Northstar puts safety first!
Our Winnipeg team recently held their Annual Scaffold Safety Day, a day in which the branch shuts down all yard and job site tasks to participate in extra safety training demonstrations and workshops – all for 8 hours of extra pay.
This year we gathered a team of 24 participants and 9 presenters, making our safety meetings bigger than ever! We already had an online HRdownloads program to take care of the annual WHMIS refresher, so this scaffold safety day focuses on interactive and educational workshops, including a mobile hearing testing truck for all participants.
Take a look at some of the workshop stations and demonstrations we hosted this year;
Work Shops at our Annual Scaffold Safety Day:
- Personal Fall Arrest Equipment Inspection
Our General Manager, Nate, and local Safety Rep, Brett put on our regulation-required Personal Fall Arrest Equipment Inspection station. They take a look at every worker’s gear to make sure it is up-to-date with the latest safety standards before signing off and keeping detailed documentation of these inspections for our records. If any faulty or defective equipment is found, we swap it out for fresh kit right away! - Fall Arrest Retrieval Kit Workshop
Working over hazardous situations can be risky, which is why all of Northstar’s sites are equipped with a Fall Arrest Retrieval Kit. Although we hope no one ever has to use it in an emergency, everyone gets the chance to experience its power through the mock rescue exercises at this workshop. Our staff get first-hand knowledge of how these kits work by taking turns being both rescuers and rescued. This workshop has ben apart of our scaffold safety day every year, it’s just another way that we ensure scaffold safety always comes first at Northstar. - Swing Stage Basics Demonstration
As we grow both our access equipment product line and our team at Northstar, we want to ensure that any workers that are not familiar with setting up swing stages, can learn. For the past few years, we have hosted a Swing Stage Basics Demonstration station. This covers the basics of the swing stage components and their installation. - Aluminum Cutting
This year we had a new station to address a recent incident involving a very common work activity – cutting aluminum tube. For this workstation, we had a site supervisor and a yard supervisor work together to set up and demonstrate how to cut aluminum tube properly. This was a great demonstration as both yard workers and field workers got to see the various ways that tubes should be cut safely, both in the yard and in the field. - Safe Work on Wheels by CSAM
This year, we welcomed the Construction Safety Association of Manitoba’s “Safe Work on Wheels” van demonstration to our Annual Scaffold Safety Day. This mobile safety unit hosts several great safety demos including shooting a nail gun at safety glasses, a robotic model to illustrate proper (and improper) lifting techniques, gloves and hand safety, as well as a Fall Arrest from height demonstration. This demonstration drives home the importance of taking measures to prevent workers from falling. It allows workers to see the difference that a shock-absorbing lanyard makes to Rescue Randy, the test dummy.
Along the way, our team had fun too! With new clothing, free lunch, and even a “scavenger hunt” where workers voluntarily scoured the yard to gather up as much “matter out of place” that could cause a flat tire to win a $50 VISA gift card.
All in all, the annual scaffold safety day was a success! Everyone had a really good time and we are confident that everyone took away something from the day and will incorporate what they learned into their work. Safety is always important, but it’s especially crucial when working with scaffolding. Northstar is proud to provide this training and plans to continue to offer this on a regular basis.
Read more about Northstar’s commitment to scaffold safety
