UNITE Health and Safety Stay safe


News from all over the UK has come of incidents where tree workers have been killed or seriously injured.


In December 2021, after storms Arwen and Barra created large numbers of fallen trees and branches, the HSE warned farmers to “avoid carrying out the work themselves without the necessary experience.”


HSE’s Christopher Maher said, “While fallen trees due to adverse weather conditions can cause disruption and it can be tempting to carry out emergency tree work, we warn [unqualified] people against attempting this high-risk activity.”


Normally little detail is released of fatal accidents, but an inquest on an accident from 2017 is a tragic example. Fully qualified Ben Thomas, 24, lost his life while felling larches in Sirhowy Forest. He was working within normal earshot and visual distance of his colleagues, but in a few minutes when no-one could see or hear him, a tree hung on the tree he was felling, fell straight down upon him. Being a tree worker was the “job of his dreams” and had joined the team just four months previously.


Two tree workers died in Wales in October 2021, a tree surgeon working by a main road in the north and a chainsaw operator in the south, once again crushed by a hung-up tree.


Many accidents reported to HSE result from trees swinging sideways against a rope, or twisting on an incomplete hinge.


n By Helen Armstrong


Latest on workers’ safety news


More hands needed on forestry safety deck


Case studies also illustrate the extreme dangers that can be posed by chainsaws, a key tool in forestry work. Many cases show a fatality or a life changing injury from a sudden catastrophic neck injury when a chainsaw rebounds.


Unite reps report that much chainsaw work has been withdrawn from staff in recent years in favour of contractors, but the chainsaw is likely to remain the main tool of tree work in the future.


One ongoing problem is that foresters are not getting enough cutting work to remain confident with their chainsaw skills.


“Absolutely,” says Unite’s health and safety rep at Forestry and Land Scotland, Neil Grieve. “I’ve been in the organisation 35 years and using a chainsaw was my full time job. I’ve got all the training and I can cut windblow, and big trees. I’m seeing young lads getting trained and thrown in at the deep end. We used to do a lot of clearing work in the summer, but now they won’t let us touch a chainsaw.”


“You‘ve maybe got a couple of trees over a track four miles away and it’s not feasible to send a £450,000 mechanical cutter up there. You still need people with chainsaws.


“They are struggling to get planting contractors in some areas, and trees are being dumped. And contract planters in the winter are living in tents or yurts, or motor homes they have put together themselves.”


32 uniteLANDWORKER Summer 2022


Said Unite’s Matthew Belsey, on the HSE Agriculture Industry Advisory Committee, “For contractors, often providing their own saplings and tree protectors, the biggest complaint is the poor rates for planting. To make even a basic living up to 3,000 trees per person per day need planting. Add expensive protective clothing, and it is hard to survive.


“Those using brush cutters and chainsaws must have expensive regular training, plus maintain and update their equipment and safety clothing.”


Even at ground level falling is an issue. Says Neil, “Where the site is clear- felled, you are slipping and tripping on brash all the time. If you have a younger person with you, they are not used to walking on it. I know where to stand, but I still trip up, even with my experience.”


He emphasises that mental health problems with staff here in Scotland is a bigger issue, including some suicides. “In forestry, and deer management, they are trying to cut the costs for the contractors and full time staff. And it’s not working, it’s quite a specialist job. A lot of things are not right”, he says.


George Whitcher, Unite lead safety rep for South England, added, “When you’re using chainsaws 24/7 it’s quite easy to keep your skills up. Otherwise, people are not getting the work probably needed to keep up their skills in a dangerous industry. Forestry workers did mainly chainsaw work in


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