A subcontractor was using a rock saw to cut asphalt but not wearing eye protection. An employee saw this and asked him to stop work until he had suitable eye protection. Once the protection was in place, he was allowed to continue. That’s one of the near-miss incidents reported in the “learnings database” on the […]
Here in B.C., we turn the clocks ahead one hour at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, March 12. This marks the start of 2017 Daylight Savings Time, giving us an extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day. This practice of moving the clocks ahead was adopted in 1916 and not everyone is in […]
Here is an excerpt. The big ceiling fans at the pool were blowing down during our warm-up for seniors’ aquafit, and one older lady was clearly not happy about the breeze. I was by far the youngest in the rowdy drop-in group, having joined on a dare from my friend. Usually we swam laps, but — […]
They’re travelling different roads — quite literally — to deliver their message about young worker safety. WorkSafeBC’s Young/New Worker and Small Business team, led by manager Glen McIntosh, has been driving on mountain roads and connecting via the Internet to reach people who may not find it easy to attend safety events in person. I wrote […]
“Baker’s asthma” — as it’s known in the business — is a serious health problem that can affect workers in bakery, flour manufacturing, and food processing settings. “Activities such as mixing, pouring, and weighing flour creates airborne flour dust, which workers may inhale,” reads Flour dust exposure, a risk advisory from WorkSafeBC. “Workers exposed to flour dust […]
Proper maintenance is an important part of workplace safety. We’ve heard this many times before, and I wrote about it in my post Training and equipment maintenance key to safety. But it’s also critical to keep safety in mind while doing maintenance and repairs. This topic came up recently when I was talking with WorkSafeBC […]
“How do you speak up for safety?” That’s the theme of WorkSafeBC’s 2017 Student safety video contest. The contest challenges B.C. students in Grades 8 to 12 to answer this question in a creative video, then post it on YouTube, where people can vote for their favourites. All styles of video — drama, comedy, documentary, music […]
“Wildfires move fast. Can you evacuate your crew?” That’s what it says on a new poster for the forest industry, from WorkSafeBC. The poster and a one-page checklist, XXTitle_linkXX, are designed to get employers thinking about this aspect of their emergency response planning. “The checklist gets employers to identify key elements that need to be […]
Even though they’re exposed to some very loud machines, most B.C. forestry workers aren’t getting annual hearing tests as required under the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Regulation. Hearing damage can occur when people are regularly exposed to sounds louder than 85 decibels – the equivalent of sustained traffic noise. But noise levels on forestry […]
Includes new information on driver behaviour, assessing risks, and ergonomics for avoiding MSI.
