Four British Columbia high school students have won awards in WorkSafeBC’s 6th annual student safety video contest.

This year’s contest featured the theme “Overexposed! What you may not see can kill you,” which focused on hidden hazards that can turn out to be deadly. The theme was chosen in order to educate young workers that exposure to some hazards today can have an impact later in life.

In all, the competition featured 42 submissions received from 19 schools and 145 participating students. The contest was open to all high-school students, with a teacher providing project supervision and final approval of the video. The entries were judged based on their impact, their safety message, original creative concept, and technical execution. Judges also considered how well they provided a youth perspective on workplace safety, and how well safety messages targeted young workers and their peer groups.

The first place team in each category will share $500, with their school receiving another $2,000. The second place teams each win $500, and $1,500 for the schools, and the honourable mention team receives $500.

The winners are:

Grades 8–10
First Place: Noise, by Port Moody Secondary School
Second Place: Why endanger your life?, by Ladysmith Secondary School

Grades 11–12
First Place: Open your eyes, by Penticton Secondary School
Second Place: A mouldy surprise, by Chatelech Secondary School (Sechelt)
Honourable Mention: Distraction, by Chatelech Secondary School (Sechelt)

The winning videos can be viewed here. After last year’s contest, more than 10,000 YouTube visitors saw the winning videos.

According to the latest WorkSafeBC report, four Vancouver Island companies have been fined by WorkSafeBC for unsafe working conditions or practices, including several that didn’t necessarily end in injury or tragedy.

The largest of the fines was the $15,000 assessed on Dogwood Street 7-Eleven Canada Inc in Campbell River for what they referred to as “numerous health and safety violations.” The report noted that the business had failed to ensure that records of worker injuries and exposures were kept on site; that it had failed to provide appropriate emergency washing facilities for workers who may have been exposed to harmful materials; and that it failed to provide proper instruction to its workers as to how to report and document incidents of workplace violence.

Cei Industries Ltd., also of Campbell River, was fined $5,373 for allowing its staff to work too close to live high-voltage power lines. WorkSafeBC said the company allowed work to continue on a structural steel building that was too close to live power lines, in violation of the requirement to maintain the minimum applicable distance between workers and live high-voltage equipment and conductors.

The agency also fined Coast Outdoor Advertising of Ladysmith $7,844 after one of its workers was severely burned and fell 8.5 metres, after a metal rod he was using came into contact with a live overhead power line.

In addition to those fines, Arbutus Environmental Services was fined $13,109 for not properly training a driver.

WorkSafeBC intends for its administrative penalties for health and safety violations to motivate as many employers as possible to comply with the Workers Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation. They consider such fines when an employer commits a violation resulting in high risk of serious injury, serious illness, or death, is caught with several violations, fails to comply with an order within a reasonable amount of time, or demonstrates reckless disregard for regulations.

WorkSafeBC handed down a lot of penalties for safety violations in 2010, but among the largest fines were those handed down to Marine Harvest Canada, Western Forest Products and Diveco Marine Ltd, a Powell River diving company.

The final 2010 WorkSafeBC report, released last week, shows that Diveco was fined $100,000 after one of its divers was fatally injured while diving to recover dead fish from a Marine Harvest fish farm pen at Lochalsh Bay on September 12, 2007. As he ascended rapidly to the surface from a depth of 31.5 m (103 ft.), he experienced an air embolism, lost consciousness and drowned. According to a WorkSafeBC investigation, the company did not have adequate safety procedures for diving operations, and it failed to provide its workers with the information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure their health and safety.

Another fine of $75,000 was assessed against Marine Harvest Canada of Campbell River, in connection with the same incident. The same WorkSafeBC investigation concluded that, as the prime contractor of a multiple-employer workplace, the company failed to coordinate the health and safety activities of all employers, workers, and others at the workplace, and it failed to establish and maintain a system to ensure compliance with the Workers Compensation Act and Occupational Health and Safety regulations.

Meanwhile, Western Forest Products Inc. was fined $75,000 following the death of a logger near Gold River on February 12, 2008. In that incident, two company tree fallers were cutting down trees within two tree-lengths of one another near the Galiano Forest Road. One faller cut down a tree that ended up striking and killing the other faller. A WorkSafeBC investigation into that accident concluded that the company failed to ensure that its fallers worked the required minimum two tree-length distance from each other, and that it failed to provide its workers with adequate supervision and instruction.

While last year WorkSafeBC imposed 256 penalties totaling more than $3 million against employers for violations of Occupational Health and Safety Regulations and the Workers Compensation Act, the agency notes that they only penalize those employers who are unmotivated by other means to keep their workplaces healthy and safe. A penalty is generally not imposed if an employer is found to have taken all reasonable steps to prevent violations that can lead to serious injury or death.

WorkSafeBC is an independent provincial statutory agency that serves about 2.3 million workers and more than 200,000 employers. Their enforcement arm includes officers who investigate serious workplace health and safety incidents, as well as occupational safety and hygiene officers who conduct inspections, respond to reported incidents and provide consultation and education to help achieve compliance.

WorkSafeBC has issued their enforcement report for 2010, and there were a lot of problems.

For the year, WorkSafeBC imposed 256 penalties totaling $3,163,898 against 232 different employers for violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation and the Workers Compensation Act. The amounts of individual penalties ranged from $1,000 on the low end to $145,046.98 on the high end. A total of 12 such incidents involved a fatality.

The high end penalty of $145,046.98 was imposed against Penfolds Roofing for an incident in which two of its workers were working on a roof between 4.5 m and 6 m above grade without using fall protection. The penalty was assessed in part because it was a repeat violation of the fall protection requirements as well as a violation of the requirement to provide workers with the information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure their safety.

While companies from 58 industry classifications received penalties in 2010, those employers in five construction-related classifications accounted for 65% of the penalties imposed. Those classifications were:
• Steep Slope Roofing – 34.7%
• House or Other Wood Frame General Contracting, Construction or Renovation Work – 11.3%
• Framing or Residential Forming – 10.9%
• Low Slope Roofing – 4.68% (12)
• Industrial, Commercial, Institutional or Highrise Residential General Contracting or Construction – 3.9%

WorkSafeBC has stepped up enforcement in recent years, as it increased the number of compliance and safety officers by 33%, from 185 in 2004 to 247 in 2010, so expect those numbers to rise in the future, unless companies work harder to make their workplaces safer.

If you’d like to see the 2010 penalty list or the Top 10 penalties , click on the links.

WorkSafeBC handed down a lot of penalties for safety violations in 2010, but among the largest fines were those handed down to Marine Harvest Canada, Western Forest Products and Diveco Marine Ltd, a Powell River diving company.

The final 2010 WorkSafeBC report, released last week, shows that Diveco was fined $100,000 after one of its divers was fatally injured while diving to recover dead fish from a Marine Harvest fish farm pen at Lochalsh Bay on September 12, 2007. As he ascended rapidly to the surface from a depth of 31.5 m (103 ft.), he experienced an air embolism, lost consciousness and drowned. According to a WorkSafeBC investigation, the company did not have adequate safety procedures for diving operations, and it failed to provide its workers with the information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure their health and safety.

Another fine of $75,000 was assessed against Marine Harvest Canada of Campbell River, in connection with the same incident. The same WorkSafeBC investigation concluded that, as the prime contractor of a multiple-employer workplace, the company failed to coordinate the health and safety activities of all employers, workers, and others at the workplace, and it failed to establish and maintain a system to ensure compliance with the Workers Compensation Act and Occupational Health and Safety regulations.

Meanwhile, Western Forest Products Inc. was fined $75,000 following the death of a logger near Gold River on February 12, 2008. In that incident, two company tree fallers were cutting down trees within two tree-lengths of one another near the Galiano Forest Road. One faller cut down a tree that ended up striking and killing the other faller. A WorkSafeBC investigation into that accident concluded that the company failed to ensure that its fallers worked the required minimum two tree-length distance from each other, and that it failed to provide its workers with adequate supervision and instruction.

While last year WorkSafeBC imposed 256 penalties totaling more than $3 million against employers for violations of Occupational Health and Safety Regulations and the Workers Compensation Act, the agency notes that they only penalize those employers who are unmotivated by other means to keep their workplaces healthy and safe. A penalty is generally not imposed if an employer is found to have taken all reasonable steps to prevent violations that can lead to serious injury or death.

WorkSafeBC is an independent provincial statutory agency that serves about 2.3 million workers and more than 200,000 employers. Their enforcement arm includes officers who investigate serious workplace health and safety incidents, as well as occupational safety and hygiene officers who conduct inspections, respond to reported incidents and provide consultation and education to help achieve compliance.

WorkSafeBC has issued their enforcement report for 2010, and there were a lot of problems.

For the year, WorkSafeBC imposed 256 penalties totaling $3,163,898 against 232 different employers for violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation and the Workers Compensation Act. The amounts of individual penalties ranged from $1,000 on the low end to $145,046.98 on the high end. A total of 12 such incidents involved a fatality.

The high end penalty of $145,046.98 was imposed against Penfolds Roofing for an incident in which two of its workers were working on a roof between 4.5 m and 6 m above grade without using fall protection. The penalty was assessed in part because it was a repeat violation of the fall protection requirements as well as a violation of the requirement to provide workers with the information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure their safety.

While companies from 58 industry classifications received penalties in 2010, those employers in five construction-related classifications accounted for 65% of the penalties imposed. Those classifications were:

• Steep Slope Roofing  – 34.7%
• House or Other Wood Frame General Contracting, Construction or Renovation Work – 11.3%
• Framing or Residential Forming – 10.9%
• Low Slope Roofing – 4.68% (12)
• Industrial, Commercial, Institutional or Highrise Residential General Contracting or Construction – 3.9%

WorkSafeBC has stepped up enforcement in recent years, as it increased the number of compliance and safety officers by 33%, from 185 in 2004 to 247 in 2010, so expect those numbers to rise in the future, unless companies work harder to make their workplaces safer.

If you’d like to see the 2010 penalty list or the Top 10 penalties , click on the links.

British Columbia Provincial Court Judge Terese Alexander has handed the United Steelworkers Union a victory in its fight to see that Weyerhaeuser faces criminal charges in the death of a B.C. sawmill worker more than six years ago, when she ruled that the union presented enough evidence to proceed.

The worker at the Weyerhaeuser sawmill in New Westminster, Lyle Hewer, died on November 17, 2004 when he walked into the bottom of a hopper that fed wood waste into a grinding machine, called a hog. The wood waste that had been wedged above him came loose and rained down on him, killing him.

A report by WorkSafeBC investigators noted that Weyerhaeuser management knew that unclogging the machine was very dangerous, since a worker had previously been injured doing it, but they did nothing about about the situation, out of concerns for costs. In fact, entering the machine from underneath was still common practice at the time of the accident, even though it violated safety regulations.

In 2007, WorkSafeBC levied a $297,000 fine against Weyerhaeuser for the accident, saying safety risks were ignored at the mill. At the time, the fine was the highest the workers compensation agency had ever issued.

Police also investigated the incident at the time, and recommended criminal charges against the company. The Crown concluded, however, that although it would be in the public interest to prosecute, it was unlikely that a prosecution would proceed. Because of this, the union launched its own private investigation, which led them to conclude that there was enough evidence to charge Weyerhaeuser with criminal negligence in Hewer’s death. When they present the evidence to the judge, she agreed.

The judge’s ruling means Weyerhaeuser will be issued a summons to appear in court, and the Crown will be forced to either decide to proceed with a charge or have the case dropped.

According to a preliminary report by WorkSafeBC, a worker who died two days after he fell 14 metres while working on the sails at Canada Place on Dec. 2 “was not using a personal fall protection system” at the time of the accident.

Apparently, the 30-year-old worker, Diego Herrera, was wearing a safety harness, but that harness was unattached  when he fell through what the report describes as a “mouse hole” in the sails.

An inspection report taken at the work site also noted a number of violations of safety regulations at the work site, including ropes, straps, webbing, electrical cords and construction debris around the mouse hole in violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation. The report made it clear that there were grounds for imposing an administrative penalty against Birdair Inc. of Amherst, N.Y, the company that was hired to replace the sails at Canada Place by Ledcor Construction Ltd., which is managing the project on behalf of Canada Place Corporation.

The report read, “The employer did not have a fall protection plan for the sealing up of the mouse hole. The mouse hole was not guarded or guard-railed. The area in front of the mouse hole had many slip and trip hazards.”

No further action will be taken, however, until WorkSafeBC’s investigation of the incident is complete.

WorkSafeBC regulations stipulate that an employer must have a fall protection system in place when work is being done at heights of 3 metres or more. The $21-million project to replace the sails — originally erected in 1984 — began in July 2010 and is expected to be completed later this year.

Nearly two years after three of their workers were killed and two received major brain injuries after being overcome by toxic fumes, the operators of a mushroom farm near Vancouver were finally charged with a series of offences under British Columbia’s labour laws last week.

A total of 29 charges under the Workers Compensation Act and Occupational Health and Safety Regulations were brought against two companies; A-1 Mushroom Substratum Ltd., H.V. Truong Ltd.; and four individuals — Ha Qua Troung, Vy Tri Trong, Van Thi Truong and Thinh Huu Doan — who are either officers or directors of those companies.  Among the charges were; failing to ensure the health and safety of workers;  failing to fix hazardous conditions; failing to ensure workers are aware of safety hazards; inadequate training; and failing to create an adequate safety plan.

The incident that led to the charges occurred on Sept. 5, 2008, when a group of workers at a mushroom farm and composting plant in Langley were overcome by toxic fumes in a shed. What happened inside that shed set off what WorkSafeBC considers to be one the most complex investigations in the agency’s history.

According to investigators, a pipe carrying a compost mixture broke and released a toxic gas. Two men were overcome by the fumes relatively quickly, and when co-workers came to their aid, several of them were also overcome. Three workers died, including one of the rescuers. One worker is still in a coma and another was left unable to speak or hear.

The New Democrats and the British Columbia Federation of Labour, among others, have called for a public inquiry into overall farmworker safety, and also called for changes to the province’s agriculture industry. The Federation claims that the company offered a single pamphlet on working in confined spaces at the work site. Unfortunately, the pamphlet was available only in English, despite the fact that the workers involved were Vietnamese-Canadians, and spoke very little English.

This particular incident isn’t the only case in recent years involving the deaths of British Columbia farmworkers. In March 2007, three farmworkers were killed when a 15-passenger van carrying 17 people flipped onto a concrete median on the Trans-Canada Highway near Abbotsford. In that case, the deaths were ruled accidental, although the coroner’s jury made18 recommendations, including ensuring farmworkers are better informed about their rights.

On August 27, 2010, at 6:00 p.m., injured worker and Paralympics medalist Josh Dueck took to Empire Field and the Pacific National Exhibition in British Columbia to attempt to break a world record for the “most High Fives by any individual in 24 hours.” The record attempt was part of WorkSafeBC’s Raise Your Hand campaign — an annual initiative to increase young workers’ understanding of their safety rights and how to stay safe at work.

Dueck became paralyzed from the waist down in a workplace accident at the age of 23. Since then, he has become a world-champion para-alpine skier. He has won national and international competitions and recently won a silver medal at the 2010 Paralympics Winter Games. And as a member of the WorkSafeBC Paralympics Speaker program, he has shared his experiences with youth across British Columbia for the past several years.

Since 2007,  the Raise Your Hand campaign has used its website at RaiseYourHand.com, street teams that travel to high schools and universities around the province, and other means to raise awareness about workplace safety to the province’s 350,000 young workers.