05) CORONER RULES SAWMILL DEATHS “ACCIDENTAL”

PV Vancouver Bureau

            A coroner's inquest has ruled the April 2012 deaths of two men at the Lakeland Mills explosion in Prince George, B.C, as accidental. The May 14 ruling includes 33 recommendations aimed at improving workplace safety.

            In April 2012, Glenn Roche and Allan Little died when the Lakeland Mills exploded. Another 24 workers were injured. The inquest recommended a review of emergency response and ambulance procedures, penalties for non-compliance with the B.C. fire code, and improvements to the way in which workplace deaths are investigated and prosecuted.

            Stephen Hunt, Director of the United Steelworkers District 3, released the following statement: "We are pleased with a number of recommendations that affirm actions that our union has been calling for, specifically an emphasis on the rights of workers - including the right to refuse unsafe work - and training for police on investigations of criminal negligence in workplace deaths. The recommendations also underscore the need for a public inquiry into the sawmill explosions to deliver on the promised accountability and justice for victims and their families. The Premier made that commitment; despite the fact that by its very nature an inquest is unable to provide it. A glaring example is the failure of the Inquest to assess the flawed investigation by WorkSafeBC and why the agency did not enforce safety regulations. There are now even more outstanding questions that need to be answered... This has been very hard on the families who lost loved ones, and at the very least, they deserve to see the Premier to live up to her government's commitment of justice for victims."

            Irene Lanzinger, President of the BC Federation of Labour, said that she was “pleased to see some strong directives regarding strengthening joint health and safety committees and reinforcing workers’ rights, including full and meaningful participation in incident investigations. In addition, recommendations regarding enhanced capacity to pursue criminal negligence charges in cases of workplace serious injury and death are essential. The BC Federation of Labour, along with the United Steelworkers, has long demanded that negligent employers be held accountable.

            “However, there remain some glaring holes in the recommendations coming from this inquest. The BC Federation of Labour continues to insist that the systemic issues within WCB and the need for more prescriptive regulations must be fully examined, and that requires a full public inquiry. The mandate of the Coroner’s Inquest, as a strictly fact-finding process, is too restrictive to achieve this.”

            Commenting at the time on the sawmill explosions at Lakeland and Burns Lake (where two more workers died) People’s Voice pointed to broader concerns about the potentially deadly impacts of over-cutting and climate change.

            That article said, “Faced with a drastic shortage of fibre to supply mills, the provincial government has encouraged companies to harvest beetle-infected trees before they crumble into stumps. Workers and industry analysts say that processing these trees creates a finer form of sawdust, with far more potential for the type of explosions which destroyed mills in Burns Lake and Prince George. In other words, the scramble for corporate profits which began over a century ago probably set in motion a series of policy decisions which are killing today's millworkers. Several immediate measures must be taken to end this slaughter, starting with the installation of more effective technology to remove sawdust from the workplace. An end to the shocking export of high-quality logs from British Columbia would save jobs and make the mills safer. There are also unanswered questions about the effect of speed-up on the type of dust created in sawmills.”

(The above article is from the June 1-15, 2015, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)