Presented by Barbara Byers on Wednesday, 28 April 2010

Sisters and brothers,

This week 20 Canadian workers will not come home from work.

This week – and every single week of the year – 20 Canadian workers on average will die on the job – or die from job-caused illnesses like asbestosis and cancer.

That’s over 1,000 Canadian workers dying each year – and it’s why every April 28th for the past 26 years, we have gathered in cities and towns across our country.

We gather to grieve – and we gather to demand more action from governments and employers to end this carnage.

The deaths of each and every one of these workers are tragic to all the families and friends who have lost a loved one – but these deaths are also unnecessary and entirely preventable.

And so we call for an end to the question Canadians must ask themselves when they arrive at their job – “Is this the day you die at work?”

That’s a blunt, depressing message to hear – but when 20 workers a week lose their lives, we must do everything we can to shock employers and governments into action.

That question wasn’t on the minds of four migrant workers from Eastern Europe last Christmas Eve in Toronto.

They were working one more construction shift just before the Christmas holiday.

The four men were on a scaffold outside the 13th floor of an apartment building where they were repairing balconies – when it suddenly broke in half.

The four young men plunged to their deaths – a fifth worker on the scaffold somehow survived, but with terrible injuries – a shattered spine and two badly broken legs.

And then we learned the sad truth – that the company employing them had been issued 2 separate stop-work orders and 6 more additional orders by safety inspectors from the Ontario Ministry of Labour.

Work on the apartment building had been halted for 2 months until safety concerns were addressed – sadly, the stop-work order was lifted the very week the four men died.

And 2 of the widows of the workers told the media their husbands told them they had safety concerns about the job – but didn’t know they had the legal right to refuse unsafe work.

The four men’s safety harnesses were not attached to a solid structure – making them useless when the scaffold collapsed.

This tragedy was completely, totally unnecessary – and yet it keeps happening again, and again, and again.

The Canadian Labour Congress is working hard to end these terrible accidents.

With the help of our affiliates, we convinced the federal government to pass the Westray Act – Bill C-45 – named after the mine where 26 workers tragically died in a methane explosion.

The Westray Act allows for the criminal prosecution of those believed to be responsible – including corporations – for the deaths of workers on the job.

It was a significant victory when the Westray Act was passed in 2004 – but since then, we have not seen the prosecutions we expected.

Not good enough – not by far.

Because the CLC believes that far too many employers regard worker injuries and deaths as part of the price of doing business.

They pay the usually small fines for safety violations and don’t make their workplaces accident free – that has to stop.

And that’s why we pushed for the Westray Act – to force both businesses and corporate executives to pay a very heavy price for injuries and deaths.

When the cost of workplace injuries and deaths is too high to pay, employers will make the changes necessary to ensure safety for all workers.

Let’s see the Westray Act used to prosecute those responsible for the Christmas Eve scaffolding deaths – that would be a good start – but only a start.

In addition to demanding the use of the Westray Act – and more training about it for law enforcement officers – the CLC also wants to see the establishment of special prosecutors to investigate workplace fatalities.

It’s time that these intolerable stories of needless deaths and injuries stop.

Let us re-dedicate ourselves today – on this most sombre occasion that marks the loss of our sisters and brothers – to fighting hard for the important changes that will make sure every worker comes home safely at the end of their shift.