The Abitibi-Consolidated mill’s run of more than 6.3 million safe hours since a lost-time incident here came to an end last week after an employee who suffered an injury on the job was forced to be taken off work completely.
The “hours worked without a lost time” clock was turned back to zero Friday.
While the employee returned to a modified placement to accommodate his needs after the original March 15 incident, he continued to have problems related to his injury, mill manager Jim Gartshore wrote in Monday’s edition of “Screenings.”
The attending physician, in consultation with a specialist, advised it was in the worker’s best interest to be taken off work completely, Gartshore note, which then made it a lost-time incident.
The employee worked closely with his physician, and co-operated fully with the company, to ensure this was the only action that could be taken.
But Gartshore also stressed the truest measure of safety performance is the incident rate, not just the numbs of hours worked without a lost-time.
“A low incident rate means that very few people are suffering recordable injuries which could result in lost-time accidents,” he wrote.
“Working to keep our incident rate low will ensure we remain safe, and the ‘hours worked without a lost time’ will take care of themselves,” he added.