November 16, 2009

Occupational health and safety

Sarnia, Ontario safety record tough to match

Study underway to see if culture can be transferred

MARY BAXTER

correspondent

The safety record of Sarnia-Lambton’s construction force is 25 times better than the provincial average. While efforts are underway to replicate this success elsewhere, those involved say doing so will be tricky.

So far, two studies are complete: quantifying the construction force’s safety record and determining the reasons behind it. A third, a pilot to see if these reasons are transportable to other communities, is underway.

The Sarnia Lambton Industrial Educational Co-operative, the Construction Safety Association of Ontario and the Council of Ontario Construction Associations are conducting the studies. The Workplace Safety & Insurance Board has contributed $200,000 to the project to date.

John Barnfield, general manager of the co-operative, says the safety record is based on a 10-year period that begins in 1998 and looks at all recordable injuries. In 2007, when the area had 0.8 recordable injuries per 200,000 hours worked, the provincial rate would have been around 20, he says.

Follow-up surveys revealed the main reason behind the record is that the sector’s three main stakeholders — clients, contractors and workers — share a culture of safety.

They have formalized their interest by establishing committees and the co-operative. The co-operative organizes meetings, facilitates relations between the three groups, provides training and develops safety practices.

Implementing locally developed best practices as well as industry-accepted practices were the other major factors at play.

“We thought that maybe from looking at the list of best practices and other practices (14 in total) that maybe there would be two or three that would stand out of the crowd and that wasn’t the case,” Barnfield says. All received high ratings.

Now, the co-operative is working with the two provincial associations to see if the Sarnia-Lambton model can be replicated in Nanticoke, near Hamilton, home to three major plants: Imperial Oil’s Esso refinery, Ontario Power Generation’s Nanticoke generating station and U. S. Steel Canada Lake Erie works.

The group has established a safety infrastructure similar to Sarnia-Lambton’s “and it is working and working really well,” says Barnfield.

He admits that transporting the safety culture to other Ontario construction communities may not be easy.

“The likelihood of success is very very dependent on the openness with which a working community is really interested in raising the bar,” he says.

Doug Chalmers, a Sarnia-based director on the Council of Ontario Construction Associations, says partnership between contractors and the labour force is key to transferring the culture.

“If you don’t have worker buy-in, it’s not going to happen,” he says.

Doug McVittie, assistant general manager and director of operations for the Construction Safety Association of Ontario, says replicating Sarnia’s success will be tricky.

“There’s no other place I can think of in the province where you’ve got a group of clients that are of that (safety) mindset that are large enough to have the critical mass you’d need to bring about that change,” he says, pointing out that clients in Sarnia make safety a contract requirement.

McVittie says his association has pushed an alternative — mandatory supervisory training — for years. Industry support has grown but uncertain economic times are not the best climate in which to lobby for such regulations.

In the meantime, exploring whether the Sarnia model can be transferred is “worth a try,” he says.

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