The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
Wake up, go to work, come home. Not everyone makes it to the third step. Each year, many workers never get to come home, and on April 28, Day of Mourning, those who have died or been injured on the job were remembered.
City council chambers were packed with people as they gathered to remember those who gave their lives or were injured on the job.
In Sudbury, thoughts were focused on the three families affected by the deaths of Sudbury miners Jason Chenier, Jordan Fram and Stephen Perry.
There have been an average of 240,000 injuries each year for the past 10 years, said Leo Gerard, international president of the United Steelworkers Union. “It isn’t just a mining industry issue,” he said. “It’s an issue where workers voices need to be heard.”
Gerard said that despite the efforts of unions and health and safety activists, the numbers of injuries and fatalities is “unacceptable.”
The Day of Mourning is “a day when we should leave ready to fight like hell for the living and the not yet injured,” he said. “And there’s too many days when we leave this council chambers now and we go away and do whatever we were doing yesterday. I am fed up with this, aren’t you?”
The packed house responded with a wave of applause, with some shouting, “yeah!” in agreement.
Young people also face dangers in their employment, no matter where they work, said France Gelinas, the NDP MPP for Nickel Belt. They may not be informed of the hazards of their job.
“I spent the day Thursday with a beautiful young woman,” Gelinas said. “It was her birthday, she turned 22. She is very pretty, she’s smart, she’s eloquent and she has cancer.”
She told the story of a girl who was lied to by her employer and forced into an unsafe work environment without her knowledge. Gelinas said that girl now has the deadliest form of skin cancer, melanoma.
“The tanning salon said that in order to maintain employment, she had to maintain a tanned look year round,” she said. “So she tanned every second day … she was the best seller, she won an award.”
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