Sudbury mourns fallen workers – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star -June 21, 2013)

The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.

There is only one correct answer to the question of whether workers should fight for improved workplace safety or “just remember” those who were killed, injured or got sick on the job, says the president of Mine Mill Local 598/CAW.

As long as one worker in the world is killed every 15 seconds, the union representing four men who died in a rockburst at Falconbridge Mine in 1984 will do more than just honour those miners’ memories.

It will continue to call for workplace improvements in health and safety, Richard Paquin told about 150 people at the 29th annual Workers’ Memorial Day at the Caruso Club.

Paquin repeated what he has said at previous services, a fact that every year drives home how many people are hurt on the job. “More people have died at work than in war,” said Paquin.

That includes more than 1,125 people who died in a fire at a Bangladesh garment factory in April and the 12 construction workers killed on the job every year in New York City.

Almost three decades ago, Sulo Korpela, Daniel Lavallee and Richard Chenier were killed immediately after a rockburst 4,000 feet beneath the ground of the No. 5 ore shaft at Falconbridge Mine.

Wayne St. Michel lived another 27 hours, while dozens of trained mine rescuers and volunteer miners tried to reach him. He died just minutes before rescuers burrowed their way through to him.

Paquin spoke of those men, and of Vale Stobie miners Jordan Fram and Jason Chenier, who died June 8, 2011, after being overcome by a run of 350 tons of muck.

Two months ago, a miner was killed on the job in White River, said Paquin. “Apparently people still do die in mines.”

There hasn’t been a fatality at the former Falconbridge’s Sudbury operations, now owned by Xstrata Nickel, for 12 years so focused efforts to improve mine safety are working.

Paquin mentioned a committee called MINES (Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support), led by Jordan Fram’s mother, Wendy Fram, which is calling upon the province to hold a public inquiry into mining safety.

The Labour ministry hasn’t accepted that call from Sudbury, but Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi wrote a letter to Local 598 that was received June 19, thanking the union for its efforts to promote workplace safety.

“We’ve never received a letter from (the Labour) ministry before,” said Paquin.

Nickel Belt New Democrat MPP France Gelinas said everyone at the service knows someone who has been killed or disabled on the job or suffered from industrial and other diseases.

“Things have got to get better,” said Gelinas, and the way to do that is to “get together, focus on a strategy and move forward.”

She supports the call from MINES for a provincial mining inquiry.

“We’re not quite there, but many steps have been taken,” said Gelinas.

Falconbridge retiree Larry Watkinson was safety superintendent for Sudbury operations in 1984 when he left the Edison building to go to Onaping, felt the ground “rumble and shake,” and saw fumes and dust floating from the No. 5 shaft.

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