Video message from Ukraine, Lesia Gusak, PROFBUD, ERWC member PROTECT WORKERS! STOP COVID-19!
“On the eve of International Workers Memorial Day, I would like to remind everyone that today more then ever our health is in our hands! Here, in Ukraine, at the CRH factory, we work without OSH accidents already for 3509 days. COVID-19 requires us to comply with additional safety measures, and we should do so, and demand from employers necessary PPE! Stay healthy!”
#BWI2020IWMD
#iwmd20
Young workers from the Construction and Civil Engineering Senior Staff Association union (CCESSA), Nigeria talk about the current status of construction work amid the COVID-19 pandemic. They join BWI’s call: Protect Workers! Stop COVID-19! #BWI2020 #IWMD20
Join us as we light candles and remember the 26 Filipino health care professionals who died due to COVID-19. Join us as we light candles to set fire our commitment to continue fighting for the protection, health and safety of our frontline workers.
Save the date, April 28! Let us light candles to remember and mourn. Let us light candles to rage and fight!
#IWMD20 #ProtectHealthWorkers #MassTestingNowPh
We also invite everyone to watch AMBAGAN: Artists in Solidarity Concert on April 28, 6:30 pm. Join us as we offer songs and poems for our health workers. Each song is a call for free mandatory testing to all health workers. Each poem is a call for the immediate distribution of PPE to all health workers. Each message is a call for their protection, health and safety. This concert is brought to you by Concerned Artists of the Philippines, Altermidya – People’s Alternative Media Network and IOHSAD Philippines.
#ArtistsFightBack #NagluluksaLumalaban #WeMournWeFight
Preparing for the return to work outside the home
Summary of recommendations
This TUC report, Preparing for the return to work outside the home: a trade union approach, sets out what we believe the government must do now to ensure a safe transition from lockdown, looking at how to safely return to work outside the home, the enforcement measures needed to protect workers, and how best to protect workers’ livelihoods.
ACTU Assistant Secretary, Liam O’Brien has sent the following message regarding International Workers’ Memorial Day:
Every worker has the right to safe, healthy and respectful work. In times like COVID-19, these rights are more important than ever.
Next Tuesday on International Workers’ Memorial Day, we remember those who weren’t afforded this right. We remember those who were tragically injured and lost their lives at work.
This year’s global theme for International Workers’ Memorial Day is Stop the pandemic: Safety and health at work can save lives. This is an important opportunity to highlight what must be done to ensure workers’ health is protected during COVID-19, including psychological health.
Here’s some ways that you can get involved:
Attend an online International Worker’s Day memorial event on Tuesday 28 April.Click here to find your local event or activity.
Share your story on social media and use the hashtag #IWMD2020 [and #IWMD20]. It could be memories of someone close to you or a shout out to an essential worker.
Stay connected, join your union and continue the fight for health and safety, whether at work or working from home.
Everyone has a right to be safe and healthy, have a good, secure job and return to their family and friends at the end of the day. Australian Unions will never give up this fight.
In solidarity,
Liam O’Brien, Assistant Secretary
Center for Public Health and Environmental Development (CEPHED) has requested the Nepal government recognise Covid-19 as an occupational disease.
Call for information: Covid-19 compensation and official recognition as an occupational disease by country
CEPHED notes a number of countries have already recognised Covid-19 as an occupational disease and agreed that work-related cases of Covid-19 must be reported to the authorities and now qualify for workers’ compensation. In some examples, cases of Covid-19 in frontline workers are presumed by the compensation authorities to be caused by the job (with ‘frontline workers’ covering a wide-range of job categories).
CEPHED wishes to make available information on best practice. and is seeking information from with regard to:
a) compensation (and if possible any conditions/restrictions on eligibility)
b) official recognition of Covid-19 as an occupational disease, and any related reporting/recording requirements.
Thank you for your assistance. It will be extremely helpful in our efforts to secure prevention of Covid-19 and justice for all affected workers.
CEPHED initiative of COVID 19 in Nepal
Center for Public Health and Environmental Development (CEPHED)
Mahalaxmi Municipality,
Ward No.2, Lalitpur ,
Kathmandu, Nepal
Tel/Fax: +977-1-5201786
UK campaigning network work Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK) has produced a moving and forceful 28 April video memorial which you can view here.
Also read FACK’s 28 April statement If you do not protect the workforce in a pandemic, you do not protect the public.
National Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job
On April 28, the National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured on the Job, we remember all the workers we have lost. On this day, CUPE also joins with the Canadian Labour Congress and other unions around the county to demand that all governments enforce the laws, including Westray provisions in the Criminal Code and occupational health and safety laws.
We urge CUPE members to observe a moment of silence and lower flags to half-mast on Tuesday, April 28. Show your support by prominently displaying our poster at your workplace.
Every day in Canada, workers lose their lives on the job. Their deaths are preventable and should not happen. It boggles the mind that we lose almost 1000 workers every year.
In 2017, the most recent year that full statistics are available, the officially recorded number of workplace fatalities rose to at least 951. As with every year, we say “at least” because we, in the labour movement, have always known that the number is higher.
Last year, a new report called Work-Related Death in Canada has attempted to quantify the number of workers lost who are usually uncounted. These are people who are not in the compensation system, or are self-employed, or work “off the grid” in precarious work. Or they are considered to have had a “natural” death, or were commuting to and from work, or who died from an occupational disease or cancer that was never related back to their working conditions.
If we include all the uncounted, the research suggests that there may be 10-13 times as many people dying because of work in Canada than we officially accept in our compensation system. But while there may be no insurance payment for those left behind, their loved ones are gone just the same.
We implore governments and employers to invest in prevention, including strong health and safety committees. We call for a robust enforcement regime to enhance prevention through pro-active inspections, and to punish those employers who refuse to fulfill their duty to ensure a safe workplace. We also call on the federal government to reinstate the definition of danger that existed in the Canada Labour Code before Stephen Harper weakened it without consultation in 2014.
Day of Mourning flag **New Design!**
https://cupe.ca/event/day-mourning