Kerwin targets fatalities, injuries

An interview with CSAO’s new President

David Kerwin is Vice-President and Construction Manager of Curran Contractors Ltd. of Sarnia, a general contractor that works mostly on industrial applications at petrochemical sites. A civil engineer by trade, Kerwin has worked in construction for 26 years.

 

Construction Safety: How did you get involved in safety? Kerwin: I got involved because I had to get involved. It’s an imperative in the Sarnia area. Curran Contractors has had people on the regional labour-management committee from day one, and we’ve served on CSAO’s Board as well. Ed Curran was a Director and CSAO President a while back. Being involved in safety is just natural for us. Now the company also gains a lot from taking part in the labour-management network because we know what kind of legislation is coming down the road, and we can be proactive rather than reactive.

CS: Why do you think Lambton county consistently has the best construction safety record in Ontario?

Kerwin: The high standards cascade. If I hire someone to fix my roof at home, what do you think I’m going to expect of him? It’s a culture in Sarnia. And we want it to be more of a culture. It’s an expectation that people don’t put themselves at risk, that they will do the right thing when health and safety is concerned.

We also have forward-thinking partnerships between the client, the trade unions, and the contractors. We’re promoting this relationship as a partnership, not just a business necessity. And I think it works.

CS: Is there something you’re doing at Curran that you think should be done more widely in Ontario?

Kerwin: One thing that helps a great deal is “job safety analysis,” or “job task analysis” as it’s sometimes called. You identify the stages involved in the job or activity that you’re going to do, and break it down into very small steps. Then you ask yourself “what hazards will I encounter at each step?” Then you decide what you’ll do to control those hazards. Now the truth is, if you have a decent crew working on a job, they’re basically doing this anyway. But job safety analysis gives you a formal planning tool—it forces everyone to do it. It ensures that everyone is involved in the process and is conscious of the hazards they’ll encounter.

CS: How do we reach the small contractor with this kind of information?

Kerwin: Well, we have to start by re-thinking how we as an industry count construction firms. I think that the officers of a company have to be covered by the WSIB. I think the WSIB has to say that if you’re a business, you have to get insurance, and the only way to get insurance is to see us and get a number. That way, these small firms can’t be invisible. It used to be done that way—and sure it had its problems, because as soon as there’s no work in November, people would go on compensation. But how much are we losing to the underground economy? And this way, once we can actually reach the small contractor—once they appear on the radar screen—we can help them with health and safety.

CS: What are your priorities over your next year as CSAO’s President?

Kerwin: We certainly have to work at reducing lost-time injuries. We’re going to figure out what we can do to drop them by at least 25%.

But I’m really bothered by the fatalities in our industry. They’re not coming down. Given the industry’s progress on LTIs, we are not where we should be on fatalities. It’s completely unacceptable, yet there is almost a belief that a certain number of deaths is acceptable.

Someone once put it to me succinctly. He said, imagine going for a job interview where you were told, “Over the last five years we’ve had two workers die on the job, and we had six LTIs last year. So, if you work for me for 20 years, you’ve got a 3% chance of being killed, and a 20% chance of being hurt to the extent that you can’t do your job.” How many people do you think would accept this? You know, it’s probably the only thing that I ever lose sleep over in my job—the possibility that one day I may have to tell someone that their loved one has died.

So over the next twelve months, expect to see an increased focus on eliminating fatalities.