National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured on the Job

Fighting to end workplace carnage

workplaces, and in various ways around the world.

“Carnage” is an apt term to describe what remains a growing trend on the job. Despite increased attention focused on the issue in the last 24 years since the day of mourning was founded, more than 25,000 Canadian workers have died, and nearly 25-million have been injured at work. Yes, accidents happen, but they are nearly always preventable. Employers have to be held accountable for working conditions.

It seems hard to believe, but until just three years ago, employers could in effect kill or maim someone in their employ with few or even no consequences. In 2004, however, Canada’s Criminal Code was amended to hold employers more responsible for health and safety offences that destroy workers’ lives. In 2005, the new law was put to the test after a 23-yearold worker named Steve L’Ecuyer was crushed to death by a machine at work. Without his knowledge, his employer, Transpavé Inc., had deliberately disabled a safety device on the machine that, had it been in place, would have prevented the accident and saved his life.

Yet, after a plea bargain deal earlier this year, Transpavé was fined a mere $110,000 for being found criminally negligent, the first conviction won under the amended Code. In effect, the courts are telling employers that workers are still expendable – it’s just that the price put on their heads has gone up somewhat. It’s just another cost of doing business.

It has to stop. Canada still has one of the highest workplace fatality rates of any Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nation. In 2006, the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada (AWBC) reported 976 workplace fatalities in Canada, compared to 805 in 1996. That’s an 18% increase in a decade.

Until the workplace is a safe place, we will not give up the fight. We remember the dead, and we fight for the living. Because working for a living should not cost you your life.

In solidarity,

Wayne Hanley

National President

<table style="WIDTH: 100%;> <tbody> <tr> <td> <p> Today, April 28, is the <em>National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured on the Job.</em> Established in 1984 by the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), it has been adopted around the world as the UN Day for Safety and Health at Work. The day of mourning is sombrely celebrated across the country with ceremonies highlighting the carnage that continues to take place in Canadian <a href=" theme="" ufcw="" files="" day%20of%20mourning%20poster="" day%20of%20mourning%20%20april28_2008.pdf"="" _cke_saved_href="Theme/UFCW/files/Day%20of%20Mourning%20poster/Day%20of%20Mourning%20%20april28_2008.pdf" target="_blank"> </table><p></p>