June 30, 2026
BC Crane Safety Newsletter
SUMMER 2026
Summer Safety: Heat Stress Exposure Control
Hot weather can create serious risks for crane operators, riggers, and other workers who perform physically demanding tasks outdoors or in enclosed work areas. Under WorkSafeBC Occupational Health and Safety Regulation (OHSR) Part 7, Section 7.27 Heat Exposure, if a worker is or may be exposed to heat stress conditions, employers must develop and implement a heat stress exposure control plan that meets the requirements of OHSR Section 5.54(2).
To help you with this task, we have two essential documents to help you stay compliant and safe:
Safe Work Practice: Heat Stress Exposure Control Plan
This safe work practice provides a full framework for the hazard assessment and best practices for the prevention of heat stress.
Toolbox Talk: Heat Stress Exposure Control Plan
This is a practical field tool to help your crew stay up to date on heat stress prevention duties, controls, symptoms, and procedures.
A strong heat stress exposure control plan should include:
- Clear responsibilities and communication
- Heat stress assessment and monitoring
- Hydration
- Acclimatization
- Work-rest schedules
- Training
- Emergency response procedures
- Record keeping
For jobsites with crane operations, heat risks may increase due to prolonged sun exposure, reflected heat from concrete or metal surfaces, physically demanding rigging tasks, personal protective equipment (PPE), and limited shade or airflow in operator cabs or work areas.
The resources above highlight the importance of recognizing early signs and symptoms of heat-related illness. Heat rash, heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke require different levels of response. Heat stroke is a medical emergency and requires immediate first aid and 911 assistance.
Heat stroke is a medical emergency and requires immediate first aid and 911 assistance.
As temperatures rise, supervisors should review heat hazards during daily pre-job meetings, confirm workers are acclimatized, ensure water and cooling areas are available, and remind crews to report symptoms early. Workers should stay hydrated, watch out for co-workers, and speak up when conditions become unsafe.
Please review and share these new BC Crane Safety resources with your crews as part of your summer safety planning. Heat stress prevention starts before the work begins.
Safe Rigging Essentials
Safe rigging is essential to keeping loads stable, controlled, and compliant throughout every lift. Our Rigging knowledge base page is a new resource containing information to help you:
Master the fundamentals: Accurately determine load weight and center of gravity (COG) and understand how hitch types and sling angles directly affect capacity and tension.
Follow the regulatory framework: Be compliant with mandatory WorkSafeBC regulations, standards such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ASME B30.9, B30.10, B30.20, B30.26, and Canadian Standards Association CSA Z150 and CSA Z248 for cranes.
Inspect and reject without exception: Stay vigilant with required rigging gear inspections by a qualified person before each use, daily, and periodically. Remove any equipment that is damaged, deformed, or excessively worn immediately.
Control hazards before the lift: Assess all conditions, maintain mandatory limits of approach near energized conductors, use proper signalling, and apply taglines safely to manage load movement.
Communicate and control the load: Use qualified signal persons, clear communication, standard hand signals, and taglines where appropriate to help control load movement safely. Keep the load path clear and landing areas prepped.
If you’re looking to create, review, or strengthen your rigging procedures, lift plans, or training documentation, be sure to visit our Rigging knowledge base page for B.C.-specific regulations, inspection criteria, and essential tools.
RRR Series Closing Chapter: Worker Responsibilities
Worker responsibilities are an important part of workplace safety and once they become embedded in how we perform our everyday tasks and start to feel like second nature, safety becomes part of the way work gets done.
This summer, we’re wrapping up our roles, rights, and responsibilities (RRR) series with a look at worker health and safety obligations on the jobsite.
Workers have a general duty to complete their work responsibly with due diligence and reasonable care to protect not only their own health and safety, but that of others.
The Rights & Responsibilities Series
Workers
Refusing Unsafe Work
The Right to Know About Hazards
The Right to Participate
Supervisors
Roles, Rights, and Responsibilities
Owners/General & Prime Contractors
Rights & Responsibilities
They also have a general duty to comply with occupational health and safety (OHS) provisions, regulations, and any applicable orders.
While these may sound like an employer or supervisor responsibilities, worker duties are clearly outlined in the Workers Compensation Act (WCA) and WorkSafeBC OHS Regulation.
The WCA contains additional worker requirements as long as these activities adhere to the previously mentioned general duties.
The WCA states workers must carry out work in accordance with established safe work procedures as required by the OHS provisions and the regulations.
They must use or wear protective equipment, devices, and clothing as required by the regulations.
They must also not engage in horseplay or similar conduct that may endanger themselves or others.
Workers must ensure they are able to work in a safe manner that does not risk their own health or safety or that of others. This includes ensuring that they are not impaired by alcohol, drugs, or other causes.
Everyone is familiar with the phrase “safety begins with you”, but it is equally important to understand that worker responsibilities include cooperation with their workplace joint health and safety committee or worker health and safety representative.
Cooperation with the Board, officers of the Board, and any other person that is carrying out a duty under the OHS provisions or regulations is also required.
This reflects the team-based nature of workplace safety. Without cooperation, gaps can form in the safety system and increase the risk of injury or incidents.
Finally, a worker is mandated to report to their supervisor or employer if they are aware of:
- Any contravention of the OHS provisions, regulations, or an applicable order.
- Any absence of or defect in any protective equipment, device or clothing, or the existence of any other hazard that the worker might consider dangerous to themselves or any other person.
You can learn more about worker responsibilities by checking out these additional resources and have your team try WorkSafeBC’s interactive web book on workplace rights and responsibilities.
General and “Qualified Supervisors” for Tower Crane
The WorkSafeBC October 1, 2024 amendment of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation Part 14: Cranes and Hoists added new formal requirements around supervision.
What is the difference between a general supervisor as required under the broader OHS Regulation, and a “qualified supervisor” for tower crane activities as defined in OHSR Section 14.73.1?
Notably, this definition of “qualified supervisor” can differ from a general supervisor on-site in terms of required competencies.
It is also important that, in any tower crane operation, both sets of competencies are present on site for the supervision of the tower crane activities.
The General Supervisor
The general supervisor is not a legal term defined in crane-specific regulations, but rather a functional role rooted in general OHS requirements.
This person holds the responsibility for safe crane operation on jobsites, including involvement in the establishment and execution of a written supervision plan for all provisional crane operators under their watch.
The general supervisor’s focus is on the system of training and oversight. They must ensure that the supervision plan is tailored to the site, the specific equipment, and the trainee and must map out the training and hands-on experience needed to achieve competence.
This supervisory role may be shared among several people depending on the complexity of the worksite.
The Qualified Supervisor
The qualified supervisor for tower crane activities is a role created under the 2024 OHSR amendments, specifically for high-risk phases of a tower crane’s lifecycle.
This person is responsible for directing the technical processes of erection, climbing, repositioning, and dismantling—activities that present serious risks if not properly managed.
A key feature of this role is its specificity. The definition under the OHSR clarifies that a person may be a qualified supervisor for one type of crane or activity, but not for others. The qualification is met through a combination of education, training, and experience, ensuring that the supervisor has the practical know-how for the particular crane and task at hand.
General and Qualified Supervisors: A Side-by-Side Look
| General Supervisor of Site Operations | Qualified Supervisor Tower Crane Activities | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Focus | Overall site safety and the training of crane operators | Technical oversight of tower crane erection, climbing, repositioning, and dismantling |
| Responsibility | Ensure safe crane and hoisting operations on worksites through safe job procedures, plans, and hazard assessment | Direct the safe execution of complex, specific, crane tasks |
| Regulatory Basis | General OHS duties for site supervision and training | OHSR Sections 14.73.1 – 14.75 |
| Registration | No specific registration outside of employer | BC Crane Safety qualified supervisor registration or an NOP–TC qualified supervisor application submitted to WorkSafeBC per instance |
| Qualification Basis | Knowledge of the work, the hazards involved, and the means to control the hazards, by reason of education, training, experience, or a combination thereof | Knowledge in relation to the erection, climbing, repositioning or dismantling of a tower crane, meaning a supervisor who is qualified to erect, climb, reposition, or dismantle, as the case may be, for the particular tower crane |
The primary source of confusion appears to be the overlapping use of the term “supervisor” in day-to-day conversations. On a typical job site, an occupational health and safety supervisor might be referred to as the “general supervisor”, while the crane assembly expert is called the “crane supervisor”.
The regulatory requirements do not replace one another; they complement each other.
A comprehensive and safe worksite requires both roles to be clearly defined and fulfilled, whether by the same person or, more commonly, by separate individuals.
As one WorkSafeBC officer notes, while it is possible for one person to be qualified for all aspects of the work, “more often, firms may elect to have a couple of people doing different slices of that role”.
To ensure your worksite is compliant and safe, there are key steps to follow.
Maintain accurate documentation: For every tower crane project, ensure your site binder contains the site-specific work plan and the qualifications of the designated qualified supervisor.
Create robust supervision plans: Develop a written supervision plan for every provisional crane operator. This plan must be tailored to the individual, the equipment, and the site.
Avoid the “one-size-fits-all” approach: Do not assume that a person qualified to supervise the assembly of one type of tower crane is automatically qualified to supervise a different type. Verify their specific qualifications.
Critical Alert: Power Line Injuries in B.C.
June is Electrical Safety Month and as we head into the busy summer construction season, WorkSafeBC and BC Hydro have issued a critical alert Most Power Line Injuries in B.C. Involve Non-Electrical Workers, Say WorkSafeBC and BC Hydro to crane operators, riggers, and construction crews.
If you think power line contact injuries primarily happen to electrical workers, you would be mistaken. In fact, 74% of all power line claims between 2015 and 2025 happened to non-electrical workers.
WorkSafeBC data shows that electrical incidents overwhelmingly affect workers outside the electrical trades, such as crane and heavy equipment operators, construction workers, window washers, painters, surveyors, and tree trimmers who are exposed to power lines as part of their daily jobs.
For crane operators and rigging crews, this is a direct occupational hazard. Booms, load lines, tag lines, and rigging hardware can all bridge the gap to an energized line faster than a reflex.
Summer brings higher work volumes, more outdoor lifts, and a need for crews to be especially vigilant about site surveys, pre-lift briefings, and separation distances before every pick.
BC Crane Safety Resources for Power Line Awareness
In addition to WorkSafeBC and BC Hydro’s critical alert, you can use our resources to bolster your worksite initiatives on power safety while working near overhead conductors or other electrical equipment.
Safe Work Practices
Limits of Approach: Once Contact is Made
Working near Electrical Conductors
Toolbox Talks
Q&A
Question: What classification do spider cranes fall under and are the operators required to obtain a certification to be able to operate?
Answer: In British Columbia, crane operator certification requirements are based on specific equipment thresholds. Generally, certification is not required for lower-capacity cranes. However, for an operator to be exempt from certification requirements, the crane must be below both of the following criteria:
- A rated capacity of 5 tonnes or less, and
- A boom length of 25 feet or less
If either of these thresholds is exceeded, the operator is required to hold appropriate certification.
Question: Are self-erecting tower cranes activities included in the WorkSafeBC Notice of Project – Tower Crane (NOP–TC) requirements?
Answer: Yes, under the WorkSafeBC OHSR Part 14, Section 14.73.1 Definitions, “tower crane” means a tower crane that (a) is erected on site from component parts, or (b) is self erecting.
Question: Is sling protection required even when using tough rigging like chain or wire rope on light loads?
Answer: Yes, if there is a sharp edge and/or a risk of the sling being damaged, protections are required even if the rigging is chain or wire rope, regardless of load weight.
According to WorkSafeBC OHSR Part 15, Section 15.39 Sharp Edges, “When a sling is applied to a sharp edge of a load, the edge or the sling must be protected to prevent damage to the sling.”
The wording of this requirement is important. The regulation refers to “a sling”, not a specific type.
This means it applies to all slings, including synthetic, wire rope, chain sling, and others.
It also refers to “a load”, without specifying weight, material, or size. Whether the load is light or heavy, steel or plywood, the requirement still applies.
The term “sharp edge” is not precisely defined. While some materials such as plywood may not appear sharp, edges can still damage a sling if the sling shifts, slides, or is tensioned against that edge during the lift.
The regulation uses the words “must be protected”, which means this is a mandatory requirement, not a recommendation.
