BC At Work, Episode 12, Video

[00:00:27.19] – Scott

Hi, I’m Scott Swanson.

 

[00:00:29.12] – Judy

And I’m Judy Pal.

 

[00:00:30.09] – Scott

And this is BC at Work.

 

[00:00:33.28] – Narrator

This week, training for an emergency with St. John’s, and the wit and wisdom of our barnyard analyst, Charlie Farquharson. BC at Work, the inside story showcasing the unions, working people, and the companies that employ them. This week from west Point Grey, here’s Scott and Judy.

 

[00:01:04.19] – Scott

Good evening and welcome to the show.

 

[00:01:06.10] – Judy

This week we have lots of interesting stories including Charlie Farquharson and Clay Perry.

 

[00:01:09.26] – Scott

And for our first story, we’re going to take a look at the industrial first aid course offered by St. John Ambulance.

 

[00:01:16.04] – Speaker 4

It’s about your pelvis. This guy’s been hit by a car.

 

[00:01:20.08] – Speaker 6

And if I ever catch the driver, I’ll kill him.

 

[00:01:24.19] – Judy

The St. John Ambulance is well known for its emergency and standard first aid training, but a lesser-known course they teach, yet very important one, is industrial first aid.

 

[00:01:36.12] – Connie Williams

Basically what we’re trying to do is teach the people who take first aid from us to go out and be able to feel confident in treating injured people.

 

[00:01:47.21] – Judy

How do you simulate a real accident scene?

 

[00:01:50.11] – Connie Williams

What happens is the patient gets a card to read and they get to read what their injuries are and what their vital signs will be and how they’re supposed to act, whether they’re conscious or unconscious. And then the first aider gets a card and it tells them only what they see as they do the approach, and it will give a brief history of what happened. So from the history and what they see, they can often see if there’s anything life-threatening, go in and begin their priority action approach, and also anticipating what else could be wrong with the patient. At first, you teach them the skill, and then you teach them urgency, to work very quickly.

 

[00:02:40.19] – Ken Scorse

Well, St. John’s been teaching first aid for many, many years, and in British Columbia, probably something in the neighbourhood of over 80 years, just teaching first aid in industry. The industrial program itself came about because there was a need for more than just the basic training that took place in the cities. And when the logging camps got started, they had to have more advanced training. You had people in there for longer than just a few minutes or an hour or so. And that’s when the specialized training started taking place. The unions have been involved, I think, right from the very beginning by demanding and asking more and more to have better care for the workers, and that’s along our ideals as well. The unions get involved by saying, we want this better care, and make their suggestions. And the last time regulations were discussed, it was the unions that had a lot of say in the outcome of those standards.

 

[00:03:49.13] – Speaker 9

Test will be the injured site

 

[00:03:53.10] – Instructor

Okay, what are you going to do about it?

 

[00:03:55.10] – Speaker 9

What am I going to do about it?

 

[00:03:56.12] – Speaker 9

I’d release the tape, and then as he breathes in, I’d let out all the air.

 

[00:04:02.02] – Instructor

Okay, sounds good.

 

[00:04:03.13] – Ted Williams

This group has gone through 60 hours of training, and that’s training in all aspects of life-saving first aid, as well as the minor day-to-day routine things that are handled in first aid rooms— sliver removal, eye examinations. These are big things here in the Lower Mainland in industry, but they’re also taught how to cope with the major accidents where a person could be caught in machinery or indeed several casualties involved in an accident. We have represented in this room probably a very wide variety of industries, the logging industry, sawmills and so on. Any industry in BC with about 15 or more employees will have somebody that’s an industrial first aid attendant, and they come here once a year to take their course, or depending on their degree of tickets, they may— some of these people probably have A tickets, that means they come back every three years for refresher training. First aid is like any other science, it’s not static, it’s changing all the time, so these people come in for updates and refreshers.

 

[00:05:06.08] – Judy

Employees volunteer to take the course, which teaches them to deal with injuries around the worksite. These workers become a valuable asset to their employers.

 

[00:05:14.17] – Ted Williams

Some companies pay for the employee to take the training program, pay right up front. Some companies will pay them after they successfully complete the course, and then other companies make different arrangements with them. They pay them an hourly rate increase if they pay for the course themselves. So there’s a variety of ways, but basically, yes, industry does pay for industrial first aid.

 

[00:05:36.08] – Ken Scorse

Well, British Columbia, we certify 53,000 people a year over the last few years, and before that it was just a few less. This year I think we’ll better that again, and next year I’m looking to see it go up by 10 percent, hopefully.

 

[00:05:51.02] – Connie Williams

Respiration, colour, Temperature, texture of the skin, probably quite pale, cool, clammy.

 

[00:05:59.02] – Judy

Although each student is taught everything from immobilizing a broken bone to taking vital signs, it appears that there are some skills that are tougher to learn than others.

 

[00:06:08.16] – Speaker 10

This is supposed to be legible to me.

 

[00:06:10.13] – Speaker 9

Well, a doctor should be able to read it. You can’t read a doctor’s handwriting?

 

[00:06:13.22] – Speaker 6

Um, I’d probably like to be on television, be a movie star, an old movie star back in the 1940s.

 

[00:06:22.05] – Judy

Don’t go away.

 

[00:06:24.16] – Scott

We’ll be right back.

 

[00:06:28.03] – Advertisement

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[00:06:56.19] – Advertisement

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[00:07:28.00] – Ken Georgetti

When there’s an earthquake or a hurricane, the world rushes to help the victims, but at the same time, we ignore the victims of tragedies which we have the power to prevent.

 

[00:07:36.07] – Martin Sheen

Such a tragedy is the pesticide poisoning of thousands of California farm workers and their families. Every year, the growers dump millions of pounds of pesticides on the table grape vineyards. These are toxic poisons which cause illness and death.

 

[00:07:48.21] – Ken Georgetti

But this is one tragedy which we can prevent.

 

[00:07:51.18] – Martin Sheen

Please don’t buy California table grapes.

 

[00:07:57.20] – Scott

Judy, a piece of local lore. The building behind us, the old Hastings Mill Store, did you know that it was first opened in 1865?

 

[00:08:04.01] – Judy

Oh, really?

 

[00:08:04.14] – Scott

Yeah, and was the first post office on the Burrard Inlet. Do you know what the name of the first postmaster was?

 

[00:08:11.22] – Judy

Captain Ed Stamp, I believe.

 

[00:08:13.25] – Scott

Ed Stamp. You read the plaque, didn’t you?

 

[00:08:15.24] – Judy

Yeah, I did.

 

[00:08:16.09] – Scott

I knew it.

 

[00:08:16.18] – Judy

Here’s Clay Perry.

 

[00:08:31.09] – Clay Perry

The date is April 26th, 1850. The place is Fort Rupert on the northern end of Vancouver Island. Two Scots coal miners proud of their craft were assigned to dig drainage ditches. Well, they put up with it for a little while and then on the 26th refused to go on with it any longer. BC’s first strike. The company tolerated this for a little while and then on May the 3rd had them clapped into irons and thrown in the brig. You can see it was kind of important for Hudson Bay Company to have a certain influence on the sort of laws that were passed and the way they were enforced. At first it was easy for them. In Nanaimo, for example, if you wanted to run for office or to vote, you had to own property, but the only person that owned property was the company. And so with each election, the company chief executive officer nominated himself, voted for himself, and then wandered off to Victoria to ensure for the companies what has since become known as sympathetic administration. In 1877, when the miners put on a tough and enduring strike, The local magistrate, who also happened to be the company lawyer, wired off to the government pleading for a ship to come and enforce obedience to authority, as he called it.

 

[00:09:48.22] – Clay Perry

Thus did British Columbia miners learn the virtues of active participation in politics, and thus did BC politics acquire a certain colour which it has not entirely lost to this day. That’s Perry’s Log.

 

[00:10:05.07] – Scott

Nursing. It’s a tough job, and Heather Keely is someone who does it. Like nearly 20,000 other BC nurses, she is a member of the BC Nurses Union.

 

[00:10:17.01] – Heather Keely

So I understand you’re going home today. That’s pretty exciting, eh?

 

[00:10:22.07] – Scott

Every day Heather and others like her provide the professional caring, teaching skills, and decision-making that affect all British Columbians who come in contact with our healthcare system. Nurses are always there, 24 hours a day, when it really counts. Hospital nurses like Heather and others working in public health, long-term care, and provincial institutions meet most of us when we’re vulnerable, when we need the care we can’t provide for ourselves.

 

[00:10:52.00] – Heather Keely

I like the fact that you can get close to people in a very short amount of time. and kind of help them at a time when they’re quite vulnerable. And kind of all of the facade of, you know, the person is dropped when they come into the hospital, and you’re just two people who are kind of raw emotion and lots of sensitivities, and it’s a nice time to be with people.

 

[00:11:21.28] – Scott

They also do work that rivals any industrial job. Lifting patients, moving equipment, responding to the call for help any time of the day or night. And the work doesn’t stop, not for the night, not for weekends, not even when most of the rest of us are taking a day off.

 

[00:11:40.29] – Heather Keely

I wanted a job where I could really express warmth to other people and caring, and, and I think nursing is a job which allows you to do that. As nurses, we’re the eyes and ears of the health profession, I think, and we’re kind of at the— being at the patient level, we’re receiving all of the concerns and trying to intercept problems before they actually occur. The fact that you want to do so much for people and you want to make it a very personal experience for people. You want to help them as much as you can, and sometimes you’re just too rushed to do that. And when you see people that are not being cared for appropriately because there just isn’t enough staff, then it eats away at you and you go home quite dissatisfied and you feel bad. Just feeling that the patient has been cheated out of something that was rightfully theirs.

 

[00:12:46.21] – Heather Keely

Jennifer, you’re soaking me. You’re soaking me, girl.

 

[00:12:50.24] – Heather Keely

Being part of the union and as a family person, I guess it’s one extra responsibility, but it’s also a fulfilling responsibility because you, you know you’re making life a little better for other nurses and their families and hopefully improving things. Ouch! For yourself and future generations.

 

[00:13:16.23] – Pat Savage

Nurses in BC began to become unionized in the late 1940s for some very basic and obvious reasons: better wages and working conditions. As a union, the pursuit of those goals never stops. At the same time, in the late 1980s, unionized nurses nurses also see as their role the protection of the healthcare system. Nurses want to continue working in a publicly funded universal healthcare system that recognizes the role we play on behalf of all British Columbians. We believe by achieving our goals, we’ll be achieving the best for our patients too. It’s as simple as that.

 

[00:13:58.26] – Speaker 9

Any job that I could have in the world, I’d be a trampoline artist.

 

[00:14:02.19] – Speaker 4

Why?

 

[00:14:03.05] – Speaker 9

Because it’s the most fun you could have. You get to jump from heights and get paid for what you love to do.

 

[00:14:07.19] – Judy

I think this is a great opportunity to take a look around the rest of the park.

 

[00:14:10.09] – Scott

I think that’s a great idea. So whether it’s a beautiful sunny day or a cloudy day, why don’t you come visit Vancouver’s newest park, the Fraser River Park.

 

[00:14:17.27] – Judy

We’ll be right back.

 

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[00:14:34.10] – Advertisement

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[00:14:36.01] – Advertisement

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[00:15:22.19] – Scott

Welcome back.

 

[00:15:23.17] – Judy

We now take a look at one of the largest workforces in BC.

 

[00:15:26.13] – Scott

The British Columbia Government Employees Union.

 

[00:15:31.07] – John Shields

British Columbia. It’s a great place to live. The natural beauty and bountiful resources make us the envy of everyone who visits the province. It takes hard work to keep BC great. The huge distances and isolated communities means extra effort has to go into making sure that vital services are provided to everyone. Our great forests and ocean resources need to be maintained for future generations. Our environment needs to be protected.

 

[00:16:01.09] – Rick Hawes

Well, I’m inspecting the site to check the conditions against reports submitted by the owner’s agents. The reason that we’re on this site is we’re concerned about pesticide residuals and other contaminants that historically have been left behind by a previous owner. We want to make sure that the environment is going to be protected and that it won’t have any future effects on the environment.

 

[00:16:32.15] – John Shields

What’s happening here with the site so close to the river?

 

[00:16:36.20] – Rick Hawes

Well, Vancouver has a lot of sites that are close to the river. That’s one thing about Vancouver. And we’re always concerned that the pesticides and other contaminants will migrate off the site, get into the river, get into fisheries habitat, and will affect the fish and the environment. My primary responsibility is to respond to spills of hazardous chemicals.

 

[00:17:04.19] – John Shields

What would you do?

 

[00:17:05.04] – John Shields

If there’s a spill, what happens?

 

[00:17:07.28] – Rick Hawes

Well, I would be, I suppose, the first provincial representative on scene. I would direct the person who has spilled the material to stop the spill, contain the spill, to institute measures to clean it up. We would take some samples either for legal purposes or for simply monitoring the situation to make sure that the environment is being protected and to determine how bad the hazard is.

 

[00:17:38.27] – John Shields

I’m John Shields, president of the BC Government Employees’ Union. Like Rick Hawes, the 39,000 members of the BCGEU provide many of the vital services which make our province so special. The sick, the elderly, the vulnerable need special care no matter where they live in our province.

 

[00:17:55.21] – Tom Braasch

If it comes out flat, it means that something behind the eardrum, like fluid or something else, is preventing the eardrum from moving, and usually medicine can take care of that. While we were really doing a real hearing test with— we had two children here. One student was in the booth, and that student had her hearing aids on, was connected with an FM system that she was wearing down at her belt, and I was giving her sounds through a loudspeaker that had a microphone right in front of it, so that the microphone was picking up the sounds, the FM transmitter was sending the sound to the student’s unit, and that was bringing it right up to the hearing aid and putting it right into the student’s ear.

 

[00:18:42.15] – John Shields

What was she doing with the blocks? That was interesting. That seemed like a signal to you.

 

[00:18:47.13] – Tom Braasch

What did she do? We use the blocks with children to give them something interesting to do during the test. She was holding the block, well, near her face, she was holding it and listening for sound, and when she— the instruction was that when she hears just a little bit, she’s supposed to put the block down, and then we give her another one, and she can either build a tower or some other design what she wants. And I’m measuring what her threshold is so that I want to know how loud until she begins to hear my voice and how loud until she begins to hear different pitch sounds. And then I can compare that with the loudness of everyday speech and the different frequency, the loudness of speech for different frequencies, and that would let me know, give me an idea, how much she can hear of speech through that system with the FM and the hearing aids.

 

[00:19:47.14] – John Shields

And what about Gordy? What was the test that you were doing on this?

 

[00:19:49.27] – Tom Braasch

The test we did here, it has like an earplug that you put into the ear, and that sends sound into the ear and also changes the air pressure so that the eardrum, which is flexible normally, it pushes and pulls on the eardrum and shows me what the measurement is, and that I can judge if the eardrum has normal movement. Also, it tells me behind the eardrum there’s a little airspace that sometimes may have problems there, and it would identify problems behind the eardrum as well as the status of the eardrum.

 

[00:20:31.00] – John Shields

Very interesting.

 

[00:20:35.10] – John Shields

How does the— how do these tests fit in with the rest of the children’s program here at the school?

 

[00:20:42.11] – Tom Braasch

Well, this information is important for the teachers because the teachers are in the classroom with the students teaching them all day long, and especially with the younger kids, they have the FM system. So the teacher wants to know how much can that student hear with their hearing aid, how much can the student hear with the FM, what can the teacher expect from that student for speech reception and maybe speech production.

 

[00:21:11.03] – John Shields

You’ll find members of the BCGEU on the highways keeping them clear and safe, working with children who need help, protecting the environment, making sure our air is safe to breathe and our water is safe to drink. We’re in the hospitals looking after the elderly, protecting the forest resources, processing land titles, designing our transportation systems, testing for communicable diseases. Can you tell me just briefly what the various things were that we saw from what we started with you and what happened?

 

[00:21:44.23] – Laura Klodie

Well, I received these specimens in the lab and I have to unpackage them and then I have to label them with numbers and put them into containers, and then from there they go into a centrifuge and they get spun down. And after that, the technician comes along and takes it and works with it after that.

 

[00:22:05.19] – John Shields

People have very strong feelings about AIDS. It’s a scary business for the public. How do you feel about working in this particular laboratory?

 

[00:22:16.02] – Laura Klodie

It doesn’t bother me. I think everybody tends to get nervous once in a while about it, but you just sort of put it in the back of your mind and you continue on with your work.

 

[00:22:29.02] – John Shields

We’re proud of our members, and we’re proud to stand up for the work that they do. We know that when we fight for them, we’re helping to make BC a better place for everyone.

 

[00:22:40.00] – Speaker 19

Well, I don’t think I’d want to do anything forever. It’s nice to have variety.

 

[00:22:46.10] – Scott

Well, it’s a lot warmer in here.

 

[00:22:48.02] – Scott

Judy, what are you doing?

 

[00:22:49.09] – Judy

I’m looking for a job.

 

[00:22:50.19] – Scott

But this is only show 12.

 

[00:22:51.14] – Judy

Well, I guess I’ll have to come back next week then.

 

[00:22:54.21] – Scott

I’m gonna go grab a coffee.

 

[00:22:55.28] – Judy

We’ll be right back.

 

[00:22:59.28] – Advertisement

Lucy knows everything has to be right because we want our visitors to return.

 

[00:23:05.10] – Lucy Moncada

Our work is important to all British Columbians.

 

[00:23:08.16] – Advertisement

Nick Worhaug, president of Local Local 40, the Hotel and Restaurant workers. 10,000 men and women who make BC a great place to visit and a wonderful place to live.

 

[00:23:18.21] – Rick Heseltine

We would like to make a good impression on our guests, and we are proud of the high standards of excellence we have set.

 

[00:23:23.29] – Nick Worhaug

Local 40, we serve the need of our members and the province.

 

[00:23:27.13] – Nick Worhaug

We make the good times better in BC.

 

[00:23:31.19] – Advertisement

You’re still in bed when the first trucks start rolling. Before this day is through, each man will lift 15,000 pounds of garbage and walk miles of back alley. This job is tough and it’s dirty. Takes a special kind of man to work this hard for you and your community. A garbage man. It’s his neighbourhood too. They can’t rush it or cut corners because a safe, clean city is something to be proud of, and you can’t put a price tag on that. CUPE garbage men. A winning team that takes pride in a job well done.

 

[00:24:01.26] – Advertisement

All across our province, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers serve British Columbians in supermarkets, drugstores, fruit and vegetable packing houses, lumber stores, warehouses, meatpacking plants, and other jobs. The 17,000 UFCW members work to ensure that consumers get the best service possible. In turn, the UFCW members spend their wages in the community, helping to improve the economic and social well-being of British Columbia. The United Food and Commercial Workers, helping to make British Columbia better for all of us.

 

[00:24:32.14] – Judy

Well, that was a nice break.

 

[00:24:33.23] – Scott

I’m all warmed up and ready to go.

 

[00:24:35.09] – Judy

Well, while we go back to Hastings Mill, here’s Charlie Farquharson.

 

[00:24:52.26] – Charlie Farquharson

I don’t know hardly any men that’s in labour, but I’ve been hearing a lot lately about your Ken Gorgeous Georgetti. Ken comes from a union family conceived by a union of his father and mother and brung up by the Kooten-nannies hard by your Trail. His dad worked for your Cominkers, and Ken himself started out as a smoke eater in your steel mill. And that boy’s been a trailblazer ever since. Till now he’s head-fed of all your BC labour. But with all his excess, Ken is still a small-town boy from a one-company town. Likes nothing better than to get out of doors and go fishing with Sandy, his wife. Although Ken would probably do better if he tried it with flies or worms. And he’s still a big athletical supporter when it comes to hockey or baseball. And his idea of a big-time Saturday night is for to take his wife to a local dance and have them both shake their booties. Do you mind, Ken? You ask any of the women in this here province and they don’t mind him at all. They all think Ken should be in the movie pictures alongside of that there Rubber Redfern.

 

[00:25:52.23] – Charlie Farquharson

But Ken is more interested in having good pubic relations. with employers. He’s a new kind of labour leader, handing out olive branches across the bargainining table. That’s why he’s so popular with everybody as an orgy-anizer. Ken’s slogo is, good business means good jobs, and believe me, his kind of style is catching on all across the world. In Angola, an Africa handstand, and in your Persians Gulf, between your Iraner and your earacher, who knows, real peace may soon break out yet. Ronnie Rachin sure took out a leaf from Ken Georgetti’s book when he had that slummit conference with that serviette Mickey Garbagehead over to Washington, AC/DC. First thing Ronnie done was extend a hand of welcome, and Sexretary Garvey offered Ronnie what they call the glass nuts, and the two of them has been looking disarming at each other ever since.

 

[00:26:43.24] – Judy

Well, that’s it for this week’s show.

 

[00:26:45.08] – Scott

I can’t believe next week is the last show of our first season.

 

[00:26:48.10] – Judy

And we’ll be featuring some of the places we visited and people we met during our last 12 weeks.

 

[00:26:52.21] – Scott

And we’ll be introducing you to someone we met our very first week on the road.

 

[00:26:55.27] – Judy

That’s right, he was a really neat guy, wasn’t he?

 

[00:26:57.11] – Scott

Mm-hmm, he showed me how to shoot and you how to divine for gold.

 

[00:27:00.20] – Judy

And I’m still not rich.

 

[00:27:02.08] – Scott

For BC at Work, I’m Scott Swanson.

 

[00:27:04.01] – Judy

And I’m Judy Pal. Good night.

 

[00:27:33.03] – Narrator

The producers of BC at Work would like to thank the following companies for supplying goods and services. Our show hosts travel BC in the luxury of a 28-foot motorhome provided by Okanagan Manufacturers. The crew vehicle for the show is a 1988 Chevy S-10 Blazer, compliments of Westminster Auto Leasing. Our fuel expenses throughout BC have been provided by the Petro-Canada dealers and agents. Our energy is Canada. While on the road, the cast and crew of BC at Work stay at Coast Hotels, the choice of the frequent traveller. Everyone on the show can stay in touch no matter where we are in the province thanks to Autotel and cellular equipment compliments of Cellular Express and BC Cellular. Aerial footage made available through the services of Vancouver Helicopters. This week, BC at Work has been made possible in part by contributions from Labour Canada, CUPE BC, and CU&C Health Services Society.