The Marxist-Leninist Daily

With utmost contempt for the BC government which refuses to hold the monopolies in forestry to account for their endangerment of the lives and limbs of the workers they employ, TML is deeply sorry to inform its readers of the death of a fifth sawmill worker killed on the job in BC this year.

At about 3:30 am Thursday May 3, subcontractor George Park Jr. was killed while working near conveyor belts at the Canfor-owned Plateau Sawmill in Vanderhoof, BC. George was employed by the contracting firm BID Group since November 2011. The young worker lived with his family in Kamloops. BID CEO Brian Fehr said the deceased worker was a certified millwright and that his father and two brothers have also worked for the company. A preliminary report from Worksafe BC indicates George Park may have been working where a gate separating conveyor belts was not properly secured.

USW Local 1-424 is the certified trade union in the mill, but its certification does not cover subcontracted workers. The tragic accident took place only hours before the funeral began of a Local 1-424 member killed at the April 23 Lakeland mill explosion.

Shannon Euverman, third Vice-president of Local 1-424 told TML that the language governing what work can or cannot be subcontracted out is different for different sections of the local. Generally, the language rotates around the idea that work done by regular employees cannot be subcontracted. She said mills still have a compliment of trades workers, electricians, millwrights, mechanics and others, but a major problem facing the sawmilling industry is a shortage of skilled tradespeople. "Generally they want to go where the money is and that's in the oil and gas fields and mines," she said.

While an apprenticeship program for raising the skills of millworkers exists, the union has been negotiating with the government to raise the number, Euverman said.

Regarding the death of George Park, Euverman expressed her condolences to the family. She said news of this latest tragedy has had a particularly traumatic effect on everyone given the loss of four workers in just three months due to the explosions in Burns Lake and Prince George. She said the days when workers worked 8 hour shifts in a five day work week, with weekends devoted to cleaning mills and maintaining machinery are long gone. Other millworkers and trade union officials have said this change in scheduling is a factor creating conditions for explosions and other accidents.

Concern is mounting over the carnage in BC mills. TML spoke with a mill inspector highly trained at evaluating the safety of machinery and other engineering features in major industrial sites across BC. He is now working in a sawmill in the Interior. He reports witnessing five small fires in the mill over the past two weeks and the safety response has been to have a worker walk around carrying a hose as a regular duty.

"In my opinion," he said, "the mills are running on a relatively small profit margin because of the [Canada/U.S.] softwood agreement and other factors. They are all 'time-bombs' because they're full of sawdust, and no regular time is made for clean up and proper maintenance." He said on condition of anonymity that he thinks the owners simply do not want to invest in dust removal equipment, which is easily available and easy to assemble. This is because "It's expensive!" he concluded.

TML condemns the BC government for refusing to hold the mill owners to account, for refusing to train enough skilled tradespeople, for permitting contracting out without union control and for making health and safety the responsibility of individual workers, not the owners.

This year's Day of Mourning for Injured Workers in Prince George, BC (left) took on special significance because of the two deaths at the Lakeland Mills sawmill explosion just days before. Several workers remain in intensive care battling for their lives. In Burns Lake (right), more than 300 people gathered to take part in the first Day of Mourning event amid growing concern and anger that the January 20 mill explosion that claimed two lives at the Babine Forest Products sawmill is part of a pattern and not a one-time event. (BC Federationist, Worksafe BC)

Hold Governments to Account for Refusing to Provide Workers' Health and Safety with a Guarantee

Who must be held to account for the Babine Lake and Lakeland sawmill explosions, deaths, injuries, loss of livelihoods and damage to the local economies?

The two massive explosions and fires first at Babine Forest Products sawmill in Burns Lake on January 20 and then Lakeland Mills sawmill in Prince George on April 23 killed four workers and injured 38, seven of whom remain in hospital. The explosions destroyed the livelihoods of over 450 mill workers and an uncounted number of jobs for loggers, truck drivers and mill subcontractors, all of which is a huge blow to the local economies. There is no indication the mills will be rebuilt.

Who must be held to account for the deaths, injuries, loss of livelihoods and blow to the local economies?

The immediate discourse of company officials, the Workers' Compensation Board (now Worksafe BC), Minister of Labour and others in the industry was that these explosions were unique, unknown before in the history of BC sawmilling.

The first tragic explosion in Burns Lake was attributed to a "perfect storm" of many factors unlikely to recur. The second explosion just three months later in Prince George raised more seriously the matter of dust accumulation in the mills. The Minister of Labour, Margaret MacDairmid, ordered on April 25 that all mill owners in the province bring dust levels "up to current standards." However, a review of Worksafe BC Regulations shows that "current standards" have nothing specific to say about the danger of sawdust accumulation in sawmills. Section 9.9.2 (b) has a general reference to a "hazard assessment" having to take "combustible dust" into account.

The Globe and Mail reports that Worksafe BC on April 27, 2010 issued a series of warnings about the danger of dust explosions. The warnings include specific description about how a primary explosion can set off an even more deadly explosion by shaking loose more sawdust. The Globe writes, "The document offers advice on dust-collection devices, as well as a reminder of BC Fire Code regulations on their use. It urges operators to assess their facilities, provide written dust- control programs for staff and train staff. 'The dust-control program should be communicated to all workers and include training on the program elements, including hazard awareness, specific safe work procedures, hazcom documentation and emergency preparedness.'"[1]

The talk from officialdom about the Burns Lake and Prince George explosions being unique or a "perfect storm" is further debunked in another recent article. Reporter Gordon Hoekstra documents the following explosions, which ought to have put every mill owner on notice that their mills were potential explosion sites:

1) an explosion in January 2011 at Tolko's Soda Cree sawmill in Williams lake caused by dust creating a fire in the walls difficult to extinguish;

3) an explosion in the company's Williams Lake plant in August 2009 caused by dust mixed with air and set off with a spark;

4) an explosion at Pacific Bioenergy's pellet plant in Prince George in December 2010 where dust ignited by a spark was cited as cause;

In addition to these five foretelling explosions, a small explosion took place at the Burns Lake Babine Forest Products mill in February 2011, eleven months before the entire mill was destroyed in the horrific explosion. The article cites a BC Safety Authority report saying unusually dry sawdust was the cause of that 2011 incident. Another case cited was "an explosion linked to dust at Canfor's Chetwynd sawmill in 2005 where work on a shutdown burner created a cloud of dust that was ignited by cutting torches. At least one worker was injured and taken to hospital."[2]

This information recently revealed to the public means that those responsible for safety oversight in the mills did nothing about these warnings. Primarily responsible are the mill owners and Worksafe BC. They have the fiduciary responsibility to ensure workers attend a safe work site. They failed to do so and did not do so having ample warning that the accumulation of sawmill dust is explosive. In short, they allowed workers to enter work sites knowing the danger of explosions was real.

The mill owners themselves blurt out their pragmatic bottom line priorities. When asked directly about what they did to prevent an explosion, Greg Stewart the president of Sinclair Forest Group, owner of Lakeland, is quoted saying, "We did ramp up our housekeeping crew.... We were in the process of investigating a vacuum system to install in the mill.... You're not going to install a system like a vacuum system overnight."[3]

The question workers have a right to ask is "why not?" Sufficient evidence points at the failure to do so cost two workers their lives, injured 13 others, some severely, and destroyed the Prince George mill. There were plenty of precedent explosions and a warning by Worksafe BC in 2010. Yet Stewart expresses a reluctance to "install a ... vacuum system overnight" even though there was no "overnight" emergency -- it was developing for months. In short, the owners have a clearly stated reluctance to invest in possibly expensive but essential dust removal systems to protect the workers' lives, limbs and worksites despite knowing the dangers which exist. Four major sawmills in BC have burned to the ground in less than four years; not one has been rebuilt. This not only speaks to an even larger overall crisis facing the wood industry in BC but to definite negligence on the part of owners.

The criminal law says if an employer sends workers to a work place where there is clear and apparent danger to their lives, and a life is lost, it is a criminal offensive punishable by time in jail. Would the workers at Burns Lake and Prince George not be justified to demand these wealthy mill owners be so charged?

There is another factor and player responsible, namely, the third party companies hired by mill owners to look after "risk assessment" and safety as well as relations with Worksafe BC. Part of the neoliberal corporate agenda is to privatize government agencies set up to monitor the owners of capital, whether to protect the public from food poisoning or protect work sites from hazardous conditions. In northern BC, many owners of heavy industry have outsourced this responsibility to a company called International Quest Engineering (IQE) in Prince George. The company's services include "Health, Safety and Environment Policy (HSE)."[4]

IQE boasts they, "Always strive to lead by example and promote a pro-active safety-first culture." According to their website, they "Plan our jobs to eliminate any risk to manpower, equipment and the environment and maintain the highest possible standard of accident prevention measures at all times." Among their clients, they list several major wood and mining monopolies including Hampton (Babine Forest Products) in Burns Lake, and Lakeland in Prince George.[5]

Some important questions need to be asked. Did IQE have a contract to oversee safety in these two mills? If yes, were they aware of the April 27, 2010 warning of Worksafe BC? Were they aware of the five preceding explosions in BC sawmills? Did they instruct their clients to take urgent engineering precautions in the plants to prevent the catastrophic explosions that occurred? If they monitored safety conditions, did they notify Worksafe BC of the dust hazard?

Neil McManus, a consulting industrial hygienist at NorthWest Occupational Health & Safety makes the following important point about the role of an engineering company like IQE: "Engineering and safety are intimately related. Safety -- being the condition such that nobody will suffer accident injury or death at work -- is an outcome from good engineering. Engineering responds to safety issues through redesign and installation of structures to prevent harm to people."[6]

McManus, well respected in his field and author of a book about the use of portable dust filters, says there is no doubt in his mind that wood dust is the cause of the two major mill explosions. In his interview, he cited Brazil as a country where safety measures include companies having to take on one or more of "a safety technician, a safety engineer, a nurse and/or an occupational health physician" should risk assessment merit it. There is no such requirement in BC.

Another spokesperson familiar with the role of Worksafe BC as an agency totally at the service of the monopolies told TML, "Blaming the explosions on pine beetle logs is like asking how explosive is the gun powder?" Darrell Powell, injured shipyard worker and workers' safety advocate told TML that dust flash fires and explosions are well-known but the wood industry monopolies don't want to finance sufficient air cleaning apparatus to ensure the mills don't explode.

Sucha Deepak, retired business agent for USW Local 1-424 in Prince George told TML the change in name of Workers' Compensation Board to Worksafe was deliberate to put the onus for safety onto the workers. "The companies are responsible for safety. They must be held to account for these two major tragedies, the deaths and injuries. 'Worksafe' should properly be renamed 'Safework' to put the onus where it belongs, on the corporate owners," he said.

Sam Tom, union plant chairman of the Babine Forest Products mill in Burns Lake told TML another factor leading to the explosion was the undermining of workers' health and safety conditions caused by the shift changes dictated by the mill owners some years back. The companies went from an eight-hour workday five days a week to a 10-hour day seven days a week schedule. "The dust really accumulated after that because before that, weekends were used for clean up and serious mill maintenance. Now that doesn't happen, workers are exhausted and dangers keep mounting," he said.

A further factor Sam Tom cited was the change of the width of the steel saw blades. "By making them with finer steel they get more lumber from the logs. But those thin blades also make finer dust, just like flour."

He told TML that workers like himself now have to meet mortgage payments without employment. He said some workers found jobs in the Houston mill, but it is a one-and-a-half hour commute each way. Others went to Alberta, but some have since come back because of the bad working conditions there. Only half of the workers have picked up new jobs. The community is traumatized, and the government has done nothing for the families, not even expedite their EI claims which they promised, Tom concluded.

The BC government is fully responsible for its safety regulation agency Worksafe BC and it is fully responsible for what the mill owners do in BC. It is altogether wrong to suggest it shares responsibility with the mill owners because the former is a public authority responsible to the people of British Columbia and the latter are private interests responsible to their shareholders. The private interests will act to take whatever shortcuts they can get away with, which is precisely why the government must uphold public right not monopoly right. Worksafe BC issued a general warning in April 2010, but never imposed any specific regulations or orders on the owners. Why not? If Worksafe BC were serious about making sure the workplaces are safe, it is not hard to do what is needed. Despite this, to date no "shutdown" orders have been issued which must include full pay for all workers during the shutdown.

The government brags about its "job creation" initiatives but has done nothing to ensure sawmill jobs are safe. Premier Christy Clark flying off to Burns Lake and then Prince George to assure the communities that the "hearts and prayers" of British Columbians are with them does not make up for her government's irresponsibility for not overseeing safety in BC sawmills. Government workplace safety oversight in the interest of the public good is a key function of government. Without it, under the guise that corporations can oversee their own safety requirements, only the private interests of the mill owners have political clout. That is exactly the situation in Worksafe BC. It never conducts unannounced work site inspections, never keeps the private interests in check, but harasses injured workers on compensation into a living hell. Worksafe's main concern is ensuring massive "rebates" to companies for keeping their compensation payments low. Every dictate of the monopolies comes before the safety requirements of workers.

The mill owners must be held responsible by the BC government for the tragedies that occurred on January 20 and April 23 and the government's gross indifference and irresponsibility must be denounced. Workers need their collective organization and social consciousness to get the mills shut down with full pay until they are safe, the damage repaired and their livelihoods and local economies are restored.

No Production in Dust-Laden Sawmills that May Explode!
Full Compensation to Workers as Sawmills Are Made Safe!
No to Work on Unsafe Worksites!
Full Compensation for All Injured Workers, Bereaved Families
and All Those Who Have Lost Their Livelihoods!

1. "Two years before deadly explosions, warnings went out about sawdust danger," by Sunny Dhillon, Justin Hunter and Ian Baily, Globe and Mail, April 27, 2012.
2. "Wood dust linked to at least five explosions in B.C. mills" by Gordon Hoekstra, Vancouver Sun, April 28, 2012.
3. "Two years before deadly explosions, warnings went out about sawdust danger," by Sunny Dhillon, Justin Hunter and Ian Baily, Globe and Mail, April 27, 2012.
4. www.iqeng.com/Health-and-safety.php
5. www.iqeng.com/IQE-Clients-and- Case-Studies.php"iqeng.com/IQE-Clients-and-Case-Studies.php
6. "B.C. sawmill tragedy: How does dust explode?" Globe and Mail, April 27, 2012.

Our Coast, Our Decision! No Pipeline, No Tankers!

On March 31, outside the hall where the National Energy Board Joint Review Panel for the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project hearings were taking place, over 2,200 people from all over Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast gathered to express their determination to stop the Enbridge pipeline and to stop oil tanker traffic in BC coastal waters.

The rally began with a greeting from Andy Everson of the K'omoks First Nation on whose traditional territory the rally was held. He expressed his support for the stand of the First Nations in Northern BC against the pipeline and the determination of everyone to protect the life of the ocean waters of the coast. He brought with him stickers of the image on the drum he had made for the rally entitled "NoEnbridge."

The day before the rally Everson posted the following on Facebook: "I don't really have a strong activist mindset, but I know when something is really really wrong. I see hereditary chiefs on the news standing together against this pipeline. I respect them and honour them by doing my little part to support our traditional leaders. I just want to let them know that the Kwakwa_ka_'wakw here in the south stand together with them shoulder to shoulder. That river that flows through their village connects with the inlet in front of the next and that inlet's waters run right along the coast to our territory, as well. We're in this together!"

Following the welcome greeting from Andy Everson of the K'omoks First Nation, dancers and drummers performed. Ta'Kaiya Blaney, an 11-year-old girl from the Sliammon First Nation whose territory is near Powell River just across the Strait of Georgia from Comox, sang her song "Shallow Waters" and spoke of her determination to stop the pipeline. Many people from the Sliammon First Nation attended the rally.

Several speakers addressed the rally touching on different aspects of the broad opposition of the people of British Columbia to the Northern Gateway Project.

John Snyder, a local resident who lived for 42 years in Alaska and was there at the time of the Exxon Valdez spill which devastated the waters, fish, other wildlife and the local communities said the experience of the people of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico should be appreciated when Enbridge talks about mitigation of damages should there be a spill. Instead of mitigation, he urged prevention and prevention means no pipeline and no tankers.

Arthur Caldicott, an environmental researcher, Celine Trojand, a spokesperson for the NO TANKERS campaign of the Dogwood Initiative and Delores Broten, Editor of the Watershed Sentinel all spoke about the irreversible consequences of an inevitable spill from quarter mile long tankers navigating the narrow and often stormy waters of Douglas Channel from Kitimat to the open ocean. The BC ferry Queen of the North hit Gil Island at the entrance to Douglas channel in March of 2006 and is still submerged and leaking oil into the ocean.

David Lane, Environment Director for the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union/Canadian Autoworkers Union spoke of the serious consequences for fishers and fish plant workers from an inevitable oil spill in northern waters. The rally also received messages of support from Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and Elizabeth May, Green Party leader and MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands at the south end of Vancouver Island. Two NDP members of the provincial legislature Rob Fleming and Claire Trevena spoke briefly in support of the No Pipeline, No Tankers campaign.

Organizers of the rally had notified every MP and MLA from British Columbia and invited all to express their support. No one from the provincial Liberal, federal Liberal or Conservative parties responded.

Throughout the rally supportive chants of NO, NO, NO! rang out to support calls to stop the pipeline. Several of the people who made 10 minute presentations to the review panel came outside to attend the rally, which concluded with songs from the recently formed "Anti-Pipeline choir." Several hundred people then moved into a local school where discussion continued for another two hours.

Throughout the rally and following discussion at Robb Rd. school two themes emerged: First, the proposed Enbridge pipeline and oil tankers shipping oil to Asia through Northern BC waters must be stopped and the education and mobilization of the people stepped up. Second, we as Canadians need to take control of the decisions regarding extraction and development of our resources to protect the people, land and waters.

Fifth Sawmill Worker Killed on the Job This Year

Fifth Sawmill Worker Killed on the Job This Year

Hold Governments to Account for Refusing to Provide Workers' Health and Safety with a Guarantee

Our Coast, Our Decision! No Pipeline, No Tankers!