MaryAnne Arcand, may she rest in peace, understood that workplace safety is more than program brought in by management and/or government to help prevent workers from getting injured.
If safety isn't an essential part of the workplace culture, it has little chance of success.
Because of that understanding, she hit the road after joining the Forestry Safety Council, getting out into the bush to talk to the guys (and they're all guys) about coming home alive. She asked them if their job was worth dying for and how many more close calls could they have before their luck ran out. She stressed to them that they had loved ones counting on them and if they loved their friends and families, they should be doing more to keep themselves and each other safe.
She reminded them of what they already knew - that they do dangerous work and the responsibility for taking care of their personal safety while on the job started with them, not anybody else.
Arcand knew she had common sense on her side but she also recognized the obstacles in her way. The workplace culture across the forestry sector, in the bush and in the mills, actively discouraged safety.
Ownership and management said all the right things about safety on the job and satisfying safety inspections but also set high productivity goals in short time periods and then played dumb, knowing full well the first corner cut would be safety. Meanwhile, the union leadership were thrilled their members were working and hauling in good money. They fought for wages and benefits but didn't make worker safety a priority.
But the workers themselves were a big part of the problem. Every professional environment populated exclusively by men is flush with testosterone and machismo. Toughness and endurance are praised while weakness and fatigue are signs of failure. It's get the job done, no matter what, and if you can't get the job done, make way for a man who can. Getting your hands dirty and taking risks defines both the job and the man who does the work.
Arcand was successful because she spoke bluntly and she challenged that macho attitude. A real man doesn't get his stupid ass killed for nothing, in a workplace accident that was preventable. A real man works hard for his money but then goes home to take care of the truly important business of being a dad, a husband, a brother, a son, a neighbour and a friend. A real man has the courage to say "stop, this isn't safe."
Spot the lady with a psychology and social work background. She knew what made forestry men tick and she knew nothing would change unless they decided it was the right thing to do for themselves.
But owners, management and government still have a role to play.
"Could we have done more to encourage our employees to speak up if they felt there were safety issues?" Sinclar Group Forest Products president Greg Stewart asked when reacting Tuesday to the decision by the Criminal Justice Branch not to pursue charges against the company for the deadly Lakeland Mills explosion and fire.
"In hindsight, perhaps," he said.
Wrong answer.
His response should have been the same as the one he gave when he asked "could we have done a better job of controlling dust?" and that's "in hindsight, yes."
When workers see a foreman shut down a line to examine and fix a potential safety hazard, knowing that supervisor is going to have to account for that drop in productivity, they see a supervisor that's got their back. When management disciplines supervisors and staff for unsafe work practices (and the unions support that discipline), workers start to understand that doing a great job also means doing it safely.
Demanding an ethic of safety in the forestry sector is a never-ending job. There is no "perhaps" about it. If Stewart is truly serious about earning back the trust of his sawmill staff, the best place for him to start will be the safety file. It's not enough to say workers will have the right to refuse unsafe work without repercussions. Workers shouldn't be put in that position in the first place and the onus falls on leadership to prevent that from happening.
And if government is truly serious about sawmill safety, a public inquiry, not two separate coroner's inquests, would be the proper course of action.
