IUEC Local 82’s Stand Down for Safety in the Elevator Industry

On May 15, IUEC Local 82 hosted its third annual Safety Stand Down event at the Italian Cultural Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

“Safety Stand Down is a moment to take a time out and talk about safety,” began Eric McClaskey, Safety Director for the International Union of Elevator Constructors (IUEC). “It’s for us to put down the tools, get with the employers, get with our members, and take that moment to discuss safety in the workplace.”

 

The event is a joint venture between the international office of the IUEC, Local 82 in Vancouver, and IUEC-affiliated elevator company employers. “It shows that both the companies and the union are on the same side when it comes to safety,” said Ben McIntyre, an IUEC National Organizer in Canada.

IUEC elevator constructors from greater Vancouver and across British Columbia showed up to listen to the featured speakers and visit tables staffed by IUEC-affiliated company representatives and manufacturers of safety equipment for the industry. From those who worked in modernization to repair to new construction and maintenance, elevator constructors who were probationary apprentices all the way to veteran mechanics gathered together to listen to the same message.

Mike Funk, Business Manager of Local 82, was pleased with the turnout for this year’s event. “It’s our third annual one. We started out small. My one rep Tyler Dunlop came to me and asked about getting something to do with safety. It started out just in the back of our one office. We had a food truck, a few vendors, the companies, and it’s just grown.”

As IUEC’s Director of Safety, Eric McClaskey is responsible for ensuring that the membership gets home safely every night. This includes ensuring elevator constructors are following their company’s safety policies, that they’re being provided with the proper PPE and equipment to work safely in their job each and every day, and that various codes and standards that are out there that protect workers are followed throughout the country.  He spoke on behalf of the IUEC Safety Department along with Assistant Director of Safety, Dave Griefenhagen and Josh Josoff, the IUEC’s Director of Codes and Standards.

As Assistant Safety Director, Dave’s primary focus is helping to develop local area safety committees (which are labor management safety committees) to encourage and educate on the safety policies of IUEC signatory companies on the job sites. Josh Josoff works with the development of the codes and standards that regulate elevators, escalators, moving walks, and other conveyance equipment across North America, Canada, and the United States.

“This year, our Safety Stand Down message from the employers was based on pre-job planning, Eric told us. “Of course, it was General President Christensen’s message to the membership to lead it off.”  Video messages from IUEC General President Frank Christensen, Canadian Premier David Eby, Canadian Minister of Labour Harry Bains, and leadership from IUEC-affiliated companies emphasized the importance of working safe

“We had two guest speakers that had horrific workplace injuries that occurred to them, and they told their stories,” he continued. Mark Johnson, who was injured in an accident involving a woodchipper, and Jack Thomas who was injured by a conveyor belt at a recycling facility, spoke about how their on-the-job injuries permanently affected their lives.

After watching presentations by the injured workers, Anne Kirkland, a Maintenance Supervisor for TKE, told us that it’s important for people who work in professions like the elevator trade to remember that workplace injuries impact more than just the person who gets hurt. “It’s not just their story. It’s a story of their loved ones. This did not just affect the one person that was injured. It affected their entire families and support systems,” she said.

Dylan Angus, the son of IUEC Elevator Constructor Ross Angus, who lost his life in an accident in 2021, spoke about his family’s experience after his father’s death. Today, Dylan has dedicated his life to improving safety on the jobsite as a Construction Safety Supervisor for TKE in Burnaby, British Columbia.

Chris McIntyre, Program Director for the Canadian Elevator Industry Educational Program (CEIEP) also attended the event, along with CEIEP’s Assistant Director, Dan Vinette. ElevatorInfo recently put out a story about CEIEP, the largest trainer of elevator constructor apprentices across Canada, coast to coast.

“CEIEP has taken great advances to improve safety starting with our 24-hour safety course. We’ve introduced the CEIEP Safety VR, which allows all new hires to the industry to access the machine room, car top, an elevator pit in a safe and controlled manner before their first day of employment,” he said.

“CEIEP is really where it starts, right?” said Dave Griefenhagen. “The education of safety starts from the day the apprentice steps on the jobsite, and CEIEP is where that’s captured.”

Major IUEC-affiliated elevator companies KONE and TKE had a strong presence at the event. “This is the second year I’ve been involved,” said Jennifer Mitchell, Maintenance Supervisor for KONE Elevators. When asked why it was important for her to attend, she told us “I’m just trying to learn how to keep my team as safe as possible. I want them to go home safe every day to their family, their friends, and make sure nobody gets hurt on my watch.”

Companies that develop and sell safety equipment used by elevator constructors in the field also had tables set up. We visited with Mike Hurley from Wurtec elevator and talked with him about the equipment he was demonstrating at his table. “We have wire rope, travel cable, we’re kind of a one-stop shop for the elevator industry. We’ve got mechanics that are coming around and checking out our wares and hopefully seeing something that might help them in their day-to-day jobs that would make it safer,” he said.

Darrin Porch, founder and CEO of SafeRise, spoke to us about how the hoistway protection equipment his company developed can create safer jobsites for elevator constructors. “SafeRise was founded with the focus on bringing engineered, reusable safety solutions to the construction industry,” he said. “I was very honored to be invited as a vendor to come here and be a part of this. We are looking to grow into Canada, so this was a great event to get to meet a lot of people here. And the event really focused on putting safety at the forefront for the workers. The IUEC does a great job of doing that and keeping that focus there.”

“The dangers are always around us and it only takes a split second for you to become one of the statistics,” said Ward Dicks, National Coordinator for the Canadian Market Recovery Fund in Canada and the Elevator Industry Work Preservation Fund in the US. “I have a son in the trade, and I want to make sure that he gets home every day safe, just like every other brother and sister in Canada and the US. It’s the whole thing about changing the way we think about safety.”

Eric McClaskey explained how events like this don’t just benefit mechanics and apprentices who work on vertical transportation equipment, they benefit elevator companies, elevator customers, and the riding public:

“When we focus on safety in a stand down arena like this, we take that time out to think about safety. When we get back to the job site, I think that it goes right back to the type of work you’re performing. At the end of the day, when you’re in construction and you’re focused on the task at hand and putting out a top-notch piece of equipment that is safe, tested, and ready to go for the riding public, safety just leads right into that mindset. It promotes higher quality work, too. If you’re working safe and you’re not rushing and not cutting corners, it provides a safer product for the riding public.”

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The Future of Elevator Education in Canada: Introducing the Canadian Elevator Industry Educational Program (CEIEP)

The International Union of Elevator Constructors (IUEC) represents the best-trained, most highly-skilled elevator constructor apprentices and mechanics not just in the United States of America but throughout North America, covering all ten provinces in the country of Canada as well as the US territories of Puerto Rico and Guam. While US-based elevator constructor apprentices receive their apprenticeship training through the IUEC’s USDOL-registered National Elevator Industry Educational Program (NEIEP), elevator constructor apprentices in Canada get their training through the Canadian Elevator Industry Educational Program (CEIEP).

“CEIEP is the largest trainer of apprentices across Canada, coast to coast. We start with the sun in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and we close with the sun in Victoria,” said Chris McIntyre, CEIEP’s Program Director.

As Program Director, Chris manages CEIEP’s day-to-day operations. This includes overseeing curriculum development, making sure classrooms have the resources they need, and staying on top of changes in safety and code regulations.

“It’s beneficial to the companies and the IUEC to make sure that the apprentices that are turned out have the best skill set for the industry,” said Chris. “An ideal class is a classroom where the training between the instructor and the student is back and forth in order to allow them to retain the knowledge required for their careers.”

Similar to NEIEP instructors, CEIEP instructors are at a minimum licensed journeypersons in their jurisdictions. The skills that they bring to the program are varied. They come from multiple companies, from the large manufacturers to the small independents. They have the ability to teach the apprentices the required skill sets that they’ll need for their careers ahead of them.

Like NEIEP students, CEIEP students do not pay out of pocket to attend classes – the cost of their training is covered by their IUEC education benefits. This includes books, lab materials, and online resources. In other Canadian trades’ apprenticeships, students are required to take eight weeks off of work for their training, but this is not the case with CEIEP. Elevator constructor apprentices continue to work and go to school at the same time, attending classes at night and on occasional weekend days.

There are differences in apprenticeship requirements for Canada and the US. Instead of one set of federal regulations that cover the entire country (as in the US), each Canadian province has its own requirements for apprenticeship training. To ensure that apprentices across Canada are on track with the requirements in the provinces where they live and work, CEIEP has put a program in place with its own national requirements above what all provinces require. For example, in Ontario, the requirement for in-class hours is 720 – so all across Canada, CEIEP teaches 775 in-class hours to ensure that apprentices who graduate from the program are able to qualify in every province.

In terms of work hours, minimum requirements vary from 7,000 to 10,000 hours. Once apprentices have completed their classes, work hours, and passed the CEIEP capstone mechanic exam, they are eligible to challenge the licensing exam for their province. CEIEP also helps apprentices prepare to take the exam in their province.

This summer, the ElevatorInfo team visited CEIEP headquarters in Pickering, Ontario, just outside of Toronto. The organization has been in its current location for about a year and a half. We had a chance to tour their facility and speak with Chris, along with Vithu Selvakumar, CEIEP’s Technology and Development Lead, and Rose Lenin, CEIEP’s Warehouse Manager.

Chris was excited to tell us about his goals for the future of CEIEP. “We are looking to move away from print material and provide every student with either a tablet or a laptop, which all that information will be located on, because we believe that we need to teach transferable skills… on the job site, when, adjusters show up, they come with a laptop. They come with a tablet. They come with a phone. Some tool that is used to work with the controller. We want to make sure that our apprentices, our students, our journey persons have the skill set of being able to work with a laptop or a tablet. By simply putting our material on that, it will force them to have that skill.”

Chris was initially hired as CEIEP’s Assistant Director under Dan Vinette, who had served as the Program Director for CEIEP since 2018.  To ensure a smooth leadership transition, Dan and Chris swapped roles beginning in 2023. Today, Dan remains actively involved with CEIEP’s curriculum development, virtual reality, and translation projects. Working remotely from his home base in Gatineau, he has spent the last year traveling to CEIEP classrooms in every province of Canada to train instructors and area coordinators on CEIEP’s state-of-the-art virtual technology.

Chris also intends to expand the use of hands-on and virtual labs, with a goal to create a lab activity to go along with each of the program’s 25 modules. “We’re working with new technologies like VR, where students will be able to, in the virtual world, build scaffold. The first module that we have updated for the curriculum is module one, which is the 24-hour safety course that all apprentices are required to take before they can get a provincial license. Dan and Vithu have spent the last year building the course. We have integrated our new VR lab into it, which allows new hires to the industry to access a machine room, a cartop, and a pit in the virtual world safely before they ever set step on an elevator work site.”

Vithu Selvakumar, CEIEP’s Technology and Development Lead, is the tech expert driving the development of virtual reality in the CEIEP curriculum. With an undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto and a master’s in Educational Technology from the University of British Columbia, she brings the skills and experience that will keep the CEIEP curriculum current with growing technological advances in vertical transportation. Working together with the CEIEP in-house team and subject matter experts from the elevator and tech industries, Vithu constructs virtual courses, manages the e-learning portal students and instructors use to access them, and conducts beta tests to ensure the student experience is in line with the organization’s goals.

Vithu spoke with us about a recent test-run of a new VR course she conducted with CEIEP students and instructors. “We had a pilot class of students in after the training that happened with the instructors, and the students were able to go through that pilot class and test out the virtual reality and the whole course that was created. We’ve received their feedback – it’s an iterative process, so we are able to continuously improve,” she said.

In addition to the 24-hour VR safety course that recently launched, Chris is eager to get more interactive VR programs up and running with CEIEP students across Canada. “CEIEP has embraced technology. We are working with some of the companies at the forefront of VR development… and Vithu has been at the forefront of that.”

Mike Funk, Business Manager of IUEC Local 82 in Vancouver and a CEIEP Trustee, emphasized the importance as well as the practical and safety-focused advantages of integrating advanced technologies like VR into the CEIEP curriculum.  “You’re not just reading a textbook …they see what you see when you walk into a hoistway of machine room. They can pick out safety issues and dangerous situations…they get to see what the equipment is, how it reacts. So even a new (apprentice) who gets a permit coming in goes through a 24-hour safety course, gets to see the virtual reality … this is what you should do, this is what you should look for, so even before they even hit the job they know what they’re going into, and the idea is to keep them safe as they install, repair, or maintain the equipment.”

While at CEIEP headquarters, we also visited with Rose Lenin, CEIEP’s Warehouse Manager. Rose handles shipping and logistics of CEIEP’s labs, curriculum materials, and exams for all ten provinces and three territories. According to Chris, “she has singlehandedly altered the way in which CEIEP ships, and I know every instructor and area coordinator across the country is thankful for the changes that she’s brought to CEIEP.”

CEIEP recently traveled to the NEIEP Instructor Training Center in Warwick, RI, to meet with Director Dave Morgan, Assistant Director John Caughey, Head of Development, Lester White, and the NEIEP Development team. While there are differences in each organization’s curriculum based on differing needs in US and Canadian apprenticeship, there are many areas where they will be able to work together to benefit both. Virtual reality, hands-on labs, and safety are three areas they will be coordinating efforts in the future.

Chris is proud of the work CEIEP students have done in Ontario and beyond. “The elevators built in Toronto were built by the hands of CEIEP graduates. From the CN tower, which at one point was the tallest free-standing structure in North America and the world, to the sky dome, which is a one-of-a-kind stadium for people to come and visit, to our many commercial buildings in the core of Toronto that give lovely views of the city.”

With hundreds of IUEC-affiliated elevator companies across the US and Canada ready, willing, and able to meet the demands of your job, competitive bidding and a professional product are guaranteed. Contact us to receive more information on the IUEC signatory companies in your region, or enter your location in our interactive map.

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