January 4, 2010

Occupational health and safety

Law enforcement part of job for construction superintendents

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

Regulations governing job site health and safety are constantly being scrutinized and revised as the legislative landscape evolves, said veteran Vanbots superintendent and project manager Ian Campbell.

“As new products, materials and methods come into common use, new legislation is designed to legislate them,” Campbell told a construction superintendents’ roundtable at the recent Construct Canada conference.

“It is an ever-changing landscape. We as supervisors are at that point where law and enforcement meet the reality of running a site.”

Campbell, currently construction manager on the $100 million Bramalea city centre expansion, said the concept of anyone other than workers themselves being responsible for their own well-being is a relatively new one.

“Legislated health and safety is largely a 20th century notion that introduced the sharing of responsibility and care for an injured worker,” he said, noting that the Occupational Health and Safety Act established a minimum standard of performance expected of a worker, supervisor and employer.

Campbell, who joined Vanbots in 1995 as a general superintendent on the $350 million Honda project in Maple, Ont. after 20 years’ experience as a superintendent, general superintendent and project manager, said it has taken decades for the concept of responsibility to gain traction with employers and workers.

“The workers’ mistrust of the motives and dedication of the employer and the employers’ perception that the worker is ‘working the system’ to lower productivity has largely been overcome,” he said. “We are now talking about the culture of health and safety.”

Campbell, who is Gold Seal certified as a superintendent and project manager, is a member of the safety committee of the Ontario General Contractors Association. He was part of a panel of seasoned construction superintendents.

“I think we have all grown up in an industry where health and safety requirements have become more stringent,” he said.

Vince Panacci, a senior superintendent at Monarch Corp., said that while health and safety obviously is the most important consideration on a jobsite, workers often are their own worst enemies.

Mike Clark, a general superintendent at PCL Constructors Canada Inc., who has been involved in a number of major projects including Toronto’s Maple Leaf Square, said a top-down approach is required to foster a culture of safety on the job site.

“The owner, the president and the CEO of your company truly have to believe in it,” he said.

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