Pat Kenny -Health and Safety Officer CWU on Workers Memorial Day reminded Workers of their right to select a fellow worker as a Safety Representative. #WorkersMemorialDay #iwmd23
Category Archives: News
Canada: Day of Mourning 2023: Workers’ empowerment key to workplace health and safety | Canadian Labour Congress #iwmd23
Day of Mourning 2023: Workers’ empowerment key to workplace health and safety
April 28, 2023
As unions across Canada mark the National Day of Mourning, the Canadian Labour Congress wants to ensure workers are empowered to know their health and safety rights in the workplace, defend existing gains and use the tools at their disposal.
April 28 is the National Day of Mourning, a day to commemorate those who have died or been injured as a result of their job. This year’s focus, “Know your rights; Use the tools; Defend our wins,” is aimed at supporting and empowering workers to actively participate in workplace health and safety.
“Workers deserve to arrive home safely at the end of the workday. We expect employers to do their part to keep workers safe, by upholding health and safety standards in the workplace, and providing necessary equipment and training,” said Bea Bruske, President of the CLC. “But we want workers to feel supported in standing up for their hard-won health and safety rights. We want to ensure that workers are empowered, not just to push back in unsafe situations, but to take an active role in the process of keeping themselves and their co-workers safe.”
Across Canada, there were 1,081 accepted workplace fatalities and 277,217 accepted lost time claims across Canada, marking a rise in cases from the previous year.
“One death is already one too many and it should be common sense that employers invest in proven prevention tools, like empowered, well-trained health and safety committees. Yet too many employers are quick to ignore their legal duty to provide safe working conditions and are willing to cut corners in the name of saving a few dollars,” said Bruske. “Make no mistake: we will always fight to uphold workers’ rights, and we won’t back down against anyone who would weaken health and safety legislation to appease businesses.”
Canada’s unions have long fought for better enforcement of existing occupational health and safety legislation, and the Westray sections of the Criminal Code of Canada.
Empowering workers starts with ensuring they know their rights, and how to apply and defend them. Workers should also feel supported in demanding better.
“The bare minimum isn’t good enough, and the stubbornly high number of worker injuries and deaths each year proves it. Employers and governments must respect their own duty to create safe work, call out unsafe work, and be part of a culture of safety and prevention. Workers deserve nothing less,” said Bruske.
Moldova: Munca în condiții sigure și sănătoase – un drept fundamental al salariaților la locul de muncă – CNSM – #iwmd23
Bangladesh: IUF observes minute’s silence on 28 April – #iwmd23
IUF Food & Beverage Workers Council in Bangladesh observed minute silence to recall tragic death of workers due to unsafe working conditions and resolved to fight for safe workplaces. Remember the dead and flight for the living. Stop the Killing.
GLOBAL: Health and safety at work is neither a perk to be bargained for nor a favour to be asked – IndustriALL – #iwmd23
28 April is International Workers’ Memorial Day, a day to remind us that health and safety at work is neither a perk to be bargained for nor a favour to be asked. It is our right in the workplace. #iwmd23 #genderbasedviolence #SexualHarassment
IndustriALL @IndustriALL_GU
UK: USDAW says a trade union organised workplace is a safer workplace on 28 April – #iwmd23
Date: 28 April 2023
Every year April 28 is International Workers’ Memorial Day (IWMD). It is the international trade union day of remembrance and action for workers killed, disabled, injured or made unwell by their work.
Every year April 28 is International Workers’ Memorial Day (IWMD). It is the international trade union day of remembrance and action for workers killed, disabled, injured or made unwell by their work.
For #IWMD23 retail and distribution trade union Usdaw is promoting the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) theme of ‘Organising health and safety within the workplace’. Making the case for strong laws, strong enforcement and strong unions to help Health and Safety Reps organise, inspect and protect.
- Organise: Usdaw workplace reps have the tools, support and training they need to help keep members healthy and safe.
- Inspect: Usdaw Reps can use their legal functions to inspect the workplace, investigate accidents and consult with the workers they represent.
- Protect: Usdaw uses its bargaining strength to make sure that workplace health and safety policies are functioning properly. National campaigns, like ‘Freedom from Fear’ and a ‘New Deal for Workers’ give all workers a voice and to secure new legal rights.
Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary says: “International Workers’ Memorial Day is when the labour movement remembers those who have been killed or injured at work and those who have died from occupational diseases. So on 28 April we ‘remember the dead and fight for the living’ by highlighting our all year round campaigning for better health and safety.
“Health and safety at work is a right not a privilege. Keeping members safe is one of the key aims of Usdaw. This involves ensuring safe working practices and environments, safety training, ensuring the supply of personal protective equipment, and advising members and reps on all other aspects of safety at work.
“Usdaw has thousands of trained Safety Reps across the UK who are instrumental in maintaining a safe workplace and who work with management to prevent accidents. Usdaw also has experts in its health and safety section at head office who, along with the Union’s network of area organisers, offer important advice and support to reps and members.
“The Health and Safety Executive brings unions and employers together, but funding cuts and Government policies have weakened its effectiveness. That is why Usdaw is calling for a reversal of the HSE cuts. We also want to see more HSE and local authority inspectors to enforce health and safety law and for the inspectors to work with Union Safety Reps when they do workplace inspections.
“Usdaw Reps across the country will be bringing Workers Memorial Day into their workplaces, publicising the importance of health and safety and in some areas participating in public ceremonies and events. I wish them well in their commemorations and campaigning.”
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK’s fifth biggest trade union with over 350,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades www.usdaw.org.uk
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion
UK: NASUWT encourages mass participation at #iwmd23
International Workers’ Memorial Day allows us to remember the dead and fight for the living
On International Workers’ Memorial Day, we remember all those who have died at work and reconfirm our commitment to fight for the living.
This Thursday 28 April, we encourage our members to take part in remembering all those who have died at work or as a result of their workplace environment.
All workplaces should be healthy and safe environments. Organised workplaces are safer workplaces and having an active union in a workplace:
- helps reduce injuries at work;
- leads to a reduction in the levels of ill health caused by work;
- encourages greater reporting of injuries and near misses;
- makes workers more confident and productive;
- helps develop a more positive safety culture; and
- saves the economy many millions of pounds.
Ways you can get involved with Workers’ Memorial Day
| NASUWT |
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|---|---|
| TUC | International Workers Memorial Day
|
| 28april.org/ITUC | A New Social Contract |
| ILO | World Day for Safety and Health at Work 2023 |
Europe: Asbestos victims urge EU to stop workplace cancer scandal – ETUC – #iwmd23
Victims of occupational cancer and their families are today, on International Workers Memorial Day, calling on EU leaders to give workers the highest possible level of protection from asbestos.
Around 90,000 people lose their lives to asbestos-related cancer in the EU every year, making it the leading cause of workplace fatalities.
Between 4 and 7 million workers across the EU are exposed to asbestos and that number is expected to grow by 4% over the next decade as a result of building renovations as part of the EU Green Deal.
The EU is currently reviewing the asbestos exposure limit but the European Commission and European Council want to keep it at a dangerously high level in order to minimise costs for businesses.
To show the consequences of such a decision, trade unions are publishing the testimonies of those whose lives have been blighted by cancer caused by exposure to asbestos at work.
Read more here:
https://www.etuc.org/en/pressrelease/iwmd-asbestos-victims-urge-eu-stop-workplace-cancer-scandal
Europe: A grave reminder from ETUI
The decline of the fatal accident rate in Europe has levelled off. ETUI says this is a stark reminder that the trade union can never become complacent in its fight to protect workers.
Today is International Workers’ Memorial Day
This graph, showing how the rate of reduction in fatal workplace accidents is levelling off in Europe, is a stark reminder that the #TradeUnion movement can never become complacent in its fight to protect #workers #ETUIinfo #IWMD23 pic.twitter.com/l5MK3s3QpG
— ETUI – European Trade Union Institute (@ETUI_org) April 28, 2023
Sweden: Candle lighting ceremony to honor and remember fallen victims of work
Today on Workers’ Memorial Day, we light a candle for all our comrades who have left us due to work, to remember and honor them, whether it is through a work accident or work-related illness.
Workers’ Memorial Day
CYRENE MARTINSSON WAERN
27 apr 2023
Så var då den 28 april här igen – en dag då vi särskilt minns och hedrar de som förlorat sina liv på grund av sitt arbete. Tyvärr har redan 16 personer mist sina liv i arbetet i år. 16 personer som lämnade sitt hem på morgonen och inte kom tillbaka till nära och kära efter arbetets slut. Men det är viktigt att komma ihåg att detta bara är en del av bilden – det finns också de som dör i förtid på grund av arbetsrelaterade sjukdomar och denna siffra är betydligt högre. Enligt Arbetsmiljöverket beräknas att cirka 3000 personer dör i förtid varje år, på grund av arbetet. Vi kan därför aldrig lägga ned kampen för att ingen ska riskera sitt liv eller sin hälsa på grund av arbetet. Varje arbetsrelaterat dödsfall och varje arbetsrelaterad sjukdom visar hur viktigt arbetsmiljöarbetet är. De kan undvikas genom aktiva och preventiva insatser för en god arbetsmiljö. Om ett effektivt arbetsmiljöarbete vore självklart oavsett var i världen, skulle vi aldrig ha kunnat läsa om sådana allvarliga olyckor som exempelvis branden vid Rana Plaza, där fler än 1 100 arbetare dog.
EU-statistik visar att 78 procent av all arbetsrelaterad cancer beror på exponering av asbest, något som är totalförbjudet i EU sedan 2005 (Sverige 1982), för att ge ett exempel. Totalt dog 3 355 människor på jobbet i EU 2020 (den senast tillgängliga statistiken) varav mer än en femtedel ägde rum inom byggindustrin, enligt Eurostat.
Tittar vi vidare på Eurostats statistik från 2019 så ser vi att i jämförelse med övriga EU, så ligger vi “bra” till. Men kan vi verkligen “nöja oss” med att vi har få dödsolyckor i jämförelse? Absolut inte, om ni frågar mig eller vem som helst inom fackföreningsrörelsen. Tanken att ditt arbete skulle kunna riskera ditt liv är oacceptabelt, arbete ska alltid utföras med noggranna och väl genomförda riskanalyser, så att det kan utföras utan att riskera ditt liv eller din hälsa. Oavsett var eller med vad du arbetar! Systematiskt arbetsmiljöarbete på varje arbetsplats, tillgång till skyddsutrustning och säkerhetsanordningar, välutbildade skyddsombud och chefer i arbetsmiljöfrågor, samt tillgång till expertis från t e x företagshälsovård vid behov, är a och o för att skapa en trygg och säker arbetsmiljö för alla arbetstagare. För det har väl inte gått någon förbi att sedan ILO:s arbetskonferens 2022, är en säker och hälsosam arbetsmiljö en grundläggande rättighet i arbetslivet? Det betyder att du har rätt att inte bli sjuk eller omkomma på grund av ditt arbete.
Därför, mina vänner, tänder vi idag ett ljus för alla våra kamrater som har lämnat oss på grund av arbetet, för att minnas och hedra dem. Samtidigt knyter vi näven i fickan och lovar att tillsammans ställer vi krav för en arbetsmiljö där ingen riskerar sin hälsa eller sitt liv!
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