I have before me –
as I write this –
the list of fatal accidents reported by the B.C. logging industry for
the year 1979. The figures are appalling. They show a quite dramatic
increase in fatals over 1978. In totals they read, 1978 – 47 and
1979 – 61.
....These are not statistics – they
are people. Our own British Columbia people. These are unforgivable
figures to many lonesome people in our pro-vince. Those lonesome people
remem-ber. We must remember too.
....In the horror of world tragedies today,
it is natural for most young people going about their daily routines
to harden themselves to the hostage takings, the assassinations, the
mass killings that are a part of the evening television news hour. And
sadly, it seems that such affairs will only get more severe as the bitterness
of minorities and revolutionary groups grows. We are helpless to do
very much about such world tragedies. But we must not let this horror
of other places dull our sense of responsibility, so needed now, to
our own people.
....The figures I have quoted are from
the Workers’ Compensation Board of B.C. They are the reported
figures, they are not necessarily all directly attributable to an “on-the-job
in an eight hour day “ accident. Included in the figures, as they
have been for the twenty-five years that I know of, are those of the
work force killed in air, land or sea accidents, while possibly on their
way to a job. Last year eight such cases occurred. In 1978 there were
three. In all these cad figures there is always a carryover of accidents
that became fatal the following year.
....I state the above not to soften the
blow, but to bring realism to such reports. I have heard those who would
even argue with the figures saying that sometimes certain of the cases
are not really “on the job” accidents. I am convinced that
they are reasonably consistent down through the years and
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that to question whether three or four of the cases are compensible
or not is a very moot point. The figures rep-resent people – B.C.
People who died because of a related accident asso-ciated with the workplace.
They are still unforgivable figures.
....Words and words and words are written
and said about our industrial accidents. I have spent 35 years saying
those words, listening to them, writing them and reading them. The accidents
are no different now, in the logging industry, than they were in 1945
except the machines involved may be different.
....A careless act by the deceased has
nearly always been the major cause of death in our hazardous workplace,
the forest. Looking over the description of the fatal accidents for
all these years one is always shocked to see the sameness involved in
the causes. The log, hooked in the middle, upended. The snag coming
backwards at the faller. The vehicle going to fast. The sadness lies
in the sameness of the accidents.
....There can be no doubt as to the sincerity
of so many in this industry as to wanting to see a reduction in this
terrible toll against life. But sincerity is not enough. Action and
a change in attitudes about accident prevention will be the only answer
accepted on the fatals reports in say 1990. And that attitude must change,
through management and labor and from big or small, organized or unorganized.
....Accident prevention and safety have
for the most part delegated to camp committees, managers and a few dedicated
safety instructors who generally work apart from each other. Where there
once was some form of big company safety co-ordinated training program,
now the individual companies look after their own individual programs.
The WCB has the only co-ordinated accident prevention teaching body
in our province. But we know it is a large industry that cannot be reached
by just one group. There
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