Safety & Health

BFI’s positive safety culture stems from the high quality of experienced tradespeople and supervision who make up the workforce, the comprehensive policies and procedures developed by the management team, and the spirit of brotherhood coming out of the union halls. These are mutually reinforcing elements that contribute to a strong whole.

BFI believes in mutual support and mutual expectation – the key expectation being that everyone contributes to the wellbeing of the entire team each and every day. The informal level is reinforced by a sophisticated, modern system of formal policies and procedures that are oriented to prevention through training and are backed by audits and enforcement. The system in turn is strengthened by the common level of credentials, certification and training made possible by employing unionized tradespeople.

The overall result is a strong BFI safety culture to which everyone contributes and from which everyone benefits – the employees and their families, BFI as a whole, BFI’s major client, the construction companies to which the major client supplies labour and the owners of the construction projects.

BFI cares about the health and safety of each of its employees. As a union member, every employee gains access to what BFI considers the best health plan coverage available in the Canadian labour market.

BFI has a leading safety culture that has consistently achieved strong safety performance, including a low rate of recordable incidents. BFI’s guiding philosophy is to supply safe tradespeople at all times. BFI’s continuing objective is zero safety incidents.

Our safety performance to date places the company in the top 10 percent of industry competitors in its receipt of rebates from provincial Partnerships in Injury Reduction programs. We are proud of our performance, but it isn’t not stopping there. BFI expects to work a total of approximately 3.5 million man-hours in 2012 – and BFI will continue to strive for zero incidents.

At BFI, you’ll have support every step of the way – you’ll never find yourself on your own. BFI regards safety, training and continuing improvement as a team activity. BFI has a thorough practice of internal mentorship from senior foremen, superintendents and construction managers. Mentorship is backed up by BFI’s participation in formal programs and events.