December 16, 2024
BC Crane Safety Newsletter
WINTER 2025
2025 Outreach Milestones — Building Stronger Connections with Industry
Throughout 2025, we deepened our engagement with industry through focused outreach, technical collaboration, and the development of practical resources—continuing BC Crane Safety’s mission of partnership with stakeholders across sectors, aimed at elevating crane safety standards across British Columbia.
Our work with the Crane Community of Practice – Technical Advisory Committee (CCOP-TAC) remains a cornerstone of this engagement. WorkSafeBC, SkilledTradesBC, Fulford Certification, employers, and industry subject matter experts all came together to share information, review resources, and guide the development of tools that directly support stakeholder needs.
The five CCOP-TAC meetings in 2025 supported focused review of priority materials, including the DEP Endorsement Program and the Crane Operator Assessment Template for tower cranes.
These sessions also facilitated discussion on supervision requirements, training logs, provisional operator pathways, rigging components for provisional exams, and upcoming changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation.
Our field operations team also conducted presentations throughout the year as a part of BC Crane Safety’s outreach program. These presentations to safety associations, prime contractors, and crane operations teams ensured consistent communication across all sectors that use cranes and served to reinforce our commitment to helping industry and served to reinforce our commitment to helping industry understand and apply regulatory requirements, their responsibilities, and best practices for worker assessment and documentation.
Building on this year’s momentum, our 2026 strategic objectives are clearly and directly aligned with industry feedback. Our work will focus on:
- Developing initiatives to support crane operator needs such as equipment maintenance and WorkSafeBC OHS requirements on psychological health.
- Conducting a SkillRecord Passport app pilot project to support the certification renewal process in 2026 for certified crane operators.
- Incorporating feedback from the Crane Operator Certification Renewal Survey to address the renewal process.
In 2026, we will continue the CCOP-TAC committee and other outreach activities to reinforce the importance of certification renewal and communicate important details of the process. Certification renewal is essential for maintaining professionalism and meeting evolving industry standards. It also supports the incorporation of emerging technologies and reinforces safe work practices.
Renewal also reflects an operator’s commitment to maintaining accurate records, logbooks, worker assessment documentation, and ongoing adherence to the Crane Operator Code of Practice.
BC Crane Safety remains dedicated to the crane community, its stakeholders and industry. By engaging with crane safety organizations locally, nationally and globally, we ensure that British Columbia remains at the forefront of safety, with tools and guidance that meet the dynamic needs of the industry we are proud to serve.
Take the Certification Renewal Survey – Help Inform the Next Phase of Certification Renewal
We conducted interviews with crane operators in early 2025 to gather insights and recommendations to help guide the process.
Now, we’re seeking further feedback on our implementation plans from across the industry including current and previously certified crane operators, supervisors, employers, owners, trades members and safety professionals.
We’d also like to hear about your current work environment, and any occupational health and safety (OHS) challenges you may be facing.
Your valued feedback is essential to ensure the renewal process is practical, straight-forward, and aligned with current safety practices, and to provide us with an update on OHS challenges in the industry.
Your name, email address, and other personal details are not collected when submitting this form unless you choose to provide that information yourself on the survey.
The survey will close on December 31st, 2025.
Take a few minutes to complete the survey and share your thoughts—it really makes a difference.
Roles, Rights, and Responsibilities for Employers
Winter 2025 brings us to the roles, rights, and responsibilities for employers.
Employers hold an incredible amount of responsibility for their employees when it comes to regulatory compliance, regardless of the number of workers at the company.
General duties of employers are addressed in the Workers Compensation Act and WorkSafeBC regulation. It’s important for workers and employers alike to clearly acknowledge and understand the responsibilities of the employer and not confuse them with those of supervisors, workers, or prime contractors.
The Rights & Responsibilities Series
Workers
Refusing Unsafe Work
The Right to Know About Hazards
The Right to Participate
Owners/General & Prime Contractors
Rights & Responsibilities
Employers must:
- Establish and maintain an occupational health and safety program.
- Train their employees to do their work safely.
- Provide proper supervision and ensure supervisors have the necessary support and training to carry out health and safety responsibilities.
- Ensure adequate first aid equipment, supplies, and trained attendants are on site to handle injuries.
- Regularly inspect their workplace to make sure everything is working properly.
- Report to WorkSafeBC any work-related injury or disease that requires medical attention.
- Investigate incidents where workers are injured or equipment is damaged, and submit the necessary forms to WorkSafeBC.
Additionally, employers must ensure extra attention is provided to workers who are determined to be a “young worker” or a “new worker” as defined by Occupational Health and Safety Regulation.
A “young worker” is any worker under 25 years of age.
A “new worker” is a worker who is:
- new to the workplace.
- returning to a workplace where hazards have changed in their absence.
- affected by a change in hazard to the workplace.
- relocated to a new workplace where hazards are different from the previous workplace.
A detailed new / young worker orientation with specific requirements listed in OHSR Part 3, Section 3.23 must be completed for these workers and kept on file.
Employer participation in Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee meetings (or cooperation with the organization’s assigned health and safety representative) and incident investigations is a regulatory requirement, and a great way to show employees that their organization cares about the conditions, issues, and outcomes of their workers.
NOP-TC Annual Review and Tower Crane Site Binder Update
WorkSafeBC’s Notice of Project – Tower Crane (NOP-TC) requirement has now been in effect for one full year, and the sector continues to demonstrate strong compliance. According to WorkSafeBC, more than 900 NOP-TC submissions were received in the first year.
Employers are increasingly providing site-specific safe-work procedures, supervisor qualification information, and crane identification details, enabling earlier verification and planning of crane assembly, disassembly, climbing, and repositioning.
Where employer NOP submissions are incomplete or reveal gaps in risk controls, WorkSafeBC follows up with inspections to enhance safety efforts. The WorkSafeBC inspection team has conducted over 1,500 inspections to strengthen oversight of tower crane activities across B.C.
BC Crane Safety has also worked with the industry to complete a comprehensive review of its Tower Crane Site Binder, and revisions will be updated and available soon.
You can read WorkSafeBC’s web post and their media backgrounder on crane safety to learn more about the current state of the NOP-TC:
WorkSafeBC Sees Good Compliance with New Tower Crane Regulation After One Year, but Risks Remain
Q&A
Question: I would like some clarification on what the regulation is for using a manbasket hoisted by a crane with more than a single part of line.
Answer: The requirements for using a crane suspended work platform (commonly called a manbasket) do not change based on whether the crane is operating on a single part of line or multiple parts of line. All applicable regulations and standards still apply in full.
One key requirement is that no secondary hoisting line may be used while workers are on the suspended platform. In other words, if personnel are being lifted on the main hoist line, the auxiliary line cannot be used simultaneously for any other purpose, such as lifting tools or materials to the workers in the platform.
Another important point, independent of the number of parts of line, is that the system must still include a secondary means of support. This secondary support must be installed between the platform rigging and a suitable anchorage point above the crane’s hook, as required by the applicable WorkSafeBC regulations.
The most detailed and authoritative information is found in the following documents:
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OHS Regulation Part 13, Division 3 – Work Platforms
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OHS Regulation Part 13, Section 13.27 Cranes and Hoists Used to Suspend Work Platforms
Question: Is this Tower Crane Report supplementary to an erector’s report, or does the Tower Crane Report replace the erector’s report?
Answer: A qualified supervisor must complete a report after a tower crane is erected, climbed, or repositioned on a worksite.
Supervisors can use WorkSafeBC’s newly revised Tower Crane Report as a resource to complete this report.
Before this document, erectors were using the “erectors report” to fulfill this requirement.
WorkSafeBC’s Tower Crane Report focuses solely on tower crane activity (erection, climbing, repositioning) to create a supervisor report that meets the requirements of OHSR Part 14, Section 14.75(5) and the CSA Z248-04 Code for Tower Cranes.
In short, the Tower Crane Report is meant to replace the “erectors report”.
Question: Do full-scope operators need competency assessments?
Regarding operator qualifications, OHS Regulation Part 14, Section 14.34(2) states that a person must demonstrate competency, including familiarity with the operating instructions for the crane or hoist and the code of signals for hoisting operations authorized by the Board before operating equipment.
Further information found on qualifications and competencies for operators of equipment for hoisting and lifting applications can be found in the related Guideline Part 14, Section G14.34 Operator Qualifications and Competencies.
WorkSafeBC officers can ask for verification of compliance with the requirement that the operator of the crane or hoist is qualified and has demonstrated competence. This verification would entail reviewing records relating to the competency assessments and the qualifications of the operator.
