The Grey Bruce Labour Council (GBLC) is set to mark the annual Day of Mourning, a day to remember workers killed, injured, or made ill at the workplace.
In addition to marking the Day of Mourning, the GBLC will be honouring the legacy of former Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Health and Safety Director Colin Lambert, who passed away earlier this year. Lambert and his colleague Ray Senates were the people who created what we now know as the Day of Mourning.
Lambert and Senates created this ongoing remembrance of workers who are killed, injured or sickened at work after attending a remembrance for a fallen firefighter in 1983. They also had both been part of the United Steelworkers annual day of remembrance for miners that had succumbed to exposures while mining uranium in Elliott Lake, sparking the idea for the Day of Mourning, observed annually on or close to April 28.
Locally, there will be ceremonies held in Chesley on April 22 at the Community Centre at 10:30 a.m. and in Hanover at Heritage Square at 11 a.m. Another ceremony will be held at Bruce Power. The Chesley and Hanover ceremonies are open to everyone while the Bruce Power ceremony is held on the site and those working on the site and those invited are welcome to attend.
"If only this day was not required at all," said Labour Council President, Kevin Smith.
Across Canada each year nearly one-thousand workers lose their lives in or due to workplace incidents or exposures. In addition to the fatalities are hundreds of thousands of workplace injuries and occupational illnesses.
“In many case the injuries and exposures have long term and devastating effects on the worker, their families and the community," Smith added.
