THUNDER BAY – Safety is the priority at Thunder Bay’s Resolute Forest Products mill.
It appears to be paying off.
The mill tied for top spot among mills with 80,000 or more worker hours per month with Windsor, Que.’s Domtar Inc. mill as the safest in the country, according to Pulp and Paper Canada.
The magazine has been handing out awards since 1926.
Technically the Quebec mill gets to keep the title. Both facilities finished 2019 with 0.6 mill frequency injury rate.
The Thunder Bay plant had three recordable incidents in 1,002,545 hours worked, while the Windsor mill had five incidents in 1.6 million hours worked.
The Quebec facility retained the title because of more hours worked.
But it’s still something to be proud about, said Resolute Forest Products’ general manager Kent Ramsay.
“It shows the DNA of working safely is built right into the Resolute culture,” Ramsay said on Tuesday.
“Our sister mill in Alma, Que. won the class B award. The key for us is that employees work safely day in and day out and they go home to their families injury-free.”
Ramsay said the goal continues to be to strive for perfection.
Even three incidents in which medical treatment is sought, are three too many.
“That was three people that were hurt bad enough that they needed medication or stitches. So we need to really keep focused on that. It’s a race that never ends. We need to keep our people safe and strive toward zero injuries across the facility, day in and day out throughout the whole year,” Ramsay said.
There are three pillars of safety at Resolute Forest Products.
To get there, each of the 450 employees on site is encourage to put in at least three hazard reports each year.
“That adds up to a lot of hazards that get corrected or fixed,” Ramsay said.
The second pillar is pre-task hazard assessment, encouraging the use of foresight to ferret out any potential safety issues ahead of time.
Lastly, there are regular one-on-one safety discussions.
“Every employee sits every six months ... and reviews how they’re going to work safely, reviews our policies and procedures and gets evaluated to ensure that we work together and are working safely.”
