (mow merged into Local 2171 in Van- couver says, “This was trying to take our 20 years of injuries and experience and put it into improve- ments. It’s a huge task to upgrade 20 years of regulations all in one step. What if we only upgraded com- puters once every 20 years?” Parker notes that about one-third of the rules have stayed the same while another third were somewhat changed with the final third being entirely new. The new rules reflect the greatly increased understanding about workplace hazards since the rules were last overhauled in 1978. They acknowledge the phenomenon known as repetitive strain injury, virtually unknown 20 years ago. bd JUST ASK YOUR EMPLOYER! Union members on joint OH&S committees have the new WCB regulations. Why not use them? coming year. enforced consistently. your workplace. ¢ Ask your employer when and where your annual day of paid educational leave for OH&S training will take place. ¢ Ask your employer for a schedule of OH&S meetings for the ¢ Ask your employer to ensure that lock-out procedures are well understood by both management and your crew and are ¢ Ask your employer for MSDS sheets for every chemical in ¢ Ask your employer when your committee will receive formal training in conducting ergonomic assessments in their workplace. ° Ask your employer if the loads you are hauling are within the manufacturer’s recommended gross vehicle weight. The new regs say they have to be. If the load is too heavy ask, the employer for a copy of the engineering certification that modifications and | weights hauled over the gross vehicle weight are safe to haul. When the NDP government embarked on the revamping process back in 1992, it broke new ground. Previous rewrites usually came from the WCB itself, without consulta- tion with other groups — certainly not the workers whose lives were affected. This time, the government asked the stakeholders to partici- pate. The process involved 33 subcom- mittees comprising equal represen- tation from employers and workers, along with WCB staff. The subcom- mittees reported to a 20-member Regulation Advisory Committee which also reflected the employer- worker balance. “The committee gave its comments and arguments,” Patterson, a com- mittee member, relates. “After that it went to public hearings.” Five sets of hearings toured the province, touching all major centres, Patter- son notes. “I think they did a really good job of the public hearing process.” Gerry Smith, until recently health and safety director for Local 1-424 in Prince George, worked on the Wood Products Manufacturing sub- committee. Unlike many others, its members got along fairly well, he relates. “Our task was to make the rules less redundant, and easier to use and enforce. We combined several regulations into a few.” For exam- ple, Section 27-2 applies to guards on saws used in shake and shingle production. The old rules covered different types of hazards sepa- rately, with one set dedicated to fly- ing wood chips while another group dealt with protection from parts of the machinery itself coming loose. The new Regulation stipulates that guards must be designed to cover both situations. “We had only one point of con- tention, regarding high-speed cut- ting heads. We called for the instal- lation of dynamic brakes (that will stop the blades quickly and take the pressure off the worker to attempt a hazardous manual solution). One employer claimed it was a produc- tion issue; we said it-was a safety issue,” says Smith. Logging rules have also greatly improved although they fall short of the union’s demand, says Patterson. The new rules now require a manda- tory level of training and documen- tation. That’s positive, but “we’ve e The new regulations acknowledge repetitive strain injuries, virtually unknown 20 years ago been screaming for a mandatory certification process,” Patterson explains. “It’s the same as a driver’s licence, a diving ticket or a blasting ticket. The employer community has not supported our call for this.” Parker worked 1 1/2 years on the Occupational Hygiene subcommit- tee, which had the largest area of regulations to cover. Most other subcommittees met for around six months. The group examined some 6,000 substances to determine safe levels of exposure, including pesticides, carcinogens, and chemical and bio- logical substances along with condi- tions like noise, vibration and per- sonal protective equipment. The group of four worker and four employer reps, working with three WCB staff, reached consensus on almost all issues, Parker relates. But there were some key differ- ences, some of which proved unre- solvable at the sub-committee level. “We had problems over wood dust levels,” said Parker. The I.W.A. proposed a maximum of one mil- ligram per cubic metre for non-aller- genic softwoods — the same level as for other types of wood dust. Employer reps held out for five mil- ligrams. “It was eventually set at 2.5 with an agreement from the WCB that non-allergenic wood dust levels would be reviewed on a prior- ity basis,” says Parker. In addition to being on the occu- pational hygiene sub-committee, in the last year of the process, Parker was appointed to the advisors Advi- sors for Regulation Review (ARR), which was the subsequent name for the Regulation Advisory Commit- tee. On the committee, Brother Parker was most concerned about training of occupational health and safety committee members. The employer and worker repre- sentatives stalemated on training for members of safety committees. The new rules call for one day of training per year, “and that’s grossly inadequate,” Parker contends. “I would say a minimum of five days is needed, at least for first year com- mittee members.” LUMBERWORKER/SEPTEMBER, 1998/11 A union-sponsored group called WOSH BC — Workers Occupational Safety and Health — has proposed - occupational health and safety cen- tres to the WCB. Parker says the agency would be one where “work- ers deliver training to workers.” It would be similar to the system in Ontario, he notes. “T’ve gone to several fatalities and accidents, and the major cause is people are not knowledgeable about the most basic risk assessments and protection procedures,” says Parker. Improved training and education in health and safety would prevent much death and injury.” If there’s a key disappointment, it’s the way the issue of ergonomics is treated. Studies over the last two decades have revealed a high per- centage of injuries are musculoskele- tal — a new word that encompasses injuries caused by repetitive motions. Yet it produced a “huge, acrimonious debate” on the commit- tees and subcommittees, says Pat- terson. “The WCB didn’t have the balls or political will to institute a failsafe process,” he charges. The WCB compliance strategy for the first year of the regulation is that. Orders will be written on vio- lations, however, recommendations for penalty assessments will not be levied for the first offence only, dur- ing that first year. “Most employers will say they don’t have to worry about for a year,” remarks Parker. “We really needed structures to train and educate workers.” Patterson and Parker are count- ing on Bill 14, the proposed Health and Safety Act which received Royal assent on July 30. It will ensure a review of the WCB Regulation every two years. “I take some comfort in that,” says Patterson. “Employers see the potential costs, while we see the potential savings,” says Smith. “The savings are not having to pay benefits for musculoskeletal injuries, and in the longevity of highly trained workers working within their abilities.”