Workers injured in forestry road bus crash were mostly immigrant women from Ethiopia and Somalia, union says

Most of the workers injured in a bus crash on a forest service road north of Prince George, B.C., on Friday were immigrant housekeepers who had recently been rehoused off site and made to commute two hours each way to Coastal GasLink's Parsnip Lodge work camp, according to their union.

The bus was carrying 25 people when it flipped over on the remote Firth Lake forest service road. 

Eighteen people were taken to hospital, with the University Hospital of Northern B.C. declaring a code orange to deal with the intake.

On Friday, RCMP Cpl. Jennifer Cooper said efforts to reach the injured were hampered by heavy rain and difficult road conditions,

"It was terrifying for them," said Michelle Travis, a spokesperson for Unite Here Local 40, in an interview with CBC News Monday. "Some of the women thought, this is going to be it."

"For a lot of them, they're replaying what happened over and over again. For a number of them, they're scared to get on a bus again."

She said some of the workers, who were mostly immigrant women from Somalia and Ethiopia, suffered concussions. 

All 18 injured in the crash were released from hospital as of Sunday, according to Northern Health.

Travis said the employees had previously lived at Parsnip Lodge but were moved off site to live in Prince George earlier this year, so more pipeline workers could stay at the work camp. 

The union raised concerns earlier this year about the housekeepers having to bus up to four hours a day to and from work.

"These were women who clean rooms and were sent to stay off site because they weren't prioritized to actually have housing on the site. And, so, the fact that they would be moved two hours away, travelling on these precarious roads, makes us concerned that the company didn't value their work or their safety," said Travis.

According to Coastal GasLink, 1,086 workers were staying at Parsnip Lodge at the end of May.

In a written statement, union president Zailda Chan said the union filed a grievance against Horizon North, which operates Parsnip Lodge on behalf of the pipeline project, "after management unilaterally moved all the housekeepers out of the camp and began bussing them to and from the site."

"This never should have happened. Workers told management that this was not safe," Chan said. 

The union is calling on management to house lodge workers on site, "as they are required to do in the collective agreement."

The statement also says the union and management are currently in arbitration, which is expected to conclude this week.

Coastal GasLink deferred questions from CBC News about why housekeepers had been moved off site to Horizon North.

In a Facebook post Friday, Horizon North, which bills itself as a "a world-class leader in Canadian workforce accommodations and energy services," said it was conducting a full investigation to determine the cause of the accident. 

What caused the crash is still unclear, according to B.C. RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Chris Manseau. But he noted that early-morning rain on the gravel road Friday made conditions "quite poor."

Seven ground ambulances, three emergency health support units and multiple police officers attended the scene.

Coastal GasLink said it was supporting the RCMP and other authorities in their investigation.