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TEST1 Monday, April 11, 2011 Keeping safety first On February 4, 2011, North Atlantic employees celebrated their third, million-hour milestone. Representatives from government and company management praised North Atlantic employees from the podium. “KNOC is committed to safety across our entire organization. When we acquired North Atlantic just over a year ago, we were very happy to see that safety was also very important to everyone here. We are looking forward to working with you all to even further improve your workplace safety,” says YongHo Cho, president of North Atlantic. Perry Feltham and Shawn Decker, co-chairs of the refinery’s JOSHE committee, also took to the podium to say a few words about safety. “Most everyone can do a job; it takes a North Atlantic employee to do the job correctly and safely,” said Perry Feltham, USWA Vice President. Chair of the Workplace Health & Safety Commission, Ralph Tucker, also spoke at the event. “Our congratulations to everyone for building a safe environment as the foundation of your safety culture at the refinery, and in achieving one million hours without a lost-time incident. We look forward to coming back to the refinery when you all celebrate two million hours LTA-free.” At the time of writing this piece, North Atlantic employees were well on their way to breaking their current safety performance record set back in 2007. “Back then we worked a record 467 days or 1.8 million person-hours without a lost-time injury. As of April 11, we had reached 435 days lost-time injury free,” says Jamie Beach, with the refinery’s safety team. “Having now reached just over 1.3 million person-hours without losing even one day to injury puts us well on the path to a twice-as-impressive two-million-hours.” On average, a North Atlantic employee works 2,080 hours a year (less vacations and other days off). Take that 2,080 and multiply it by 550, which is about the number of employees at North Atlantic, you will get just over a million hours. So, in a typical year, North Atlantic employees work a combined average of one million person-hours. To work more than one million person-hours without a LTA is very impressive. Many companies and organizations boast about working several years without a lost-time injury but they only have 25 or 30 employees. Just imagine how many years it would take for them to reach one million hours—roughly 20 years. North Atlantic employees make safety a choice, not a chance. |
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