Day of Mourning recognizes victims of workplace tragedies
Victims of workplace tragedies were honoured on Friday during Canada’s National Day of Mourning. The Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 70, the City of Lethbridge and the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering hosted a ceremony at the CUPE 70 Workers Memorial Site in the Mountain View Cemetery.
The day is intended as an opportunity to honour coworkers, friends, and family who have lost their lives to workplace injury and illness, and to collectively renew a commitment to fostering safer workplaces.
Melissa Craig, Manager of Integrated Risk Management with the City of Lethbridge, said the City is committed to ensuring staff and citizens go home to their families at the end of the work day.
“This day is really an opportunity for us to remember those mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and co-workers that we have lost, as well as an opportunity for us to come together as a community to show that together, we can stop both workplace injuries and illnesses.”
The day has become a sombre day of remembrance for Jacki Fuhrmann and her family. She lost her father, Jim Jamieson, to a workplace incident in 2014.
“I’ve come here every year since it happened,” she said.
On April 2, 2014, Jamieson was working as a transport driver for a local company. He was trying to deal with an unstable load and was under pressure to meet a deadline.
He made a decision to stand on top of the load while it was being unloaded with a forklift. Once the load was out of the trailer, it shifted with him on top of it.
He was thrown from the load as it collapsed, pinning Jamieson between the load and the trailer.
“He had multiple internal injuries which caused him to bleed out in a matter of 4.5 hours,” said Jacki.
She said more needs to be done to improve workplace safety, including getting the message out for workers that it is OK for them to refuse to work in unsafe situations.
“One of the most important things that was said today is that they have the right to say no,” she said. “If there wasn’t timeline pressures on (Jamieson) that day, they could have taken the time to secure the load properly. But because he felt pressured to be where he needed to be, and to avoid being reprimanded for it, he did it unsafely. It cost him his life.”
Christina Gray, Alberta’s Minister of Labour, issued a statement on Friday to mark the occasion.
“In 2016, there were 144 deaths related to workplace illnesses and injuries,” she said.
“These 144 people were more than just workers. They were someone’s grandparents, parents, siblings, spouses, children or friends. They touched lives and made their communities better places. Their contributions made our lives richer and their absence makes our lives poorer.”
The National Day of Mourning was officially recognized by the Canadian government in 1991, eight years after the day of remembrance was launched by the Canadian Labour Congress. The event has since spread to roughly 80 countries world-wide.
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