Skip to content

Workplace safety improved, but more can be done, says union boss

Leo Gerard said he can still remember his father and his miner friends having to hold “illegal” meetings to plan on ways to sneak safety glasses into the Creighton Mine 40 years ago.

Leo Gerard said he can still remember his father and his miner friends having to hold “illegal” meetings to plan on ways to sneak safety glasses into the Creighton Mine 40 years ago.


It’s only through the good work of union activists dedicated to health and safety that so much has changed for the better over the past four decades, said Gerard, the international president of the United Steelworkers (USW).
Gerard was a guest speaker at the Industrial Accident Prevention Association (IAPA) conference that started Tuesday and wraps up Wednesday at the Holiday Inn in Sudbury.


The IAPA is a non-profit organization started in Ontario in 1917. The IAPA represents more than 50,000 firms and 1.5 million Ontario workers and it’s Canada’s leading workplace health and safety organization.


Despite the many advances in workplace health and safety, much more has to be done and the only acceptable goal is for every worker and manager to demand zero serious workplace injuries, said Gerard.


Back when he started as a miner at Inco at the age of 18, Gerard said the USW had to form a permanent inquest committee because an average of 20 workers were being killed on the job annually.


Members of those committees became so qualified, they were asked to teach courses at inquest committees organized by the provincial government, said Gerard.


He also remembers working in Inco’s transportation department and being subjected to decibel levels proven to cause deafness in some workers and the USW battling to ensure regular hearing tests were available and mandatory for unionized workers, said Gerard.


It’s only through union activism that workers have earned the right to refuse unsafe work over the years, said Gerard.
The fact remains far too many workers still don’t recognize unsafe work and continue to place their good health and often their life in danger on the job, he said.


The good news is the number of fatalities and serious injuries on the job has decreased with each passing decade for several decades in succession, said Gerard.


“We built a safety infrastructure in this union...and lots of other unions did too, but I mention our union because I believe the Steelworkers led the way,” said Gerard.


It must never be forgotten that far more workers have been killed or had their health deteriorate badly because of constant exposure to industrial disease than those hurt by traumatic injuries, said Gerard.


Health and safety activists in northeastern Ontario’s mining industry and British Columbia’s forestry industry deserve much of the credit for improving massive reductions to industrial contaminants within the workplace, he said.


The USW is also directly responsible for leading the push to have a cancer treatment centre built in Greater Sudbury more than 20 years ago as part of a “Northern Manifesto” formulated by the union, said Gerard.


That manifesto also resulted in several thousand widows of miners, especially gold miners who succumbed to stomach cancer, receiving compensation from mining companies and the provincial government, he said.


“We now have a lot more rights than we did then, but there’s still a long way to go to ensure 100 percent safe workplaces we all should have,” said Gerard.


A safe workplace can only be achieved when every worker is well-trained and educated about health and safety issues and policies.  That’s why unions like the USW push so hard for mandatory training, he said.


“The evolution is ongoing, but the challenge is great and the commitment has to be even greater,” he said.


Comments

Verified reader

If you would like to apply to become a verified commenter, please fill out this form.