Day of Mourning: Saturday, April 28th/2012

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

We all expect to return home to our families safe and sound after a day’s work. This is our right and it’s the law.

Steelworkers have fought hard to achieve these laws. We will continue to demand new legislation to further protect workers and hold management libel if they fail to protect the Health and Safety of workers. It’s not acceptable that workers pay with their lives and those responsible for their deaths receive little or no punishment.
Ontario workers fought hard to win their basic Health and Safety rights: The right to know; The right to refuse; and the right to participate.
Building on these rights, workers still struggle for protection against new and emerging workplace hazards. Their efforts helped secure Ontario ’s new Workplace Violence and Harassment laws.
Occupational disease now accounts for more than two-thirds of all claims at Ontario ’s Workplace Safety & Insurance Board and thousands more go unreported.
Employers have a legal duty to provide both general and specific instruction and training to workers. These same workers and their representatives have won the right to be trained on all hazardous chemicals within the workplace and ultimately certification as members of joint Health and Safety Committees.

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of the Westray Mine explosion where twenty-six miners lost their lives. We will honour and pay tribute to our fallen Brothers in a special Commemoration event in Stellarton , Nova Scotia on May 9, 2012. In May of 2012, the Steelworkers are launching “Honouring Westray”. It’s an education and information campaign to ensure that public officials use and enforce the Westray Act (formerly C-45).
Health and Safety has always been a Steelworker priority. We all have a responsibility and role in improving Health and Safety in the workplace. It’s our job to ensure those responsible for workplace fatalities are held accountable for their actions. We must continue the fight to protect the living and at the same time we must remember to mourn for the dead.


I encourage each and every one of you to support and celebrate this significant day by attending the Memorial events taking place within your communities.

Location: Vincent Massey Park-12:30 pm ceremony (Ottawa)
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gqfkWBdAbk&feature=youtu.be

In solidarity,
Wayne Fraser