Dozens of workers gathered at the Steelworkers Hall in Port Alberni on April 28 to pay tribute to those killed or injured on the job. National Day of Mourning ceremonies took place across Canada to honour fallen workers.
In Port Alberni, speaker after speaker talked about the need for safety, advocacy and safer work conditions.
"Six of the 146 who died last year were young workers. And that's trending upward," said Don MacFadgen, manager of prevention field services for WorkSafe BC's Nanaimo office.
MacFadgen said it is up to everyone to promote and support health and safety as well as proper training in industries, particularly with younger workers.
Of the 146 workers who died as a result of their jobs in B.C. last year, 78 were the result of occupational disease, with 37 as a result of asbestos exposure. Ron Corbeil, MC of the day and also a Western Canada Health, Safety and Environment Coordinator for the United Steelworkers, said the safety culture is changing in the forestry industry, for example. "But it's really slow."
Ryan Dvorak, vice-president of the Alberni and District Labour Council, said the day was particularly poignant for him. "It was on this day 13 years ago I got to say the last words to my father," who died of an occupational disease. He said lives lost aren't the only ones affected: "Those are close...interactions with children, with families, with the community. Those are people who are active in our community, active in our culture.
"Every worker deserves to go home at the end of their shift."
Ben Halychuk, a captain with the Port Alberni Fire Department, said he woke up Monday morning to an alert on his cellphone that another firefighter had died, this time in Chicago. "We've got 200 names on the (memorial) wall between Canada and the U.S. that are dead and most of them died of occupational disease.
"Our jobs are killing us...The culture is evolving but not fast enough."
He said more funding and attention needs to be focused on safety aspects of jobs like firefighting, and that everyone needs to work together to keep each other safe. "We've got to look out for each other...hold each other accountable to keep ourselves safe."
Ken McRae, former mayor of Port Alberni, was a longtime mill worker and union representative. He said he's glad to see the culture changing.
He worked at the Somass Sawmill and maintained 12 elevators on site. "We live in asbestos," he said. "We used to wash our faces with PCBs. We used to heat the bearings up in PCBs."
He said 12 people were killed on the job when he worked at Somass Sawmill, "some of them my best friends." He recalled a union meeting when he was younger where a negotiator scoffed at the younger members pushing for pensions.
"He asked if we were all tradesmen. When we said yes he said 'you're all going to dead before you're 65, why do you want a pension.
"I'll never forget that."
