About 900 people per year lose their lives on the job.1
It’s in memory of those men and women that the flag will fly at half-mast on Parliament Hill on April 28. The National Day of Mourning is both an occasion to remember those whose lives were tragically lost and a reminder that deaths in the workplace are largely preventable.
But only if there’s regulation to make it so!
It wasn’t so long ago that the PSAC warned that the Harper Government was putting public service employees’ lives at risk. The warning came at the heels of a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which revealed that cuts for federal inspections were leading to disabling injuries and fatalities.
According to Success is No Accident, by then CCPA Research Associate David Macdonald, the rate of disabling injuries in the federal sector had increased by 5 per cent between 2002 and 2007 while its counterparts in the provinces managed to cut these injuries by 25 per cent.2
In federally-regulated workplaces, health and safety inspections are conducted by HRSDC’s labour affairs officers (incidentally, these are UNE members!).
At the time, the 2010 report made it clear that there simply weren’t enough labour affairs officers to do the job.
“With only 128 [labour affairs officers] covering over a million Canadians, it is little wonder that there are concerns about insufficient resources to do the job,” wrote Macdonald.
That was two years before the cuts.
In the 2012 budget, the Conservative government eliminated HRSDC’s fire protection program. Labour Affairs Officers in charge of fire protection conduct inspections in passport offices, post offices and other government buildings. It’s thanks to their work that Canadians can feel safe in knowing that they’re not standing in a tinderbox when they have business to conduct in a government building.
These members also conduct inspections on First Nations reserves, since these fall under federal jurisdiction. Some of the buildings they inspect include schools, daycares and other offices offering family services.
By April 2014, the program will be no more; the responsibility will be delegated to departments. It’ll be up to each department to self-regulate and up to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada to ensure that fire doesn’t pose a risk on First Nations reserves.
Evidently, the Harper Government hasn’t heard of an analogy involving foxes and henhouses.
On this National Day of Mourning, we call on the government to honour the memories of those who lost their lives on the job. We urge it to reverse this trend that is putting our members at risk – that is playing a dangerous game with the lives of Canadians and First Nations people.
No one should ever have to die for a paycheque.
[1] Day of Mourning (2013) Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.
[2] Success Is No Accident (2010) Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.