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Good to up to date on that stuff as it's probably time a few people might be sweating a bit, so I think it will be good to watch for this season especially when some late summer contracts bids come out. I hope you put more on here, its way easier than me searching for that type of stuff to just come here. But those contracts did look pretty small $$$ amount and I think I saw in that first attachment was surveys just to point out, as I recognized a few non planting companies. Probably smaller fill plant work maybe or does anyone know about these contracts?
I don't want to start the company slag, but I weren't some of the more aggressive companies other than one Vancouver based company located in the area? I'm not exactly sure where everyone is based out of as I've heard good things about one or two of the low bidders.
Thanks Sebastian, yes I do agree ALL Sebastian are good people.
Crap! yeah, I goofed... Don't know how I didn't notice that was a survey bid sheet... And yeah, the summer contracts should be pretty interesting to take a look at. It's too bad all we see are the BCTS bids. It would be nice to see how the bidding works out for weyerhauser et al.
If you want to find your own BCTS contracts, just follow these 5 easy steps:
1- Go to the BCTS region website: http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/bcts/areas/
2- Pick the region that corresponds to your interests
3- Click on "Contract Opportunities" on the left hand bar
4- Click on "Tender Opening Records"
5- This is probably the confusing part for most people... So you're at a weird text-based thingamajigger that doesn't look like it has any business being on the wonderful world of the internet. Don't panic. What you're looking for are contract codes that start with the letters PL (Short for PLanting!) as in:
PL09THF101_Bid_Results_Nov 27_2008_Tree Planting Fertilizing and Protection.pdf
Now, have fun looking up your favorit (or least favorite) BCTS contracts of the past. There are often records of previous years going back a while. Unfortunately, some regional offices seem to do better record keeping than others. I worked a BCTS contract near FSJames a few years back and it's not up there.
so they literally now just award it to the lowest bidder, no matter how much less they are than the rest. the one contact that was bit at $19000, when some others were going 50 and more... it says in the notes they checked references, but how hard? do they have a checklist they run over, in order to assure a safe, quality contract? or is it at this point just desperation, pay as little as they can get away with in order to not go bankrupt?
I wanna freaking Puke!! I cant believe these guys!! Awarding to the lowest bidder. Lowest doesnt always mean you get the job done right. Im not trying to slag these companies, but how do they survive with these bids and overhead? I wonder when these foresters are going to educate themselves and realize that the lower they go, the work quality starts to drop(who wants to work for 12 cents on 20 cent ground?) & hence the mortality rate rises. The question really is how much replanting will be done in the next couple of years because people are still trying to feed themselves and pay their bills while having to compromise their own planting values.
I think the question in some cases is who is "qualified". For example, there are strict rules regarding contractor selection in the SAFE Companies program. You are directed to only select contractors (award contracts to) that are certified. BCTS knows this, FFT knows this, damned straight the goverment and every major forestry company knows this. However, there has been a distrubing (and short-sighted) trend of hiring a "forestry managment" company to handle the contractor selection. Basically the forestry company staying one more arm's length away from their responsibility. These forestry management companies sometimes do not abide by the requirements of the SAFE companies program. They have in some cases awarded contracts to uncertified companies when all of the other competing bids are certified.
Look at the difference between the uncertified company that got the bid, and the next closest competitor who is certified. That is how much your life is worth to the forestry management company.
Bids are supposes to be evaluated on more than just a monetary basis. But when you have a chain of corporate management folks arranged in a heirarchy, the people at the bottom take increasinly depraved steps to appease the butt to which they have attached their lips. "Oh look how cheap I got this done for".
If any worker is seriously injured or killed on a FFT, BCTS, or Ministry contract performed by an uncertified company where there were certified companies competing in the bidding process, I will personally be writing a letter to WorkSafeBC, the management company, the Safey Council to ask these questions:
So they (forestry management company X) selected an uncertified company even though all competing bids were SAFE certified, yes?
So they had a very clear indicator that this was likely the least safe of all the companies, yes?
So they placed a dollar amount on the safety of the workers and knowlingly made a choice that put this company into the field, yes?
SO this really makes them partially responsible for any injury or death that occured, yes?
So you really should be using Bill C-45 to address the "directing minds" of these companies, yes?
Okay, these aren't really questions, really just assertions that there are other powerful reasons that should be preventing the lowest bid from winning in certain situations.
How about compliance with the EMployement Standards for Silviculture WOrkers? Hmm, isn't there a thread in here about failure to pay on a bi-weekly basis (or at all). SHould the government really be able to easily shirk the rules that it makes itself, and hand off responsibility to a forestry management company that appears to have little or no regard for the regulations and codes of practice that they are supposed to follow? Does it make any sense that the government can simply hire someone else to shun the regulations so they don't have to blatantly do it themselves?
This is business and management stuff, but it is the workers that should be outraged as well. I know owners of certified companies are outraged at these events (which are fairly rare). If anyone is going to underbid a contract, they should not be able to do it on the basis of shirking safety requirements, or violating legislation regarding employment standards. I would like to think that they will be punished by workers refusing to work for them upon failure to receive their first bi-weekly paycheque or for lack of first aid equipment, leading to the company failing to complete their contracts, losing their deposits, and going out of business. That's a pleasant thought.
I would consider it a potential issue if I believed SAFE certified to mean anything. I sat through the SEBASE course on behalf of a friend's company, and as far as I could tell, both SEBASE and SAFE certification was all about downgrading responsibility even further - onto the workers. I've referred before to certification vs. qualification and these certifications seem to celebrate and mandate the former while completely ignoring the latter.
The audit process is hilarious, even the external one from what I can figure, as is much of the paperwork the process generates. It creates an impressive paper-trail, but I fail to see how it's going to create tangible on-the-ground results.
SAFE and SEBASE are just another set of access barriers to the industry IMO.
I would suggest that you re-examine the audit, especially the actual tool itself.
A critical component of the audit is ensuring that worker concerns are addressed, documented, and responded to.
This does not pass liability down to the worker. It does exactly the opposite. It heavily emphasizes the role that the employer must play in ensuring safety.
If you document worker concerns, you create an immediate obligation to respond to them in an appropriate manner. If workers mentions concerns about (say) vehilce safety at a meeting, and this is documented, the employer better ensure that his or her vehicles are up to par. If not, and there is an accident, the investigator has a clear documented statement that the employer was aware of the deficiency and failed to act to correct it. Boom, say hello to Bill C-45.
Now this is not to say that the workers are excluded. Shared responsibility is a big part of the system, and workers are required to know the fundamentals of the regulation, and understand the safey system utilized by the company. WOrkers are expecte to conform to higher standards of safe behaviour, and they may find that cutting corners is not longer tolerated the way it used to be. IN fact they may have to take more time to do things because there are safety checks to complete. This is not passing down liability, it is ensuring people are following safe procedures. However, to suggest that liability is downloaded to workers is just plain wrong. If you really look at the way in which the audit is written, and how the chaind of documentation is designed, the employer is put in a very precarious position if he or she fails to address safety problems. In fact, the entire safety audit has the potential to become a legal document in the case of a serious accident of injury. Say someone gets messed up, go through the audit report from the previous season and see if there were any recommendations that applied to the situation in which the person was injured. If there are, and nothing was done, boom, liablity is created and applied to the company, not the worker.
In terms of this resulting in changes, I would say that watching companies rush out to buy adequate equipment is a good result. I've seen this quite a few times not. I also think that efforts to upgrade training and certification in order to keep up with requirements identified in the audit is a positive change. I also think that seeing companies clean up their act with holding proper meetings to discuss workplace hazards is a good result.
IN regards to barriers to access, you clearly have not followed the way this has actually played out. COmpanies have been given long windows in which to acquire certification, after langouring on the registration list for months (and even years). Further to this, most contractor management programs provide a window or a process for potential contractors to address their certification needs in a way that does not prevent them from entering or competing. If anything, this provides new entrants a bit of a softy as they may not have paid the expense of an audit prior to bidding.
In terms of this being a barrier to entry due to resources required, um that is the whole point. The last thing the industry needs is shoestring contractors walking in and underbidding contracts on the basis of lacking any type of safety program. Go away, the industry doesn't need you. I you want to play, you better be wiling to place safety as a high priority item in your budget. My point in the previous thread is that some companies have been making efforst to find loopholes in the system, and ultimately favour companies that have not invested in safety.
The province (and its fleet of lawyers) are very sensitive to barriers to entry as they cannot afford to run afoul of anti-combines (anti-competition) legislation. Sitting in with company owners, lawyers, and CEOs over the past 4 years, I can tell you that this was a very important issue. Goodness knows that our capitalist system takes this body of law more seriously than the Criminal Code. Further to this, the Council has resisted updating the audit tools as they want to ensure that they do not ramp up the expectations so quickly that companies (including new companies) will have trouble making the leap. As a participant in the audit review conference last year, I had a lot of suggestions that I would like to see come into play, but understand that there is an incremental approach that is guiding this process.
There may now be a bit of a barrier for companies that have dwaddled, and hoped the audit system would go away. Now some of them find themselves on the outside looking in. Well, they had plenty of time. SOme of them have sat on the registered list, asked for extenstions, and passed up opportunities to improve their program and get an audit. Meanwhile, other companies have invested heavily in better training, more comprehensible programs, and better equipment. This was the objective, a good one I think. The Council also sticks its neck out to assit companies encountering barriers in obtaining certification, and provide in depth consultation to company owners.
Now keep in mind that this has to be kept in a FORESTRY context. Silviculture has essentially been taken along for the ride with the rest of the industry (a whole different thread, so lets not go there here). However, I would suggest that 4 deaths in BC last year does not exclude us from serious examination. Nonetheless, some of the audit requirements do cater directly to year-round forestry operations, and have to stretch to make sense in the seasonal silviculture milieu. Thus there has been a few silviculture-minded folks in the audit system (myself included) working with the COuncil to help them understand the logistical limitations inherent in our line of work.
In terms of the audit process being ridiculous, you may find there are many obvious questions. Unfortunately, sometimes poorly trained and uninformed workers don't even get the obvious ones right. There can also be variation in the questions utilized by the auditors. Not all have the silviculture experience to make their wording relevant to our tasks.
Of course, this is coming from someone (me) who is a certified external auditor. It is natural for me to endorse the system in which I work, but I don't do this unreflectively. I came into the audit system with a fair amount of skepticism. I had serious concerns that it would be a rubber stamp process, that fails to provide any avenue for workers to strengthen their positions. I come from a blue-collar orientation, and a somewhat marxist orientation in my previous and current studies. However, I have been fairly surprised with what the council has come up with, as it is heavily weighted (upon detailed examination of the scoring distribution) towards ensuring that issues identified by workers are dealt with properly. I will make no effort to conceal my stake in the issue, but I was invited to become an auditor and sought out due to my silviculture experience, it is not something I sought out in the begininng. I have stuck with the program as I feel it has some true merit. Furthermore, my observations of practices throughout the industry (on a wide scale) give me the distinct impression that positive changes are occuring. This is most apparent in the training and orientation that is being provided to new workers.
I think some of the resistance in the industry to the audit, is that people sometimes feel that it is a huge increase in of red tape. My response to this is that the net amount of red tape has not changed, it has simply been passed on to the private sector. This is what happens in a ends-based regulatory system (which we are moving towards). We had a choice in forestry, we had too many deaths and injuries, and needed to fix it ourselves or let the government (WorkSafeBC) do it for us. We went with the former and developed an industry -led organization on the assumption that the industry knows best how to fix its own problems.
Therefore, the efficiency of any given safety program in handling the "red Tape" demands depends upon the ability a company to develop a health and safety program that helps them meet the specified goals (ends) through the most efficient means. It will take time for companies to develop more efficient health and safety programs, I have been working with the industry to steer them towards better methods of doing so.
SAFE is intended to mean that a company has met a certain standard of safety performance. Over time this standard will not remain stationary. It will move up. This is intended to prevent bottom feeding, and block out companies that fail to make safety a priority. That is the kind of barrier to entry we need. Prior to this, we had not structure, no framework in which the safety performance of the entire industry could be addressed. Now we at least have the means, and the vast majority of companies in the province are not attached to a system that has the ability to set the standards that they must meet. It takes time to build such a tool, it cannot be done overnight. Achieving positive change through this tool will also take time, but it is already occuring. My own review of the stats (hard stats directly from the sacred coiffeurs of WorkSafeBC) and observations of the industry as a whole (not one or two companies for a few months per year, but dozens of companies throughout the year) tells me that we are moving in the right direction. Further to this, I have examined the use of similar systems in other industries and other jurisdictions during my studies, and believe we have one of the best programs yet developed.
There will be many doubts, and the transition will have bumps and flaws, and it will take time. However, if it saves lives and prevent injuries its all worth it. Of course, you can never count the number of deaths and injuries you prevent. This makes it difficult to understand the positive shift from singular front line experience. YOu need to look at the bigger picture to truly judge it.
I am not saying that your observations have no merit. In fact, if you had something more specific than generally vague criticism, I would be highly interested in hearing about it. I am constantly making suggestions to the industry regarding the audit system, and have a strong stake in seeing it improve to meet the needs of the industry.
NOt trying to beat a drum too loudly, but here are a few excerpts from the audit, that tie directly into placing liability on the shoulders of the employer, and providing workers with the ability to have their concerns recognized. I don't know how many people will actually review these excerpts and evaluate how they apply to an audit, but I just want to point out a few areas that deal directly with worker concerns. This is highly selective, and most of the audit questions do focus on the worker activities (of course they are the ones doing the work so they should be in the spotlight). Anyways, I hope this gives a small illustration of how worker interests are an integral part of the audit, and how the companies are put in a position where they need to take action to fix their problems. REmember, each of these questions is answered by the auditor, with specific details based on company records, first hand observations, and intereview with workers.
F. Is there a system to ensure that any identified deficiencies are corrected in a timely manner?(0-15 points) D (0-10) Review inspection sheets to determine if deficiencies are being corrected. Look for deficiencies which keep reappearing. Review target completion dates and actual completion dates to confirm timeliness.Award points based on the % of deficiencies that are corrected in a timely manner as compared to reported.I (0-5) Interview workers to determine if deficiencies are being corrected.Award points based on % of positive responses.
F. Are workers involved in the development, evaluation and revisions to the controls?(5 points) I (0,5) Interview supervisors/managers to determine the scope of worker involvement in the process of change. Interview identified workers to confirm involvement.70% positive response required to award points.
B. Is PPE made available to workers in accordance with the regulations?(2 points) I (0,2) Interview managers, supervisors and workers to determine if workers know how to gain access to the necessary PPE that the company provides. 70% positive responses required to award points.
B. Were the SPAC’s created and updated by workers, supervisors and management in a combined effort?(5 points) I (0,5) Interview workers to determine if they are involved in the creation and updates of the SPAC’s. 70% of positive response required to award points.
A. Are the camp or remote living facility conditions in accordance with sector and regulatory required standards?(0-10 points) 0 (0-5) Observe the site conditions for potable water availability and access, cooking and sleeping areas, washroom and shower facilities, etc. I (0-5) Interview workers to determine if the conditions are meeting the required standards. Award points based on % of positive observations and responses.
B. Were the SPAC’s created and updated by workers, supervisors and management in a combined effort?(5 points) I (0,5) Interview workers to determine if they are involved in the creation and updates of the SPAC’s. 70% of positive response required to award points.
B. Are workers spending time away from work in accordance with the employment standards or within the rules of the bargaining agreement?(0-10 points) D (0-5) Review shift and holiday records to determine if workers are being given time off as required by regulation or bargaining agreement.Award points based on the % of the company meeting the intended employment standard or bargaining agreement.I (0-5) Interview workers to discover if the time off is being made available on a regular basis. Award points based on % of positive responses.
C. Are hours of work in accordance with the employment standards or the bargaining agreement?(0-10 points) O (0-5) Observe the hours of work and operating conditions to determine compliance.Award points based on % of positive observations.D (0-3) Review time sheets, work sheets, etc. to determine if the work hour regulations or rules are being followed. Award points based on % of hour of work compliance. I (0-2) Interview workers to establish if they are working within the standards or bargaining agreement. Award points based on % of positive responses.
D. Does the company have a process to resolve deficiencies identified during the safety/tailgate meetings?(5 points) D (0,2) Review safety/tailgate meeting minutes to identify deficiencies and verify with documentation, such as a corrective action log, that deficiencies have been corrected. Check for issues or deficiencies which keep reappearing at the safety/tailgate meetings.70% of deficiencies identified at meeting need to have been resolved to award points.I (0,3) Interview managers, supervisors and workers to determine if this is occurring.70% positive response required to award points.
E. Is the company completing corrective actions within the established time frame as identified on the log sheet?(0-10 points) D (0-4) Review documentation, such as the corrective action log, to verify that deficiencies were corrected according to established deadlines. 70% of deficiencies identified at safety meetings need to have been resolved according to established deadlines to award points.I (0-6) Interview managers, supervisors and workers to confirm that this is occurring.Award points based on % of positive responses.
F. Do workers have the perception that they have management’s attention if they come forward with a health and safety concern?(0-5 points) I (0-5) Interview workers and dependent contactors to confirm they feel that if they come forward with a health and safety concern, it will be considered.Award points based on % of positive responses.
B. Are the members of the Joint OH&S Committee actively involved in the health and safety program?(20 points) I (0,20) Interview committee members to determine the level of involvement of the OH&S Committee. Members should be able to speak knowledgeably about the program, such as when they meet, what the content of the meetings consist of and what typical items they address. 70% positive responses required to award points.
E. Are managers and supervisors leading by example (wearing of Personal Protective Equipment, seatbelts, etc.) and following the health and safety program?(0-20 points) O (0,10) Observe the operating conditions in the field to see if managers and supervisors are following the company health and safety program. 90% positive observation required to award points. I (0,10) Interview workers to determine overall compliance by managers and supervisors. 70% positive responses required to award points.
jdtesluk wrote:In terms of this being a barrier to entry due to resources required, um that is the whole point. The last thing the industry needs is shoestring contractors walking in and underbidding contracts on the basis of lacking any type of safety program. Go away, the industry doesn't need you. I you want to play, you better be wiling to place safety as a high priority item in your budget. My point in the previous thread is that some companies have been making efforst to find loopholes in the system, and ultimately favour companies that have not invested in safety.
How many companies would fall into this category, a % of B.C. companies in your estimation?
jdtesluk wrote:However, there has been a distrubing (and short-sighted) trend of hiring a "forestry managment" company to handle the contractor selection. Basically the forestry company staying one more arm's length away from their responsibility. These forestry management companies sometimes do not abide by the requirements of the SAFE companies program. They have in some cases awarded contracts to uncertified companies when all of the other competing bids are certified.
There has been some (if not all) of the FFT trees awarded through these forestry management companies so it is not just the forestry companies as the government has also been using these companies. Allowing uncertified companies to operate in the bush should be illegal, but the fact that it is not and still happens means not all the bases have been covered by the SAFE company process and it should be looked at to make sure no companies are operating in the bush that do not have this status or can not achieve it within a set time frame are operating. This is a fundamental problem with the SAFE company status. How much have some of the companies spent on making everything better only to watch some of their competitors still walk away with the work? And convincing people not to work for some of these operations is easier said than done. Their operating costs are less because they have not met the safety standards and hold less overhead so in some experienced planter's minds they will desire to work for people who pay better. It's probably led to some good companies from expanding and helping some of the one's who just got the status barely to grow.
Is there a re-evaluation process? Or are there any steps being taken to stop uncertified companies from operating?
I have no idea about some of these things so it would be a good thing to know.
backcountrysister wrote:I wanna freaking Puke!! I cant believe these guys!! Awarding to the lowest bidder. Lowest doesnt always mean you get the job done right. Im not trying to slag these companies, but how do they survive with these bids and overhead? I wonder when these foresters are going to educate themselves and realize that the lower they go, the work quality starts to drop(who wants to work for 12 cents on 20 cent ground?) & hence the mortality rate rises. The question really is how much replanting will be done in the next couple of years because people are still trying to feed themselves and pay their bills while having to compromise their own planting values.
I think most people agree with you backcountrysister, but it is not just our industry. How many shoddy paving companies have underbid work only to have all their work fall apart a few years later costing the taxpayers and gov'ts for cheaping out and ended up costing more. I think the biggest problem is the gap between standards. I would be good to have a minimum that is set not just by rookie orientated companies but also by the experienced companies. This way the lowest a company could bid would not allow the standard to be lowered to much and their lower operating costs or profit % would enable them to win contracts. Just a pipe dream, but if there are safety standards why can't their be pay standards too?
FFT trees: For anybody who has seen both the experienced and well paying companies vs rookie dominated and poorly waged companies in these contracts the past few years has probably seen the expected result. If the FFT contracts or future system is to have any success there will have to standard of experience. IE- no rookies or very few as it is the type of planting that needs experience. The middle men (forestry management companies) know this, but they either (A) make $$$ off a lower bid or (B) are rewarded for keeping costs down through a % or bonus in whatever the contract is all about.
If either of these are true it screws up the whole program, but the forestry companies that do give out the contracts are probably the same ones that survey the areas that need the planting (hardest hit pine dead areas) so their role in the FFT might be a critical link, but they should not be allowed to profit from lower bidding or cost cutting especially if its government contracts they are awarding. If they are: the silviculture industry needs to stop it to make sure their own worst offenders are not given these contracts as they may become important in the bettering the future of the industry in BC and Alberta.
I don't know enough about the awarding of these trees but this last bit was just a bit of concern I have about those trees.
Well my ignorance of SAFE has certainly been exposed, I shouldn't have included it in my comments, as what I know of it came from instructor comments made during the SEBASE course and a very brief examination of what it's about online. The external audit is certainly a different animal than the self-audit I was referring to, which at the SEBASE level, I still believe is something of a joke.
That said, pure criticism in this sense isn't productive without putting forward an alternative, and I think overall the SAFE initiatives are likely better in existence than not in existence, if only for the fact that it raises consciousness of certain issues. I still have serious problems with the type of mentality and culture the paperwork creates, however. This might be an inevitable side effect, and I don't pretend to understand the debate to the point where I can make any sort of firm statement about the phenomenon's relevance or magnitude or detectability, I am more pointing out that it is created to some extent by the process and its something I've always reacted strongly against. The first problem, however, is addressing the question, which the system at least does. The ineffectiveness or inefficiencies of that system is a secondary consideration, and one I'm not qualified to speak upon anyway, and as I said above, it would be silly to suggest scrapping it or not implementing it for the sake of inefficiencies it creates, ignoring its larger benefits.
The barriers to access debate is one I'm not qualified to make any sort of opinion on, other than an observation that it seems if there was someone who wanted to start a company and run things well, that this would create more hurdles and more obstacles for that person. I don't feel like writing out a long diatribe about why I believe this is so, because it's also a secondary issue and I have no conviction that my opinions are anyway correct.
The downgrading responsibility I stick to (for present circumstances) - in the silviculture sense. I'll address this in a separate post later, because it's an important issue I think.
As a bit of a side issue, I'm amazed by the amount of talk about bill C-45. The guy who instructed my course spoke about it for fifteen minutes and if I was more of an ass I would have pointed out how ridiculous what he was saying was and how little he understood about this bill. I studied it extensively in a labour law course, and while I'm no expert on it, the gap between what the law actually does in reality and what people believe it does is enormous. If anyone cares for an explanation I can post a bit of an overview of the issue and what both proponents and critics of the bill have to say about it, but I think if you're looking to this as being something effective, you're mistaken at this point. The bill's been in force since March 2004 and three people have been charged, and only one convicted. It might end up being that the courts decide to take to the bill, but at this point it's safe to say (unless something's changed within the last few months I don't know about) that it's not considered a realistic piece of criminal legislation to apply save for the most obvious and brutal of violations.
Overall, however, I'd agree I wasn't getting the big picture with regard to SAFE, and that it's counterproductive for people (such as myself) who are stakeholders in the industry to flippantly dismiss new regulatory initiatives as "more useless red tape" without understanding them.
Your comments on c-45 are spot on, and there is a tendency to refer to it (myself guilty of this) as the boogeyman of liability. As you know it is simply intended to (ostensibly)make it easier to take the "directing minds" of a company to task for greivous harms, and it really does not apply to 99.9% of all possible incidents (non-critical). It's really hard to get points across to company owners sometimes when it comes to their responsibility for the workers, and we often tend towards the worst case scenario, albeit somewhat misleadingly. It would probably be more informative and fruitful to examine overall enforcement activity and outcomes from WorkSafeBC, and the role they are playing in safety regulation. The philosophical position they were to adopt with the emergence of the COuncil was "lean and mean". If something goes wrong, they're supposed to kick ass and take names. The majority of the proactive (handholding) routines is to be up to the BCFSC. Sort of a good cop- bad cop arrangment. This is intended to mean a net decrease in bureaucracy by allowing the industry (represented by the Council) to take on the bulk of the work (the good cop stuff). I would be more curious about the average size of fines for failed inspections and minor accidents, than the one or two fatalities that make it into the courts. The reality is that the everyday routine stuff is what directly affects people in the workplace the most, and often what leads to more serious breakdowns down the line. In terms of motivating companies to do their part, it would be nice if simple appeals to decency and respect for worker rights and safety was sufficient in all cases. There is an assumption that fear tactics are an important ingredient in achieving regulatory compliance (if the donkey doesn't know the stick is there, it won't move forward). I think you raise a very valid point, and identify what may be a significant flaw in the teaching philosophy utilized by the council. If you're going to focus on consequences, focus on those that are most likely and most frequent. The worst case scenario should still be on the radar, but it probably should not be the main emphasis of discussions of liability and due diligence.
I didn't mean to dismiss your comments altogether, as your points represent an ongoing discourse in the industry, and I know you hold a fairly well-tuned perspective. I can totally understand how the outward appearance of the SEBASE system can produce this appraisal. I think that the council does have a more detailed agenda, but are damned if they do and damned if they don't to make it too obvious. The goal is to get everyone in the door first, ratchet up the standards later, but they don't want to trumpet this too loudly and scare everyone away (hmm should I really be saying this?). This way, the barrier to entry isn't set too high. In a way, the standards set and the barrier to entry are positively related, one gets higher the other gets higher. Enforcing the SEBASE audit is a matter of a more comprehensive program of quality control and "auditing the audits". This means that there will eventually be auditors in the field following up on the SEBASE audits to ensure they are doing what they say they are. (All carrots and no stick makes for a fat and immobile donkey, yes?). In order to fulfill this mandate, the council has to develop the personnel and methods to properly execute these follow-ups. It gets tricky, because there must be appeal processes and adhesion to principles of administrative justice guiding the process if a certified SEBASE company is hammered down in a subsequent QC inspection by the Council. This is just the nature of our wider bureaucratic system in general, and nothing specific to safety or the council. So there is a trajectory, and there is a plan, but it takes time to develop the capacity within the organization and strengthen the ties to the regulated parties (companies) to the point at which the full influence of the COuncil can truly be exerted.
Silviculture is interesting in that the majority of workers are employed in BASE companies, where as in harvesting a larger portion of the payroll is accounted for by SEBASE companies. I put those BASE excerpts in there partially to demonstrate the company responsibility addressed inthe audit. However, I also put it in there to identify methods for workers to become more involved in their workplace. If they are concerned about something, mention it in a meeting and ensure that it gets written down. Stimulate the production of a paper trail that puts pressure on employers to address worker safety concerns. The systems and features required by the audit are tools, and they can be used. If workers become more informed of how to utilize these tools to strengthen their position in the workplace, (theoretically) companies will be pressured to respond to their concerns. This was an integral and intentional feature of the BASE audit design, and something direclty related to the principal of shared responsibility (in the Accord) that is supposed to help improve safety in the industry. I do acknowledge that the audit system does place some increased pressure on workers to comply, but I suggest it also furnishes them with tools by which they can be meaningul contributors to shaping safety in their industry.
It will likely be several more years before we truly see the results of this safety reform strategy. In the meantime, critique of the system can help lead to better understanding, and identification of sites for revision. This is good!
Tender Opening Record_SU10TATSFG5.pdf
