The IEC is a cooperative venture of 20 local industries here in the chemical valley and now includes Lambton College. These industries use the IEC to provide Basic Safety training that is recognized by all members to allow workers to get trained in one facility once a year so that it reduces the duplication of training that used to take place at each of the plants. Once the worker receives the updated photo ID card, he/she may go into all of the member company sites without redoing the Basic Safety Orientation. Typically workers attend about seven different plants per year and so this represents quite a bit of savings in time and money for all parties concerned.

What began in 1995 with two part time instructors and one Basic Safety Orientation class has evolved into 14 staff and a list of 35 plus Safety Oriented classes that are offered to local contractors going into these co-op member companies.

The IEC is also the Administrative and Training arm of the Safety Partnership. This Safety Partnership is comprised of three distinct groups with one common goal to reduce injuries. The three stakeholders in the Partnership are the:

1. Sarnia Construction Association
2. Industry
3. Sarnia Building Trades

They came together at a February 14, 2001 Forum to sign on to a banner that had the vision statement: "Zero Injuries by Choice through Partnerships for Safety will Demonstrate Our Commitment to Our Employees and Families" We achieve this vision through:

1. Setting standards
2. Implementing Best Practices through training
3. Monitoring and evaluating programs
4. Celebrating achievements
5. Continuously improvement

We have achieved locally an injury rate that makes Sarnia-Lambton the safest place to work in Canada. We have a goal to be safest in the world. We have a way to go, but through this unique Partnership of Industry, Labour and Contractors we think we an achieve our world class goal.