Multi phase logging taking its toll.

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Westboastfaller

Addicted to ArboristSite
AS Supporting Member.
Joined
May 16, 2014
Messages
4,437
Reaction score
6,394
Location
Here
...it Saturday nights discussion.

It's all got to be done at once now a days. The congestion of all trades going off at once has been the blame for increased deaths in resent years.
I think it's Scarry.
Below is an article from last summer; after four Fallers were killed in July that I past copied.

Your thoughts?

"One of the factors that workers say is creating unsafe working conditions is multi-phase logging, where fallers, road-builders, logging equipment and trucks are often operating simultaneously on a single cutblock.

Multi-phase logging has become a common practice on the coast as a way of reducing the high cost of log inventories. The time between the different phases of logging, from fallers cutting the timber to road building and yarding the logs out to trucks, has been gradually compressed to within three months, squeezing workers closer together.

Vandort said he has worked on jobs where fallers were working alongside as many as seven pieces of heavy equipment.

The practice provides companies with a quicker response time to market changes, reduces financing costs and reduces the cost of carrying inventory. But it has also led to a new, deadly term being added to the coast logger’s lexicon: phase logging congestion.

Forest safety ombudsman Roger Harris said phase congestion has raised the risk of death and injury for forest workers.

“It’s not intuitive that if you do multi-phase logging that you are unsafe,” he said. “But there’s no doubt it certainly makes it a much more complex workplace that requires significantly more communication to make sure you don’t have a problem.”

WorkSafeBC recognizes phase congestion as one of several factors requiring greater industry attention, said Al Johnson, WorkSafeBC’s vice-president of prevention services.

“Now that it’s recognized, it needs to be managed. Our expectation is, first of all, employers are aware of it and are managing it.”

Johnson, who called the August 6 meeting, said other issues, from the overall logging culture, to workers’ concerns about repercussions for refusing to do unsafe work and a renewed effort toward safety education were also discussed.

“We are worried. We know they are worried about it as well,” he said, referring to industry leaders. “The recent cluster of four worker deaths reminds us how hazardous this work is. We need to do everything we can to prevent this from continuing and to prevent deaths from occurring.”

Johnson also said concerns have been raised that safe practices put into writing at the corporate level are not being transmitted to the job site.

“Supervisors need to not only pay lip service to the processes that are in place and subscribed to, but make sure that those processes are actually happening in the field,” he said.

Despite commitments by major licensees, Vandort said on an active cutblock, congestion can result in regulations being overlooked – like a two-tree-length distance between workers or safe distances between workers and machines.

He added that cutblocks are getting smaller and the ground is getting steeper.

With more activity in a smaller space, congestion is a problem everyone has to deal with. There are good examples of properly managed sites, he said, but they require constant monitoring, assessing and communicating with all phases of workers in the block.

“We are all stuck in the same boat here. It’s a universal problem. It’s not just a faller’s problem. It’s not just a road builder’s problem, a logger’s problem or a truck driver’s problem. It’s the nature of the beast these days in the industry. We want to get that wood out and to market as fast as possible without spending any more money.”

Next week: Faller Jeremy Tanaka died July 24 on a hillside at Holberg Inlet in a tragedy that safety advocates say was a foreseeable outcome when people and heavy logging machines are squeezed too tightly together into one forest cutblock.
 
Not a logger but I operate a forklift and a ride on double electric pallet jack in receiving and occasionally on the floor of a warehouse.

They continually shrink our receiving department area in order to get more floor space. Our machines move around 7 and 8 mph. We have foot traffic coming in and out of the receiving door because all employees and vendors come thru that door until 10 am. People constantly walk thru the area in order to shortcut to the bathroom and cardboard baler.

It's just a matter of time before something bad happens . It's not a matter of will it? It's a matter of when? Matter of fact a guy was driving a double stack of pallets that are 17 high and they dumped going onto the receiving dock. That's around 12 feet high. A girl had to run out of the way or be hit. She got lucky .

Multi phase logging sounds just like my receiving dock. Too many people and machine traffic in too small an area. All in the name of money.
 
As well as any other corporate led work the leadership is mostly college boys who are blind to the actual work place. College education is dangerous I have witnessed much of it over the years and feel experience worth much more than a degree but unfortunately it is not the case anymore.

Ceo's worry only about profit for shareholders and themselves, they put a cattle prod up your ass then expect safe hahaha yeah right :p
 
As well as any other corporate led work the leadership is mostly college boys who are blind to the actual work place. College education is dangerous I have witnessed much of it over the years and feel experience worth much more than a degree but unfortunately it is not the case anymore.

I think saying college education is dangerous is ridiculous. Profit margins being king is what's dangerous. And this is coming from a college educated business owner who has both experience and an engineering degree.

But I think putting guys working too close together like in multi-phase logging is unsafe. My guys are spread out about a day's work apart from each other. The job itself has inherent hazards, there's no point in amplifying them-especially for another dollar per foot.

I do, however, think that if multi-phase logging becomes the norm, then the projects orders will need to change. Just doing road building before falling could help, in theory, a lot by keeping heavy equipment away from fallers for longer.
 
Not a logger but I operate a forklift and a ride on double electric pallet jack in receiving and occasionally on the floor of a warehouse.

They continually shrink our receiving department area in order to get more floor space. Our machines move around 7 and 8 mph. We have foot traffic coming in and out of the receiving door because all employees and vendors come thru that door until 10 am. People constantly walk thru the area in order to shortcut to the bathroom and cardboard baler.

It's just a matter of time before something bad happens . It's not a matter of will it? It's a matter of when? Matter of fact a guy was driving a double stack of pallets that are 17 high and they dumped going onto the receiving dock. That's around 12 feet high. A girl had to run out of the way or be hit. She got lucky .

Multi phase logging sounds just like my receiving dock. Too many people and machine traffic in too small an area. All in the name of money.
Yes absolutely we can apply this to any congested work place/ place where man meets Machine.
A very good friend of mine's Dad was killed leaving shift at the mill.
He was run over by a very large forklift right in front of everyone else that was leaving for their cars.
That was my first job at that mill as well, that's were my Dad worked. Very sad. I had a good friend get his leg run over by a 988 loader. Another friend watched a co-worker's head get run over by a loader right in front of him. Not pretty to see. You are right when you say it's not IF its WHEN someone gets it. I don't mind working with an excavator assisting me, that can be nice but the other week they wanted me to rush down and fall some more trees on the top of the access road that parellals the development block. The other excavator was on the block side with only 5ft of trees between us. I chased him off that edge for the bit while I was there.
That's how the Faller was killed on the bottom of that article I posted. The operator was in there to make it safer for the Fallers and ended up uprooting a Hemlock tree and the Faller below didn't even know it was coming. In a couple days I'll be flying in on float to fall for road right of way so the blasting crew can make a road behind us into our Wood. That should be good. I would say four of us leapfrogging should make it pretty peaceful in no man's land.
 
I think saying college education is dangerous is ridiculous. Profit margins being king is what's dangerous. And this is coming from a college educated business owner who has both experience and an engineering degree.

But I think putting guys working too close together like in multi-phase logging is unsafe. My guys are spread out about a day's work apart from each other. The job itself has inherent hazards, there's no point in amplifying them-especially for another dollar per foot.

I do, however, think that if multi-phase logging becomes the norm, then the projects orders will need to change. Just doing road building before falling could help, in theory, a lot by keeping heavy equipment away from fallers for longer.
Hiring college boys to lead companies in dangerous occupations is dangerous whether you understand my point or not. College boys have flat ruined this country whether u see it or not; ie DC politicians,bankers etc. Education is over rated in many occupations whether you understand me or not. There was a time a person entered the field learned on the job and worked hard over the years and climbed the ladder. Now in corporate America we have snotty nosed brats calling the shots who never worked an honest day in their entire life. I also understand not all college grads are that way but I have seen corporate business heads, bean counters etc. Ceo's worship the almighty dollar and only care about kissin the shareholders ass, whilst they poke cattle prods in the true producers, "the American labor force" working with out dated equipment much of the time to save a shareholder monies.
 
Hiring college boys to lead companies in dangerous occupations is dangerous whether you understand my point or not. College boys have flat ruined this country whether u see it or not; ie DC politicians,bankers etc. Education is over rated in many occupations whether you understand me or not. There was a time a person entered the field learned on the job and worked hard over the years and climbed the ladder. Now in corporate America we have snotty nosed brats calling the shots who never worked an honest day in their entire life. I also understand not all college grads are that way but I have seen corporate business heads, bean counters etc. Ceo's worship the almighty dollar and only care about kissin the shareholders ass, whilst they poke cattle prods in the true producers, "the American labor force" working with out dated equipment much of the time to save a shareholder monies.

Welp, sorry the world we live in doesn't work perfectly the way you want to. No, not every job requires a college education, but saying that education has ruined the United States is complete and utter horseshit. Now I'm going a bit off topic with a history and economics lesson for you-something I can understand because of my college education.

The reason behind the real issue here in the US is not education. It's deregulation. Fifty years ago there is no singular ****ing way multiphase logging takes place. Period. Safety standards were enforced. You can thank Reagan and the neocons for the wave of dereg of industry. It's a fact. Overembracing unfettered capitolism is the reason we have these issues, not the fact the boys with business degrees operate businesses. That's what they're trained to do. Safety deregulation of industries allows them to find ways to cut corners and make more money. That's their objective, which comes from a greedy sonofabitch CEO. And most guys with office jobs have to perform, just like we do, to keep their jobs.
 
Heavy equipment and foot traffic in the same area is a recipe for disaster. Things happen very quickly and violently when the big yellow stuff arrives on scene. This is just the opposite when a hand falling crew is working.

Catbuster, Ronaldus Maximus was indeed the leader of the free world but he was not the president of Canada. ;)
 
Hiring college boys to lead companies in dangerous occupations is dangerous whether you understand my point or not. College boys have flat ruined this country whether u see it or not; ie DC politicians,bankers etc. Education is over rated in many occupations whether you understand me or not. There was a time a person entered the field learned on the job and worked hard over the years and climbed the ladder. Now in corporate America we have snotty nosed brats calling the shots who never worked an honest day in their entire life. I also understand not all college grads are that way but I have seen corporate business heads, bean counters etc. Ceo's worship the almighty dollar and only care about kissin the shareholders ass, whilst they poke cattle prods in the true producers, "the American labor force" working with out dated equipment much of the time to save a shareholder monies.
how come is it,,when you throw a rock into a pack of dogs,,only the ones hit howl..seems you've made some howl..........................tooo bad...
 
@ropensaddle I have to agree with this for sure. At least thats how it once was. I grew up the same in Canada with a working class father, a Tile setter from 14 years old as well kicking carpets. By 40 yrs old the knees had had enough and he took the mill job. I remember working their as my first job when I was 18. Even the young people like me felt the resentment towards someone that looked like they never had dirt behind there fingernails. They looked out of place. That was 1986 an that's when I remember seeing the change. I know you are not against a man that gets an education but often back then it did made a terrible fit. They would walk into a working man's world with no street or social savvy. Awkward!
It takes more than a book education as that's just one component.

I remember writing my test for the wildlife & wildland fire module Danger Tree Assessor course (DTA)
So we are finishing up the two day course and start the written test at 11:30 then have lunch and were to meet back for 1:00 PM to go to the bush to assess five trees that the instructor have picked out ahead of time. The three university guys that were together had their writen done in about 25 min. It took my dump azz right to 1:00 PM both times I did the four year ticket.
They actually had to wait for me a couple of minutes. Im sure they were saying "look at that dummy.
In the field we had arrows from our first tree so we could find the remaining four. On the practical test it was the other way around. They were all looking up scrachting there head on the first tree and I was like...we'll catch you boys on the flip side. lol
Certainly you have to put the people where they best serve the company. obviously in this case these guys have bigger plans for themselves shortly down the road.
The changes we saw in the work force is now 30 year old news. I believe for a while here anyway, a green young guy fresh out of University could jump in the wheel house and push buttons that could effect safe work practices. The world has caught up now and there is far better choices today than that Awkward 22 yrs old that had no competition.

The saftey systems are law here and there is to much liability to disregard any of that.
Everyone has someone to answer to. Every company is responsable for saftey and saftey is everyones responsibility. Every person in the work force has the right to know, the right to partisapate, and the right to refuse. Canada has Bill C-45 amendment that was past in 2004 and that changed our thoughts and our actions. It was brought on 12 years after a Methane explosion at Westray Mines in Nova Scotia. 26 miner's were killed. Instead of the owners complying to make it a 'safe' worksite, they had a loophole to contract it out so the responsibility would fall on the prime contractor and so on down the chain. Bill C-45 changed all that. $hit goes up hill and the government takes you to Court. They have it cornered with Tickets, quizzes, orientations, on the job training and signatures to say you are trained and fully understand.
It can only be the new workers fault.... unless..other mistakes are made above. If I make a bad judgement and he got hurt then I could go to jail. We get threatened all the time.

I was just reading about Jeremy Tanaka's death in Holberg.
Much to my surprise, A machine that isn't directly working with a Faller (machine assist) dose NOT have to be two tree lengths or 60 meters (whichever is greater); away. Described above is a Falling Zone which the Faller is in charge of. There's my point (three pages later) it's a grey area because they aren't doing anything wrong in the eyes of WCB. So a zone that we are in charge of we have to yeild operations (stand down) or flat out exercise our right to refuse unsafe work OR in Jeremy's case. Get killed and be 'faulted'
 
To say that this is the fault of "college boys" is absurd. To say that "college boys" are ruining the country is even more absurd. This seems like a case of envy by those who lack an education. Like it or not, those who have degrees often hold positions where they call the shots. If more money can be made by consolidating operations and decreasing entries/passes over a tract, the shot will be called. This has been occurring for decades. It IS possible to do this kind of work safely, but blaming accidents on superiors instead of incompetent or aloof operators and workers is foolish
 
To say that this is the fault of "college boys" is absurd. To say that "college boys" are ruining the country is even more absurd. This seems like a case of envy by those who lack an education. Like it or not, those who have degrees often hold positions where they call the shots. If more money can be made by consolidating operations and decreasing entries/passes over a tract, the shot will be called. This has been occurring for decades. It IS possible to do this kind of work safely, but blaming accidents on superiors instead of incompetent or aloof operators and workers is foolish
yep, like ropen said, another case of overedumacaation spewing off......arrogant and proud...
 
yep, like ropen said, another case of overedumacaation spewing off......arrogant and proud...

Being uneducated is nothing to be proud of. Care to consider all of the technological and operational advances made just in the forest industry by "overedumacated" individuals? Vast improvements in silviculture, genetics, forest planning and harvest scheduling, mill and operational optimization, not to mention economic and financial analysis of management decisions and local markets. You are fooling yourself if you think college-educated individuals are all evil, arrogant, and useless
 
It's always "somebody else's" fault, isn't it? Who forces YOU to work in unsafe conditions? As a "college girl" I've seen some terrible stuff done by guys (I don't know or care what their educational status was) who should know better. You are the final say in what is safe or not. Sometimes a Come To Jesus safety meeting is called for. I've done that even though I had no "authority" to do so. One says some choice words when hiding behind the biggest second growth tree while an ignorant shovel operator is tossing culls and longbutts off the landing to clear it. If one survives, one goes up and discusses this with the operator, not the internet folks, some of whom have dubious qualifications.

Hey Olybaby, this song is for you and all the education haters out there. YOU KNOW YOu could always GO back To Skool IF you Think them edumacated pepols have an advantage.

 
You are fooling yourself if you think college-educated individuals are all evil, arrogant, and useless
I think somebody is making mountains out of mole hills here. I don't think it was one side or the other. It's getting taken WAY out of context now. You are starting to paint the picture as its been said education is bad and nobody should have one. Go find a Physics Master with 15 years of general chainsaw experience and put him in one West Coast Falling quarter and I in another and see what happens. We'll give him a big set of nuts in that scenario too.
 
I think somebody is making mountains out of mole hills here. I don't think it was one side or the other. It's getting taken WAY out of context now. You are starting to paint the picture as its been said education is bad and nobody should have one. Go find a Physics Master with 15 years of general chainsaw experience and put him in one West Coast Falling quarter and I in another and see whats happens. We'll give him a big set of nuts in that scenario too.

I think I know one of those who would do quite well. Education is not a bad thing. I know of a guy who dropped out of high school and did quite well but he insists, and rightfully so, that his kids go further than high school--one chose a technical school. If one gets hurt on the job in the woods, one maybe has something to fall back on and does not have to be in disability poverty for the rest of their lives.

By the way, unions used to work on safety problems. Unions are thought to be a bad thing by many of the people who could use them. You get what you wish for, sometimes.
 
Being uneducated is nothing to be proud of. Care to consider all of the technological and operational advances made just in the forest industry by "overedumacated" individuals? Vast improvements in silviculture, genetics, forest planning and harvest scheduling, mill and operational optimization, not to mention economic and financial analysis of management decisions and local markets. You are fooling yourself if you think college-educated individuals are all evil, arrogant, and useless
soooo, you know..exactly how far my edumaaaacation goes??? highly unlikely....but the tude represented by overeducated zealots,,is showing....
 
To say that this is the fault of "college boys" is absurd. To say that "college boys" are ruining the country is even more absurd. This seems like a case of envy by those who lack an education. Like it or not, those who have degrees often hold positions where they call the shots. If more money can be made by consolidating operations and decreasing entries/passes over a tract, the shot will be called. This has been occurring for decades. It IS possible to do this kind of work safely, but blaming accidents on superiors instead of incompetent or aloof operators and workers is foolish


College on its own doesn't make a person smart anyhow. I know several people with 4 or 6 yr degrees that I have to wonder why they even bothered. They must have paid off the teachers or something.
We had one that was complaining about loosing several grand of meat when the power was out for 3 days. I asked him why he didn't put the freezer outside (middle of winter). Derp!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top