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LU honours health and safety activist

BY KEITH LACEY [email protected] Homer Seguin says he can still vividly remember walking into Inco's old sintering plant, "the worst plant ever built", as a brash 16-year-old and being scared out of his wits.
Homer_Seguin
Homer and Maria Seguin

BY KEITH LACEY
[email protected]

Homer Seguin says he can still vividly remember walking into Inco's old sintering plant, "the worst plant ever built", as a brash 16-year-old and being scared out of his wits.

"Within weeks I said to myself I don't know how long it's going to take or what it's going to take, but I'm going to do everything in my power to change this place," said Seguin. "It was a horrible place to work . . . that's where my dedication to health and safety issues began."

After a remarkable 40-year career where he became one of the country's leading experts on industrial health and safety issues and a leader who helped initiate many changes young unionized miners now take for granted, Seguin is being honoured Wednesday with an honourary Doctorate of Laws in Labour Studies at Laurentian University's spring commencement ceremonies.

"I had dreams of becoming a lawyer, but when my dad died young when I was only a teenager, I had to go to work to support my family and had to give up that dream," said Seguin. "But to be honoured with this prestigious honourary doctorate is something I'm very proud of.

"I believe I might be the first labour layperson to receive an honourary doctorate and I accept this award on behalf of all those people I've worked with over the years to make health and safety on the job a priority and to ensure workers' rights were defended."

Born in North Bay in 1934, Seguin moved to the old mining community of Creighton when his Dad, Horace, found a job with Inco.

With the exception of a 7 and a half year stint as a labour leader in Elliot Lake between 1975-82, Seguin has spent his entire life working in Sudbury.

When his dad died tragically from a drowning accident at the tender age of 39, Seguin was forced to quit school and go to work to help support his mother and two siblings.

"Back then there was no such thing as a pension . . . if your dad died, the wife and family got nothing," said Seguin.

He managed to survive eight months in the sintering plant, but couldn't take the horrible working conditions and quit to take on another job at Falconbridge.

"That was what turned out to be the second-worst job I ever had right behind working in the sintering plant," said the amiable and well-spoken Seguin. "I got hired bagging coal and didn't last long there...Inco was so desperate for men back then, I agreed to go back there as long as I didn't have to return to the sintering plant."


He was hired to work in the copper refinery in the arc casting plant and that's where he "set his roots" to get involved in union activities, especially relating to workplace health and safety.

He became a chief steward at 19 and chair of the health and safety committee for the huge refinery section for all of Inco's Sudbury operations.

He was soon elected a plant representative for the Mine Mill union in the early 1960s and joined the bargaining committee, all before age 30. In 1963, he was elected chair of the health and safety committee and chief steward for the refinery section.

In 1965, he become one of the youngest ever vice-presidents of Local 6500 soon after the United Steelworkers replaced the Mine Mill as the top union at Inco operations and two years later was named president.

Seguin held various top positions with Local 6500 across northeastern Ontario until his retirement in 1992 and since then has formed his own consulting business where he often leads seminars on health and safety issues, particularly training union leaders about disease epidemiology.

He's proud of his many friendships made through the labour movement.

"You can't get anything done alone as a labour leader . . . the power of the union can only be seen when we all work together," he said. "I received a lot of support and help from many wonderful people through the years who believed in the same issues I did, particularly relating to health and safety."

Studies have confirmed over the years the old sintering plant had the highest incidence of lung and nasal cancers of any plant ever owned or operated by Inco, said Seguin.

"When that plant finally closed down, it was a very happy day for me," he said. "I had worked hard for many years to get that place closed down and together we finally achieved our goal...it truly was a horrible place.

"There are still old miners who worked there being diagnosed with lung and nasal cancer well into their senior years."

Seguin says he learned more about health and safety during his almost eight years in Elliot Lake than at any other time in his life. He was so popular in that small mining town, he ran for and was elected to city council to speak out for miners and health and safety issues in that community.

"I started to learn about the epidemiology of why so many miners were getting the same kinds of cancer and lung disease and other work-related illnesses," he said.

"I read literally hundreds of books and I started making contact with doctors who knew about how diseases were caused...If I didn't know an answer to a question, I asked the right people and got the answers."

As a union leader, Seguin said he's proud to have worked alongside and mentored Leo Gerard, the son of a Sudbury miner who has risen to become one of the most powerful labour leaders in the western world as international president of the United Steelworkers.

Some of the issues he's most proud of are being on bargaining committees that won fights with Inco management to have a nickel bonus, full-time health and safety inspectors, leading the way to have a cancer centre built in northeastern Ontario and, indexing of all pensions, said Seguin.

"Those were long and tough battles, but I'm particularly proud of those accomplishments," he said.

He's also proud of winning a long battle to win compensation for thousands of gold miners diagnosed with various forms of cancer, he said.

"We'd managed to win compensation for more than 1,000 gold miners with more than $100 million in benefits for those still living and their families," he said.

He also believes Local 6500 and union workers are mainly responsible for forcing Inco to commit to building the superstack 35 years ago and committing to a sulphur dioxide emission program over the past 20 years.

"Without us exerting pressure...the company would never have agreed," he said. "Inco and the government used to tell us there was nothing wrong . . . we knew better and we proved them wrong and changes were made."

It took a plot to have more than 100 workers smuggle monitoring equipment onto Inco property to prove their case, but it was a risk worth taking, said Seguin.

"All the workers who risked their jobs to prove a point deserve a great deal of credit," he said.

Seguin has written a book about his life sponsored by Laurentian University, which he hopes to have published in the next couple of months. The tentative title is "Fighting for Survival: The Homer Seguin Story."

Seguin is in poor health with kidney and lung problems, but says his determination to keep leading health and safety seminars keeps his mind active and body going.

His wife of 28 years, Maria, says she couldn't be prouder her husband is receiving the honourary doctorate.

"He deserves it and I'm very proud of him," she said. "He's done great work for the workers and I believe helped save many lives."

John Filo, a lifetime union activist and labour leader, calls Seguin "an icon of the labour movement in this country. He represents everything that is positive when it comes to workers' rights and health and safety in the workplace."

The fact Seguin is a "self-made man" who gained so much of his knowledge reading books and gaining information on his own is admirable, said Filo.

He agrees some of the gains like indexed pensions, nickel bonus and full pensions after 30 years of service are the envy of many unionized workers and Seguin was at the forefront of ensuring all these gains.

Seguin "has great empathy for the underdog" and has spent his life fighting for workers and all downtrodden people at work and on the street, he said.

"He's a tireless worker for justice for those who have been abused," he said. "He's done it all without pushing his own agenda or without ego."

Seguin is a deserving recipient of an honourary doctorate and when the history of Inco and the union movement in Sudbury is written 50 or 100 years from now Seguin's many contributions will not be forgotten, said Filo.


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