‘Safety’ can just be a word bandied about for an appealing sound bite or an attractive description for a company’s annual report. Or it can actually signify the concern a company has for its employees…
‘Safety’ can just be a word bandied about for an appealing sound bite or an attractive description for a company’s annual report. Or it can actually signify the concern a company has for its employees.
In a way, it can be a little bit like the spare tire in the trunk of your car: somehow it makes you feel safer with it there, but have you recently checked its road-worthiness?
To be truly safe, training and procedures have to be verified and reviewed frequently, while equipment has to be inspected and upgraded on a regular basis.
So, while summer can mean more flexible hours or a lighter workload for some workers, it can also be a good time to review some of the safety measures practised within our industry. Pulp & Paper Canada has made the importance of safety one of the top priorities for the magazine and encourages a constant review of safety practices through two different methods. We encourage the practice of safety measures through our regular column on Safety Matters and our annual Safest Mill in Canada Contest.
It is our goal to bring you important safety information and tips that you as employers and employees can use and put into practice. Our articles are put together from information from a variety of experts, including consultants (such as John Little with experience of over 20 years of safety management) and Cindy Hunter (Pulp & Paper Health & Safety Association program and communications specialist) to suppliers who have researched certain areas of employee safety. In just the past year, we have covered subjects as diverse as Safety and the Bottom Line, BC Logging Safety, Revisiting the Shop Floor, High Severity — Low Probability, Importance of Leadership, Risk Assessment and Hearing Protection. We also welcome contributions from people inside the industry who would like to share work-related safety tips with their colleagues (info@pulpandpapercanada.com — please use “Safety Matters” in the subject line).
It’s encouraging to note how many mills participate in the Safest Mill in Canada Contest and maintain a regular routine of filling in one short form a month so that we can tabulate the recordable incidents. We feel that all participants do their best to keep these numbers at zero or the lowest possible number and it does not take much time to be a part of the positive actions of this group. Just contact April Baxter (abaxter@pulpandpapercanada. com) for the simple form to fill out each month.
Keep posted on these two methods for increasing the safety concern in your mill. Please take time to review the information about the contest and remember “Safety Matters.”
On another note, the offices of Pulp & Paper Canada have recently moved. Although the distance was not far (basically just across the parking lot to a building about 250 metres away), packing and unpacking were the same as though we were moving across the country. We are now comfortably installed in our new surroundings but, in the meantime, if you have not received an answer to your emails or if you think a phone call was unanswered or a letter may have gone astray (Canada Post is having problems with our name change since we are, simultaneously, Pulp & Paper Canada, Business Information Group and Glacier Ventures, as well as all three of those in the French translation), please don’t hesitate to give us another try.
We are now at:
6600 TransCanada Highway
#209
Pointe Claire, QC
Canada
H9R 4S2
All the other contact information stays the same.
The plus side of moving was the discovery of many old files that had been left by my predecessors and which contain old photos and historical information about the industry in Canada. Quite a treasure trove to sift through so I have a feeling the rest of the summer will not lack for things to do.
But that must wait until after I hang up my images and bulletin board for the current month’s drafts. Now, where did I pack my hammer?
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