John

B.C. Ferries and the union representing its 5,000 workers will start to roll out details of a joint safety regime to employees this week, eight months after an audit blasted their "dysfunctional" relationship as a barrier to safety. The Sail Safe program will update a decade-old safety-management system that has been crumbling for years, Jackie Miller, president of the B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers' Union, said in an interview.
"It's not to reinvent the wheel, but to reimplement a system that went through various stages of management and deterioration in the course of 10 years," Ms. Miller said.
"Overall I think it will inspire the work force again that they can be confident that they are safe, that they are doing things safely and they are going to get their cargo and p***engers there safely."
Last January, a report by former B.C. auditor-general George Morfitt concluded that the provincial ferry operator is largely safe despite a poisonous working relationship between management and workers.
The report was commissioned after the sinking of the Queen of the North in March, 2006.
"During the course of our work, we observed considerable tension in the relationship between the union and the company that is, in our view, dysfunctional," the Morfitt report said.
"It presents a considerable impediment to resolving operational safety issues and continuously improving the safety-management system."
In response, the company's chief operating officer, Mike Corrigan, approached the union and offered to work on a joint safety-management program.
"We got together and said, 'We can't keep going on like this, we have got to turn the page,' " he said in an interview.
"The company and the union want to create the safest work environment we can for our p***engers and our employees."
Neither side would reveal details until workers are briefed on the plan; it will likely be months before ferry users are told of any changes. "When you are talking about building trust, in changing the culture, it's going to take some time," Mr. Corrigan said.
However, he did confirm that experts in international safety-management standards were brought in from Europe to offer advice. Those officials toured the northern routes where the union still has safety concerns.
The Queen of the North had been flagged as a risk because of its hull design. Two ships that continue to service the northern routes, the Queen of Chilliwack and the Queen of Prince Rupert, also have single-compartment hulls.
Mr. Corrigan said those two vessels are scheduled to be retired in four years, but he maintained they are safe in the meantime because they have been approved by Transport Canada and certified by an independent auditor.
Ms. Miller said the new system will look at everything from training and recruitment to the safety of the vessels themselves.



(globeandmail)

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