Faller and Bucker Training
Standards ready to go
Starting the last week of January
2003, the WCB, Industry and |WA
Canada will be launching the new
B.C. Faller and Bucker Training
Standard and certification program.
This will begin a two week pilot pro-
gram of extensive training to audit
the course materials. Workers’
Compensation Board regulations,
which came into effect on July 1/02,
mean that all fallers, experienced
ones as well, have to be certified
and trained to the new standards.
“There will be no surprises for
the guys who are experienced,”
says Al Lundgren, an ex-faller from
Local 1-80,
who assisted a
team in putting
together the
standards.
“Experienced
fallers will get

educational
materials
tees ahead of time
and will have
& All fallers will.
time to prepare
be trained. eee

for a written or
oral exam, depending on what
works best for them. Then they will
have qualified faller/trainers evalu-
ate their work on the sidehill,” says
Lundgren. For green trainees, the
two week course will include 30
days of one-on-one training, writing
of the same exam as the experi-
enced fallers, and then 180 days of
falling under closed supervision.

SAFER boat safety training
inquiries welcome
Any IWA member or other interest-
ed person or party in the industry or
others who wants information on
Transport Canada’s new certification
Procedures can contact Captian
Jimmy Watt
for informa-
tion, says
SAFER's boat
course coordi-
nator Tony
Petula. They
can simply e-
\ mail Jimmy at
the following
Bony Petula address for
information on a free basis:
jimmywatt@telus.net
| “Our members and others have
to know that if they have to operate
small, non-pleasurecraft, they will
Need one or more Transport Canada
Certificates,” says Brother Petula.
There is the MED-A4 cert on Basic
| Safety and Operator Proficiency in
Shelterd Waters, Basic Safety for
Small Non-Pleasurecraft A (MED A-
3), and the Small Non-Pleasurecraft
Operator Proficiency cert, which is
| Now the equivalent of the SAFER
| Small Commercial Vessel Operator
| Course. “Our members can find out
e they fit in and we can help
m out,” adds Brother Petula.
“Participants have to be registered
| by July, 2003.”

PHOTO BY DAN KEETON

= Crewboat Instructor Captain Jimmy Watt (second from left) instructs IWA crew on safe operating procedures.

NATIONAL SAFETY CERTIFICATION SPRINGS OUT OF SAFER INITIATIVE

SAFER on the waterfront

A LOT OF HARD WORK HAS paid off for the Safety
Advisory Foundation for Education and Research
(SAFER) which was notified officially in August by
Transport Canada that its small, non-pleasure craft oper-
ator profiency course for larger watercraft travelling 20
nautical miles or less, is now the national standard.
“Everyone refers to it as the SAFER course,” says former
national first vice president Neil Menard. “Now everone
will be required some sort of certification to operate or
crew on a commercial vessel. We're proud of this accom-
plishment and it shows what the union and industry can
do when they work together to protect workers.”

For the SAFER committtee, consisting of IWA and
industry reps on the B.C. Coast and southern Interior,
the certification respresents a victory after years of hard
work and lobbying at the federal level.

In 1995 Brother Menard, former Local 1-71 member
Gavin Eidler and other SAFER reps pointed out that
operators had no legal requirements to drive small com-
mercial vessels carrying workers to their jobs in the
industry. A tragic drowning of an IWA members in the
Queen Charlotte Islands two years earlier, spurred the

union to take action. After many visits to Ottawa and lob-
bying of Transport Canada officials, today’s break-
through can be celebrated.

Captain Jimmy Watt, who has worked with SAFER to
make it all happen, says that it was years of work not
knowing if any regulations would be required by law. He
operates West Coast Powerboat Handling, which actual-
ly developed the course.

“We are lucky to have worked with Jimmy,” says Brother
Menard. “He has a vast amount of experience and has
helped carry the torch forward.” For Tony Petula, an IWA
Local 2171 member from Interfor’s Shechelt Woodlands
operations, who has taken on the retired Brother Eidler’s
role as the SAFER boat coarse coordinator, it’s important
to get the word out there. “There are hundreds and hun-
dreds of workers being transported on the waters, includ-
ing loggers, fish farm workers and others who will benefit.
The ways it’s been ‘till now is that anybody could operate a
boat without training,” says Petula.

“All along we have worked with employers to make the
course not too tough or cumbersome,” says Watts. “It’s
not a course that is overregulated.”

A task to push ahead with

WITH ITS TASK FORCE report in
hand, (see stories pages ten and eleven)
an IWA delegation went to meet with
B.C. Liberal Labour Minister
Graham Bruce on November 20 to
raise the profile of health and safety
in the logging industry. The delega-
tion included then national first vice
president Neil Menard, national safe-
ty council chair Les Veale, Local 1-85
safety director George Rogers and
Local 2171 safety director Jim Parker.

“We think that Minister Bruce
understands the issues and it was
not hard to communicate our mes-
sage to him,” says Brother Menard.

= In October, members of the IWA Task force met with WCB and
industry representatives to discuss ways of implementing the report.

“But only time will tell what the
result will be.” The union is pushing
the government, the WCB, and
industry to work together to form a
forest industry safety association.

At the legislature Bruce was asked
to put pressure on the industry to
step forward. Bruce said that he
viewed the current structure of the

Board as an impediment which
could be fixed. “We asked for anoth-
er meeting with Bruce in Victoria in
January where the union will jointly
participate with the industry in the
2003 SAFER conference,” says
Brother Veale. The conference will
be at the Empress Hotel, next to the
legislature. On October 24 the IWA

met with Roberta Ellis, director of
the WCB prevention branch, indus-
try and WCB reps to discuss and look
for ways of implementing the report.

“At the meeting all sides recog-
nized that we have a role to play and
we have to make progress,” says
Veale. “It’s time for all of of us to
make the next move.”

DECEMBER 2002 THE ALLIED WORKER | 17