mia es = ° During ceremony, I.W.A. CANADA National President Gerry Stoney called for one minute of silence. Left to right are Cory Turner, North Vancouver Mayor Jack Loucks, B.C. Fed Director of Occupational Health and Safety John Weir, B.C. Fed President Ken Georgetti, Brother Stoney, and B.C. Fed Director of Community and Social Action Dennis Blatchford. Labour marks April 28 Day of Mourning The union movement across Cana- da once again marked April 28 as Labour’s Day of Mourning to com- memorate workers killed and injured on the job by accidents and industrial diseases. % All over the country commemora- tive events were held by provincial federations of labour and various labour councils and municipalities. On Monday April 29, the B.C. Feder- ation of Labour joined with the City of North Vancouver, the Vancouver and District Labour Council and the New Westminster and District Labour Council to hold a special ceremony on the waterfront of North Vancouver. I.W.A. CANADA National President Gerry Stoney, who sits on the Execu- tive of the B.C. Fed and the Canadian Labour Congress Executive, was pre- sent to give an address. B.C. Fed President Ken Georgetti introduced North Vancouver Mayor Jack Loucks who read a document from city council which proclaimed April 28 as an official Day of Mourn- ing for his municipality. In part the declaration read that Day of Mourning marks a day to “re- member the supreme sacrifice they (workers) have been forced to make in order to make a living; a day to re- new approaches to governments for tougher occupational health and safe- ty standards land more effective com- pensation; a day to rededicate our- selves to the goal of making Canadian workplaces safer.” Brother Stoney told the assembled crowd that in 1995 in British Colum- bia alone, there were 200 work-related deaths. “We are concerned that we've seen an increase in the factors that create dangerous workplaces and put work- ers into danger,” said the union presi- dent. Stoney blamed increased accidents on forced cutbacks, layoffs and down- sizings, all taking place at a time when companies and banks are making record profits. He said that because of reduced job security, workers are be- coming more anxious and there is more pressure and increasing work- loads combined with a perceived lack of respect by employers for their workers. “Whether it’s a worker here in B.C. killed in a skidder accident or a work- er in the Ukraine dealing with the ef- fects of the disastrous nuclear acci- dent at Chernobyl, or the victims of the Westray Mine Collapse in Nova Scotia, it’s very hard to get the atten- tion of employers or the authorities,” said Stoney. “And it’s hard to get jus- tice.” “In Chernobyl, workers are still struggling 10 years later for proper health care for themselves and their children. In Nova Scotia they are fighting to get someone to take re- sponsibility for the death of their co- workers. “As unions we’ve all fought with these same employers for many years. And we've made some headway,” said Stoney. “In logging last year, for in- stance, we saw fatalities decline by a third.” “But it wasn’t because the employ- ers made changes voluntarily,” he said. “It was because we saw the wreckage of our injured and dead co- workers and said ‘no more!” “It was because we stood on picket. lines. It was because union members. stopped working until dangerous work sites were fixed.” The president said that workers have to force employers to do more in the area of training. “We have to force them to create workplace safety committees and where they don’t exist, we have to make those committees work.” Stoney said that we have to ensure that governments take more action to protect workers on the job. “And we have fight off the employ- ers’ agenda that says that we need less enforcement, less monitoring, less inspection and less spending on safety,” he said. “We cannot accept that employers will voluntarily look after the health and safety of workers. We've seen them in action and we know they won't,” Brother Stoney added. Brother Georgetti told crowd that a week earlier the B.C. provincial gov- ernment announced a Royal Commis- sion into the functioning of the Work- ers Compensation Board. “The part of the system that de- serves a hard look at first and fore- most is not some non-existent finan- cial crisis,” he said. a board actually has an operating surplus. Georgetti said that in the WCB there is a crisis of enforcement of workplace health and safety issues which deserve the scrutiny of an inde- pendent commission of inquiry. John Kirkpatrick, President of the Vancouver and District Labour Coun- cil, said: “We’re inundated through media and the corporate elite that they (employers) must compete glob- ally...and (that) the public sector must be slashed due to the deficit and debt. hysteria.” Brother Kirkpatrick said that all of that hysteria has a trickling down ef- fect on the workplace. He said that layoffs in the public sector have in- creased workloads to unsafe levels. FAMILY OF TRAGEDY SPEAKS OUT Part of the Day of Mourning cere- mony included an emotional testimo- ny by the son of a fatal accident vic- tim. In February of 1994 B.C. logger Andy Turner was killed when he was struck by a skidder near Summerland. The tragedy left his family shocked and eventually angered - angered that they could not get straight answers as to why the accident happened. Mr. Tumer’s wife Sharon was origi- nally scheduled to speak and was un- fortunately a victim is a car accidents a few days earlier. So her son Cory spoke on Mrs. Turner’s behalf. February 10, 1994 was the day that the family’s life changed forever when Andy was killed at work. Speaking from notes prepared by his mother, Cory spoke about the emotional turmoil, sadness, loneliness and exhaustion that has been suf- fered. “There’s nothing that hurts more than the anger and the guilt from knowing that Andy might still be with our family if we all had taken work- place safety more seriously.” Andy had already quit a previous job due to unsafe working conditions. Two weeks before the fatal accident he told his wife that unsafe working conditions were being covered up. He told her that “you could com- plain about things at safety meeting but that things never seemed to get fixed. The meetings were a joke.” Andy was hit by a skidder that went into a higher gear when the operator was trying to slow it down. [.W.A. logger elected MLA One of the I.W.A.’s own has gone big-time politician. On E-Day Port Mc- Neill’s Glenn Robertson, a loader op- erator and union member, won a clear majority for the NDP in the North Is- land riding. Brother Robertson beat the Liberal Party’s Gerry Furney, the perennial right-wing mayor of Port McNeill, by over 1,500 votes to take former long- time NDP candidate Colin Gabel- mann’s seat and carry on the NDP tra- dition on northern Vancouver Island. The North Island riding, which stretches from the tip of the Island on south to Campbell River, is an impor- tant one for the NDP. The party won 10 of 13 seats on Vancouver Island during the provincial election. Robertson’s campaign was based on building a broad-based coalition of supporters to keep the Liberal candi- date from power. The campaign did not focus on any single interest caus- ¢ Glenn Robertson es and appealed to a wide range of in- terests putting forward social democ- ratic alternatives. Glenn fought the campaign on standing up for public services such as education, medicare and trans- portation services and the defense of the rights of workers, women, seniors, minorities and Native peoples. The campaign called for the cre- ation of more job opportunities in the forest industry including more wood processing, training opportunities and value added production. The I.W.A. played a key role in as- sisting Glenn win the NDP riding nom- ination and continued its support throughout the campaign. North Island is Local 1-71 country all the way. “It is the first opportunity that we will have to see a B.C. coast logger in Victoria,” says Darrel Wong, President of Local 1-71. “It will be good to have Glenn in there so that people in Victo- ria (the NDP caucus) can see that I.W.A. members want to do a better = job in the forest industry, but first have to be employed in the industry.’ Before the election the local union wanted to get more active in the polit- ical process and “looked for a candi- date that we thought would do a good job for people in North Island.” “For us it was critically important to see that (Liberal candidate) Gerry Furney lost,” says Wong. “In my opin- ion Furney had been bought and paid for by forest industry employers. So this election really represented a struggle between working people and the employers.” The I.W.A. pitched in the support of National Organizing Director Lyle Pona prior to and for the campaign’s duration. Brother Pona spent most of the election organizing activities at riding headquarters in Campbell Riv- er. Local 1-71’s Rick McRae, Bob Freer and Joe Skalac played key roles in get- ting out and reaching numerous NDP supporters. “It was a smooth running campai; aided by a high calibre of Paneer cy people that Colin Gabelman had developed over the years,” says Broth- er Pona. “It was a pleasure to work with Glenn. He has proved to be an outstanding candidate and we think he is going to be a very competent MLA for both I.W.A. members and the people of North Island.” Brother Robertson has been a mem- ber of the NDP since 1973. He is a for- mer union camp chairman at Canfor Englewood Division and chairman of safety and enviornment committees. He was chair of the Mt. Waddington Regional Economic Development Commission and participated in the Social and Economic Stability Sector of the Vancouver Island CORE process. PE 20/LUMBERWORKER/JUNE, 1996