http://enforcethelaw.ca/?language=en
The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
If recommendations from the inquest into the 1995 death of Clifford Bastien at Stobie Mine had been mandatory, Jordan Fram and Jason Chenier would be here today, says Fram’s mother.
Wendy Fram spoke at a conference Tuesday at the Steelworkers’ Hall about a USW campaign called “Stop the Killing: Enforce the Law.” The campaign calls on Canadians to sign a petition urging provincial, territorial and federal governments to enforce the Westray amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada. The Westray law holds company executives and directors criminally accountable for negligence that is responsible for a worker being killed on the job.
Jordan Fram, 26, and Chenier, 35, were killed when they were overcome by a run of 350 tons of muck while working at Stobie Mine. A comprehensive Steelworkers’ investigation resulted in dozens of recommendations, one of which was that criminal charges should be laid because supervisors were warned about problems with water and other hazards before the men were killed.
Wendy Fram told the audience at a forum marking the 40th anniversary of a wildcat strike by Elliot Lake Steelworkers at Denison Mine that she fully supports Stop the Killing.
She and her daughter, Briana, are featured in a powerful video that is part of the campaign.
Fram said Crown attorneys and police should be trained and educated so criminal charges can be laid when appropriate when workers are killed or injured on the job “as in Jordan’s and Jason Chenier’s death.”
Vale pleaded guilty to several charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and were fined a million dollars.
“Criminal charges should have been laid and, if so, then justice would have been done,” said Fram.
The company may believe the plea bargain it reached with the Ministry of Labour is OK, “but it’s not. It’s not OK. We need to stop the killing.”
Fram said the union and the company each did separate investigations into the men’s deaths, indicating with her fingers how much thicker USW’s investigation report was than Vale’s.
“At the end of the day, who do you think did a more thorough investigation? To me, I think the union did.”
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.thesudburystar.com/2014/04/16/inquest-recommendations-could-have-saved-men-fram