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Mining Labour Issues and History – Sudbury and Global

Sick miners ask Anglo for details of defence – by Ernest Mabuza (Business Day Live [South Africa] – April 29, 2013)

http://www.bdlive.co.za/

THE long-awaited hearing in which 10 former Anglo miners with silicosis and silico-tuberculosis are seeking compensation began on Friday with an application to compel Anglo American to provide more details of its defence.

The Legal Resources Centre, Legal Aid SA and London-based Leigh Day have been involved in the groundbreaking class action suit since 2004. The two sides agreed last year to go to arbitration.

President Steyn, at which the 10 miners worked, was Anglo’s largest mine in the Free State in the 50-year period up to 1998. Four of the claims are brought by the next of kin of miners who have passed away since the litigation began.

The 10 plaintiffs are part of a group of 18 from the Free State, Eastern Cape and Lesotho who are claiming compensation for silicosis and silico-tuberculosis they argue were contracted when they worked at mines owned by Anglo.

Their claim is that Anglo American SA, the head office company of the Anglo group, was negligently controlled and wrongly advised the mines about dust control measures and silicosis. The former miners are seeking compensation for pain and suffering and for lost earnings and medical expenses.

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Labour legend [Homer Seguin] laid to rest – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 30, 2013)

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

United Steelworkers international president Leo Gerard won’t speak of Homer Seguin in the past tense. Seguin, 79, died last week suffering from diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for years, and a short battle with lung cancer.

His work and his memory won’t be forgotten any time soon. “Homer is my friend, not was my friend,” Gerard told family and friends at Seguin’s funeral Monday at St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church in Azilda.

“Homer is the friend of working men and women all over Canada,” not just today, but into the future. The pioneering work Seguin did with United Steelworkers in health and safety in the workplace and occupational disease will one day save the lives of people who haven’t even been born yet, Gerard told the congregation.

Gerard worked all of his union career with Seguin, who started with Inco at 15 in its notorious sintering plant. While he only worked there seven months, fellow USW occupational disease activist, Johnny Gagnon, 85, said it was exposure to nickel oxide and asbestos there that eventually led to his friend’s death.

Seguin moved up through the union movement, serving as president of USW Local 6500 and director, and Gerard recalled working with his friend in contract negotiations with Vale.

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‘One death one too many’ – by Jonathan Migneault (Sudbury Star – April 29, 2013)

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

The NDP will throw its support behind a push from community organizations for Ontario to have an inquiry on mining deaths in the province, said provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath during the Workers Day of Mourning in Subury.

“There hasn’t been a review or change to legislation in over 30 years,” said Horwath to a large crowd gathered at the Tom Davies Square council chambers to pay homage to people who have died on the job.

“That’s why we continue to see people’s lives be put at risk in mines, and that’s not acceptable.”

An organization called Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support (MINES) has lobbied the government to call an inquiry into Ontario mine safety after two miners were killed in Sudbury’s Stobie Mine on June 8, 2011. Since 2007, 11 workers have died on the job in Ontario mines.

“It’s frustrating and damning on all of us that we still have a situation in the province of Ontario where people are not sure they can go to work in the morning and are going to come home in the evening,” Horwath told media after her speech Sunday morning.

Sunday’s ceremony was the 29th International Workers Day of Mourning.

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Work-related fatalities provide hard lessons in safety – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – April 29, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Across Canada, and certainly in the mining heartlands of Northern Ontario, people solemnly recognized the National Day of Mourning on Sunday.

In Ontario alone, there were 298 work-related fatalities in 2012. More than 238,000 claims were made by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) on behalf of sick, injured or deceased workers.

In the City with a Heart of Gold, the Timmins and District Labour Council organized a short but emotional ceremony for the public at the Miner’s Memorial, located in the regal shadow of the McIntyre Mine.

Tears were shed for those lost. Many of those present had been affected by the loss of family members or friends due to mine-related accidents or illnesses. There was also a great show of pride for how far workplace safety and training has come, even from just a few years ago.

Carole Lamoureux-Chaylt is an advocate for the Office of the Worker Adviser. She spoke at the Day of Mourning ceremony in Timmins on Sunday.

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Homer Seguin honoured at Day of Mourning ceremonies – by Darren MacDonald (Sudbury Northern Life – April 28, 2013)

http://www.northernlife.ca/

The late labour leader was on everyone’s mind at the annual day to honour people who have died from work

Homer Seguin and his legacy fighting for workplace health and safety was top of mind at ceremonies held Sunday to mark the Day of Mourning.

The event is held to honour those who have died while on the job, or from work-related illness. United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard told a crowd gathered at Tom Davies that Seguin was an inspirational man who proved that one person can make significant change.

“That scoundrel Homer planned everything,” Gerard joked. “He even decided to die on the weekend of the Day of Mourning.” But in life, Gerard said, Seguin made a huge difference, helping to educate people, as well as sparking legislative changes that have improved the safety of workers everywhere.

“Every one of us could make that kind of difference,” Gerard said, speaking to a packed council chambers. “The last time I talked to him, he said, ‘Leo, when I beat this, we still have more work to do.’ He was in his hospital bed. He didn’t have long to go, but he was still there, talking about the work he had to do.”

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Sudbury loses labour legend – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 26, 2013)

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

A man who fought all his life to improve workplaces so employees wouldn’t get cancer and other illnesses from working in them, and who battled to get people compensation if they did get sick at work, died Friday morning.

Homer Seguin, a long-time health and safety activist and occupational disease specialist with United Steelworkers, died at age 79.

Long-time friend Leo Gerard, international president of United Steelworkers, said Seguin’s death was doubly ironic. He died of lung cancer and he died the weekend that his union is commemorating the Workers’ Day of Mourning.

Gerard said his friendship with Seguin spans his entire union career. “Homer’s a pioneer in so many ways,” said Gerard. “There’s just so many stories we could tell.”

From his years of working in Elliot Lake uranium mines, Seguin became such an expert in radiation, USW sent him to France for a global radiation conference where Seguin made a presentation. When he completed it, he received a huge ovation and the master of ceremonies thanked “Dr. Seguin for his terrific presentation.”

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Meeting with pols ‘positive’ [Mining Inquiry] – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 25, 2013)

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

For the first time in a long while, Wendy Fram has hope something good may come of her son’s death. Fram travelled to Toronto on Tuesday with Gerry Lougheed Jr. to talk to two provincial cabinet ministers about the need to improve mine safety in Ontario.

Fram’s son, Jordan, 26, was killed June 8, 2011 in a run-of-muck accident at Vale’s Stobie Mine, where he was working with Jason Chenier, 35, a husband and father.

Wendy Fram now spearheads a group called MINES (Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support), which is lobbying for a public inquiry into mine safety in Ontario.

Fram was nervous about the meeting, which took Lougheed three months to arrange, with Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle and Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi.

But she was upbeat Wednesday about what had been accomplished at the session. “It went well,” said Fram. “It was a very positive meeting. They listened to our concerns.”

She read a presentation she had prepared for the meeting because she was nervous about it, and the ministers asked her for a copy of it after, she said.

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[Mine safety] Inquiry seekers gain ear -by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – April 22, 2013)

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

Two members of a group lobbying to make mining safer in Ontario will take their case to Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi and Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle in Toronto on Tuesday.

Wendy Fram, the mother of one of two miners killed at Vale’s Stobie Mine on June 8, 2011, is chair of a group called MINES (Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support).

Her son, Jordan, 26, was killed while working with Jason Chenier, 35, when they were crushed by a run of 350 tons of muck at the mine’s 3,000-foot level near the No. 7 ore pass.

Fram and Sudbury community activist Gerry Lougheed Jr., who has been helping with the MINES campaign, have secured a meeting with the ministers to press their demand for an inquiry.

Fram knows it’s a long shot, and has been thinking about what she’ll say to the ministers since she heard from Lougheed late Friday that the pair had secured a meeting with the politicians.

Coincidentally, a letter from Fram appeared Friday in The Sudbury Star, in which she said she was frustrated “with the silence on this topic from Queen’s Park,” especially with Workers’ Memorial Day scheduled for April 28.

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Answering the Tough Question on Workers’ Memorial Day – by Gerry Lougheed Jr.

Gerry Lougheed Jr. is President of the Lougheed Funeral Homes in Sudbury, Chair of the Bereavement Foundation and a member of the MINES Committee.

April 28th is Workers’ Memorial Day. It is a day recognized globally that started locally. It is a day to remember the people who have died at and from the workplace, and fight for improved health and safety measures in the workplace. For the past 20 years I have spoken at the event. My comments are in the context of my workplace experience (as President of the Lougheed Funeral Homes) where surviving family members in shock shout the unanswerable word – why?

Not that there is a good cause of death, but I believe we reluctantly understand the potential prognosis of cancers, heart ailments, kidney failures etc… from genetics, environment or lifestyle factors. We also understand that no one should go to work with a lunch bag and leave work in a body bag. It is called making a living not ending a life.

In recent months there have been three mining fatalities in my community, Jason Chenier, Jordan Fram and Stephen Perry. These families were thrust into the nightmare defined by the words, “I can’t believe this has happened.”

By law, investigations and inquests will determine the specific circumstances of these situations. But is that enough? Is a prolonged process of toothless inquest recommendations and the retention of legal counsel to redirect blame and seek absolutions really helping anybody?

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B.C. mine’s temporary foreign workers case in Federal Court – CBC News (April 9, 2013)

http://www.cbc.ca/bc/

Unions challenge hiring of Chinese workers for B.C. coal mine

The fight by two labour unions against a company that hired more than 200 temporary workers from China for its coal mine in northeastern B.C. heads to Federal Court in Vancouver today.

The judicial review comes as the federal temporary foreign worker program has raised controversy following a CBC report this week that foreign workers were replacing some Royal Bank staff.

HD Mining International says it hired 201 workers from China for its coal mine in Tumbler Ridge because the 300 Canadians who applied for the jobs weren’t qualified. The two labour unions argue that HD Mining hired temporary foreign workers for jobs Canadians could have filled.

HD Mining International is a B.C.-based company. The majority owner is Huiyong Holdings Group, a private company from China, which operates several coal mines in that country. Vancouver-based Canadian Dehua International Mines Group also owns a stake in HD.

Brian Cochrane, of the International Union of Operating Engineers, hopes the case will result in changes to the temporary foreign worker program.

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Tragic lesson in [mine] safety – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – April 5, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – By sharing her family’s pain, Lisa Kadosa hopes others can learn from it and avoid a similar tragedy. Kadosa’s father was killed in a mining accident in Sudbury seven years ago. She believes workplace fatalities are frequently the result of avoidable shortcuts.

“We do it all the time. We skip little steps because we think we are invincible. I think by seeing that this does happen, and having a real person up there with tears in their eyes because they’re having to deal with this, can make people really think the next time they’re going to overlook a step.”

Kadosa was one of the keynote speakers at the third-annual Health and Safety Conference put on by the Timmins Regional Labour-Management Joint Health & Safety Committee at the Timmins Inn & Suites Thursday.

Since her father’s death, Kadosa has travelled across country, frequently invited to speak at workplace safety conferences. Kadosa’s father, Robert Nesbitt, was killed at the 2,600 level underground at the Vale Inco Stobie Mine in 2006.

What made his death particularly perplexing was the fact it was the result of what was then a common practice. “Nobody expected a common practice to kill somebody who had been doing the same job for 37 years,” she said.

“There is a sling you use to attach a portable stand to the bucket in a scoop when you transport it from your different sites. That sling is to be removed before you use it.

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Media Release: Momentum grows in Timmins for an investigation into Ontario mine safety

March 25, 2013

New chapter of MINES (Mining Inquiry Needs Everyone’s Support) established in Timmins and new website revealed: www.mininginquiry.com

(Timmins, March 25, 2013) Wendy and Briana Fram, mother and sister of Jordan Fram who was killed in an underground accident two years ago, led a delegation of seven Sudburians to meet with Timmins citizens equally concerned about the lack of attention being paid to mine safety legislation in Ontario.

The approximately 40 attendees in McIntyre arena heard from the Sudbury MINES delegation that there have been eight mining deaths since 2011 in the province and that the core piece of Ontario mining legislation has not had a major overhaul in 35 years. They also explained that inquest recommendations tied to miners’ deaths do not seem to make a difference or get acted upon.

MINES co-chair Jodi Blassuti also described how changes in the speed, volume and mechanization of mining are at odds with the now outdated legislation.

Speakers from Timmins included friends and relatives of miners killed or injured on the job, MP Charlie Angus and representatives of the United Steelworkers (USW).

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Fram brings [mine safety] message to Timmins – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – March 25, 2013)

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

TIMMINS — The shadow cast by the McIntyre No. 11 shaft headframe is a long one, encompassing the life, history and culture of this city.

Less than a kilometre away, a small, humble miner’s memorial may cast an even longer shadow over this Northern Ontario mining community. Etched in marble are the names of the miners who lost their lives in the cold and unforgiving darkness found in the stopes and drifts thousands of feet under-ground.

It was fitting then, that in the shadow of these monuments, a grieving Sudbury woman brought the issue of mine safety to Timmins, hoping to spur the kind of change that saves lives.

“My brother Jordan was 26 years old when he passed away at Stobie Mine (in Sudbury) on Oct. 8, 2011,” said Briana Fram. “He was a miner for a number of years and he was a huge part of our family. He was a great man and when he passed away, it broke all of our hearts and we knew there was something that had to be done.”

Jordan Fram and Jason Chenier, 35, died when they were buried by tonnes of muck — mine water and rock — at the Vale mine.

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Mine safety milestones celebrated – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – March 22, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – No mineral is as valuable as the people who mine them. That was the overwhelming sentiment expressed Thursday night at the Dante Club as the Porcupine Safety Group awarded 90 supervisors for achievement in safety.

The supervisors were recognized for managing crews who have undergone anywhere 5,000 to 75,000 man hours without lost time to injury. In addition to the individual supervisor awards, two majors awards were presented to local mines in recognition of their top safety records.

De Beers Victor Diamond Mine was presented the Angus D. Campbell Award for going in excess of 300,000 man hours with no lost time to injuries and lowest medical frequency. Andre Giroux, safety supervisor at Victor Mine, said maintaining an accident-free environment is not an easy tasl.

“There’s quite a bit of work to it,” he said. “Every day we have a safety theme that goes out to the workforce… It’s brought up to every crew’s toolbox talk every morning. Everybody sits in on it, there is a different one each and every day. It drives the message home that we have to work safely to achieve our targets.”

The other major trophy presented Thursday night was the Robert Dye Award, which was shared by two local mines who have undergone less than 300,000 but more than 25,000 man hours with no lost time to injuries.

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[Sudbury labour activist] Homer still battling – by Carol Mulligan (Sudbury Star – March 15, 2013)

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

Homer Seguin has fought formidable opponents before — governments reluctant to enact legislation to protect workers, companies unconcerned about the health and safety of employees, union members vying for the same job.

Seguin, 80, has a new enemy — lung cancer — a disease he believes is related to the 6 1/2 months he worked at Inco’s notorious Copper Cliff sintering plant more than 60 years ago.

A former president of United Steelworkers Local 6500 and USW staff representative, Seguin is best known for fighting for safer workplaces and recognition that diseases like the cancer and chronic pulmonary obstructive disease he suffers are often caused by where people work.

Seguin has been in hospital for six weeks, mostly because of complications relating to dialysis. His health is so poor he isn’t able to undergo surgery, or have chemotherapy or radiation treatment for the two tumours lodged in his lungs.

But he’s determined to recover and get back to championing his latest cause — convincing the provincial govern-m ent to set a standard for nickel and other heavy metals dust in homes.

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