Lowering the flag honours workers killed, injured on the job
“I was surprised and outraged at discovering just how many young people – teenagers and workers in their early twenties – are injured or killed within hours or days of starting a new job,” says Percy Hatfield. The Windsor-Tecumseh MPP and retired CBC television reporter wants more people to recognize what is happening.
Too often, workers are put in harm’s way because “their safety training was either cursory or fluffed off. Often, they are left to work on their own without supervision,” says Hatfield. “This can happen in situations where there is heavy equipment, complicated machinery, or even in a sandwich shop with sharp knives and hot ovens.”
Two years ago, the NDP MPP decided to raise a flag on workplace safety concerns by requesting the Maple Leaf be lowered on all publicly funded buildings in Ontario every Apr. 28, the National Day of Mourning for Workers. He authored his private members’ public Bill 180 and presented it to the Ontario Legislature.
All parties supported the bill and the resulting Workers Day of Mourning Act passed in June 2016. “I was motivated to do more to highlight the importance of the Workers Day of Mourning because I didn’t see evidence that enough attention was being paid to commemorate the occasion,” Hatfield says. When people spot flags respectfully lowered at schools, hospitals, municipal buildings, libraries, fire halls, museums, arenas and police stations, they wonder what has occurred. That opens conversations and increases awareness. In bringing his bill forward, Hatfield also hoped “to raise the need for more and ongoing on-the-job safety training.” Lowering the flag also “pays tribute to those who have been injured or killed on the job or are suffering from a work-related illness; and to remind members of their families that they are not alone, that we are there for support and we haven’t forgotten the sacrifice made by their loved ones,” says Hatfield. “An injury to one is an injury to all.”
Hatfield adds that he knows surviving family members appreciate the gesture. “Many attend our local Workers Day of Mourning annual ceremony and bring their children, and we renew friendships. We’ve seen young children grow into their teenage years without a father, and we hear their stories and you can’t help but be touched by what they are going through. No one should lose a parent to an on-the-job injury, but the unfortunate fact is we still are seeing too many work-related incidents,” Hatfield says.
He has worked closely with Tracie Edward and the late Rolly Marentette of the Windsor and District Labour Council and the local organizers of the annual Day of Mourning events “on ways to get more people thinking about the significance of the day.” He observes that the labour council “has always done a terrific job in our area.”
On Apr. 28, 2016, walking with participants carrying carnations to lay in memory of workers injured or killed at work, Hatfield thought of the impact of the new act. Today, he says, “I would hope when people see the flags lowered (they) would notice, and either ask why, or motivate more of us to think twice about our own safety on the job.
“I would hope motivated educators would use the occasion to discuss the importance of the day with their students, and to encourage them to keep safety in mind at all times in their part-time jobs, or to talk about it with their parents,” Hatfield says.
“As parents, there is much to gain by having a conversation with our teenagers or grandchildren about their part-time jobs and the need to work in safe conditions and to speak up if they feel there are situations at work which could be made more safe,” he thinks. “Better safe than sorry.” Ontario labour minister Kevin Flynn “says his ministry is doing more to stress training and holding more spot inspections on the plant floor, yet there is a concern that the ministry is moving toward an employer self-reporting system and we will see fewer ministry inspectors on the job, and that is troubling to many people involved with safety training in this prov-
An injury to one is an injury to all.
Unions “do a great job stressing on the job safety,” Hatfield says, “but not all workplaces are unionized, and work habits anywhere can get sloppy unless someone stays on top of the file at individual locations.” The Ontario Federation of Labour’s slogan is “attentiongrabbing”: ‘Kill a Worker, Go To Jail.’ However, Hatfield says, “too many times employers are fined financially but perhaps if more company owners or supervisors were actually sent to jail after one of their employees died on the job, the message for more attention to safety training and safety on the work site would convince others to get more serious about it on a continual basis.” Acknowledging “we have made gains, we are still losing too many people to work-related injuries,” he says.
“Our workplaces are better today than years ago when asbestos was in the air or solvents and chemicals and dust were commonplace and workers eventually died a slow and painful death – but we can never give up. We owe it to those who have died or become incapacitated, and their families, to stay ever vigilant.”
Efforts to increase awareness of workplace safety issues are ongoing. In the Ontario Legislature at Queens Park on Apr. 25, Hatfield made a 90-second member’s statement, speaking about the significance of the National Day of Mourning for Workers.
“As we get set to once again mourn for the dead and fight for the living, we all could do more to make on-the-job safety a priority or to initiate a conversation,” he says. “It could prevent an accident or even save a life.”