great harm in our industry’
Sigurdson, in an interview after attending the workshop, said the B.C. Building Trades Council is still determining how to get warning messages out to its 40,000 members. It’s tricky, because the vast majority are not employed by one builder, but move from one construction project to another as contract workers.
Communication could start, he said, with the dispatching system that sends workers to their next assignment — checking in with those who the unions know have had injuries on the job, for example, and might be taking medication for pain management.
“We need to be aware that there is a potential for really great harm in our industry,” Sigurdson said. “What can we do to lessen the impact so our members are aware at least and hopefully take precautionary measures?”
The council has run a rehabilitation program for three decades. The key is to encourage workers to ask for help. But it can often be very hard for these men to admit, for example, that their drug use has moved from recreational use or pain management to addiction, Sigurdson added.
He knew a trades worker in his mid-20s who was injured on the job and was taking pain medication. When he visited the Lower Mainland, he forgot his pills, so he bought some stronger drugs to reduce his pain from a dealer who had supplied him with recreational marijuana in the past.
That young man died of an overdose. “He made a terrible error,” Sigurdson said.
Lee said the health authority has reached out to schools that train these workers, to superintendents on construction sites and to private companies that hire these contracted employees.
“In terms of the trades, we had conversations about where we can intervene. And we found out through that conversation that, for instance, some of the mental-health issues such as depression and anxiety are not often talked about at regular safety meetings,” Lee said.
“And we did find through the analysis that a large group of people actually turn to substances (for) self-medication for anxiety and depression and other mental-health disorders, so we are trying to make it more public and to infiltrate through job sites whether we can make that information more available.”
Many in the industry would like to see more detailed figures on the percentage of construction workers at risk of overdoses and the reasons for that. Among them is Dana Taylor of the Mechanical Contractors Association of B.C., which represents contractors and businesses that employ plumbers, pipefitters, welders and other construction workers.
Taylor has not heard directly about any concerns in the industry, but attended the Fraser Health workshop.
“We looked at what is it we are trying to do? How are we trying to identify the problem? Who is the problem? And how can we best message the solutions to people who are in need of assistance so the overdoses don’t happen,” he said.
“This is good news from the point of view of having pointed the finger and saying there’s a problem — B.C. LNG ALLIANCE/YOUTUBE because that in itself has caused us to have a harder look at what is going on.”
One of the challenges of construction workers sharing health concerns with their co-workers and bosses is the transient nature of contract work.
“There is little or no intimacy in terms of the bonds you might create at a full-time work site . ... The people that you meet on a casual basis are not necessarily the people who you are going to share your deepest concerns with,” he said.
Without more precise figures, Taylor said it is impossible to know how big the problem is and what is driving it, such as self-medication or drug use for other reasons.
“You get in trouble no matter what you’re addicted to. It just happens that this stuff kills.”