AMERICAN LABOUR:

CLEANUP WORKERS AT RISK:

Many have complained about excessive secrecy surrounding British Petroleum's cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. Besides simply restricting reportage, however, BP also calculates each and every item as to the "spin" that may result. Often decisions are made not because of efficacy or even human safety but rather because of the image they project. One of these is the decision to not issue proper safety gear to those involved in the cleanup. Here's a petition from the American Rights At Work group demanding that BP take the health of its temporary labour into consideration.

ALALALALAL
Tell BP That Worker Health Comes Before PR!

More than 100 people in the Gulf have reported identical illnesses from BP's oil spill, and that doesn't include untold numbers of workers hiding their symptoms for fear of being fired by BP.

Yet despite clear evidence that cleanup workers are sick, BP won't provide respirators. Why not? For starters, BP is afraid that news footage of people wearing this critical safety equipment will show the public just how bad the spill is.

No amount of good PR is worth the health and lives of people battling BP's oil in the Gulf Coast.

Tell BP: Don't put PR above cleanup workers' health.

Sign the petition!
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"BP should take every possible step to keep cleanup workers safe, including providing and paying for the proper respirators needed to protect workers' lungs."



Your petition will be sent to:
BP CEO Tony Hayward
cc: OSHA Director David Michaels
cc: U.S. National Incident Commander Thad Allen
cc: U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis

ENVIRONMENT:

EXPLOSION DEAD NOT LIKELY ONLY VICTIMS:

The 11 workers who died during the explosion that started the largest oil spill ever seen in the world are unlikely to be the only victims. Clean-up workers on the Gulf Coast are reporting an increasing number of illnesses caused by their exposure to the oil washing up on the beaches. There is now a Facebook group dedicated to pressuring for proper safety procedures for the workers involved in the cleanup. It also has a wealth of information from previous similar accidents. See 'Support Health and Safety protections for Gulf Oil Spill Clean-up'. Meanwhile here's a short article on what is happening from the US magazine 'In These Times'.

BPBPBPBPBPBPBP
Oil Spill Clean-up Workers: We’re Getting Sick From Lack of Protective Gear
By Lindsay Beyerstein

Some fishermen hired by BP to clean up spill oil say they've become ill after being exposed to oil and dispersant without proper personal protective equipment.

Several south Louisiana fishermen working on the cleanup told the LA Times that they had developed headaches, coughing, nausea, and other symptoms. The workers said they'd been working without facemasks or gloves.

BP spokesman Graham McEwen told the Times that he was not aware that any workers were getting sick.

Yesterday, 125 fishing boats working off Breton Sound in Louisiana were called off the job after workers on three separate boats reported nausea, chest pain, and other symptoms. One worker had to be evacuated by air ambulance and two others were driven to hospital, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) wants the Department of Health and Human Services to set up mobile clinics for clean-up workers and send the bill to BP. Melancon outlined the proposal in a letter to Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. As Melancon explained in the May 19 letter, workers are being exposed to hazardous materials on a daily basis and many are hours away from the nearest clinic.

WORKPLACE SAFETY:

BLAMING THE WORKER:

No matter how difficult the task may seem human nature is inventive enough to accomplish the near impossible. In this case the task is to shift blame for workplace accidents from the employer to the employee. Here's an interesting article from Labor Notes about how bosses actually use "safety programs" to not only shift blame but also to divide the workforce such that demands for real improvements in work conditions will never be heard.

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Confronting Blame-the-Worker Safety Programs
In a Missouri food warehouse, 150 workers load and unload trucks, lift boxes, drive fork trucks, and move endless pallets. Each month that no one reports an injury, all workers receive prizes, such as $50 gift certificates. If someone reports an injury, no prizes are given that month.

Last year, management added a new element to this “safety incentive” program: if a worker reported an injury, not only would co-workers forgo monthly prizes but the injured worker had to wear a fluorescent orange vest for a week. The vest identified the worker as a safety problem, and alerted co-workers: he lost you your prizes.

Blame-the-worker programs like this are flourishing, and they are harmful for workplace health and safety. Why are employers implementing them?

For decades, employers have brought in work-restructuring programs such as Lean, Six Sigma, and kaizen/continuous improvement. The result has been understaffing, work overload, long hours, job combinations—and therefore increased stress, repetitive strain, and other injuries and illnesses.

Increased injury rates brought higher workers compensation premiums and meant a higher risk of OSHA inspections. Supervisors lost bonuses, and facilities faced the loss of safety awards that had helped them win investments and contracts.

But instead of rethinking their work restructuring, employers came up with a different plan: hide the injuries. Enter “behavior-based safety.”

KNOW THE ENEMY
Behavior-based safety programs and practices focus on worker behavior rather than on workplace hazards as the cause of injuries and illnesses:

• Safety incentive programs, where workers receive prizes or rewards when they don’t report work-related injuries

• Injury discipline policies, where workers are threatened with or receive discipline (including termination) when they do report injuries

• Post-injury drug testing, where workers are automatically drug-tested when they report an injury

• Workplace signs that track the number of hours or days without a lost-time or recordable injury, which encourages numbers games

• Other posters, such as those stuck to washroom mirrors stating, “You are looking at the person most responsible for your safety.”

• Programs where workers observe co-workers and record their “safe behaviors” or “unsafe acts.” This focuses attention away from hazards and reinforces the myth that injuries result from bad behavior rather than hazardous conditions.

HIDING HAZARDS
In order for there to be a workplace injury or illness, there must be a hazard. A union approach to reducing injuries and illnesses is to identify, eliminate, reduce, and prevent hazards.

A behavior-based approach, on the other hand, drives both injury reporting and hazard reporting underground. When a job injury or illness is reported, the hazard causing it can be identified and addressed. If injuries aren’t reported, hazards go unaddressed—and injured workers may not get the care they need.

In addition, if a worker is trained to observe and identify fellow workers’ “unsafe acts,” he or she will report “you’re not lifting properly” rather than “the job needs to be redesigned.”

It’s hard enough to get hazards fixed that we know about; it’s impossible to fix hazards we don’t know about.

Many behavioral safety programs also harm solidarity. When workers lose prizes if a co-worker reports an injury, peer pressure comes into play. Observing co-workers is harmful even if no discipline is attached to recorded “unsafe acts.”

Employers tout low injury rates as an indicator of safety, when the reality can be disastrously different. One employer with a safety incentive program and an injury discipline policy won an award from the Massachusetts Safety Council for having zero recordable injuries; the next year a worker was crushed to death in a machine. Minor injuries had occurred on this machine but were never reported.

Behavioral safety programs hide injuries, but they can’t cover up fatalities. In 2005 BP was touting an OSHA injury rate many times below the national average at its Texas City facility, when an explosion there took the lives of 15 workers and injured 180.

TAKING THEM ON
The first step is educating members about these programs and building solidarity around the need to end them. Incentive programs that promise prizes for not reporting injuries are hazards in disguise.

Unions whose employers are covered by the NLRA or similar labor law should use their bargaining rights to block unilateral implementation of these programs, as health and safety is a mandatory subject of bargaining. See tinyurl.com/TroublemakersHandbook-h-s for a sample letter requesting to bargain and a sample letter requesting detailed information on the program.

Unions whose employers are covered by OSHA can use a provision in OSHA’s Recordkeeping Rule: it is an OSHA violation to discriminate against workers for exercising their right to report injuries. When workers lose prizes or receive automatic discipline for reporting injuries, this can be illegal discrimination under 29 CFR 1904.36 and Section 11(c) of the OSH Act.

One example was at Alcoa: the names of everyone who didn’t report an injury went into a hat, and periodically there was a drawing for a big screen TV. Steelworkers Local 105 filed an OSHA complaint, and OSHA made Alcoa cease and desist.

In another case, an employer called in 17 members of USW Local 880 in Massachusetts and told them they had too many injuries—one more and they were up for termination. A call to OSHA produced a call to the company informing management that this was illegal discrimination.

HOW LONG?
Unions can respond to the employer’s signs announcing how long the workplace has gone without an injury with our own signs or leaflets that track how long it takes for the employer to address a particular hazard: “It’s been 14 days since the union asked management to fix [a problem], and they still haven’t corrected it!”

Pictures of the CEO can be slipped under the mirror magnets that say, “You are looking at the person most responsible for your safety.”

Any checklist used in a behavioral observation program can be turned into its opposite: instead of recording co-workers’ “unsafe acts,” observers record only hazards: “guard missing on Machine #3,” “understaffing in the Emergency Department.”

At the food warehouse in Missouri, the members of Steelworkers Local 11-500 approved the purchase of fluorescent orange vests for every member. These vests would each bear the USW’s sticker “Fix the Hazards—Don’t Blame the Victim.” Before this solidarity action was implemented, the employer “voluntarily” discontinued its orange-vest policy.


For more information on confronting behavior-based safety programs, see the Steelworkers' site Blame the Worker H&S Programs or Hazards Magazine.

AMERICAN LABOUR-CALIFORNIA:

DON'T FAST TRACK METHYL IODIDE:

The following appeal is for solidarity with California farmworkers who may be exposed to the potentially dangerous fumigant methyl iodide if the California authorities "fast track" its approval. The appeal is from the United Farm Workers.

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TAKE ACTION: Chemical industry urges CA governor to ignore science:
We've written to you before about methyl iodide. Thousands of UFW supporters have written to California authorities and begged them to do the right thing and refuse approval of this deadly, mutagenic compound.

This highly toxic new pesticide is currently being given a comprehensive review by the Department of Pesticide Regulations and the agency's registration decision is pending advice from a panel of scientists convened specifically to review this chemical.

However, according to inside sources, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is being pressured by corporate interests to fast-track registration of this toxic pesticide--despite serious concerns from the state's own scientists at the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR).
"Methyl iodide is so toxic that scientists working with it in the laboratory take extreme precautions when handling it, using a ventilation hood, gloves, and special equipment for transferring it so it does not escape to the air," notes Dr. Susan Kegley. "This degree of protection is not possible in an agricultural setting where the pesticide would be applied at rates of 175 pounds per acre in the open air. Buffer zones of 400 feet for a 40-acre fumigation would still result in a dose of methyl iodide to neighbors that is 375 times higher than DPR believes is acceptable. For workers, the numbers are much worse, with exposures estimated at 3,000 times higher than DPR's acceptable dose for some tasks."

Methyl iodide's manufacturer, Arysta, withdrew its New York application for registration after state officials raised concerns about groundwater contamination and potential exposure for workers, bystanders and nearby residents--especially children, pregnant women and the elderly.

Now the industry is asking California's governor to order DPR to fast track the registration of this deadly fumigant. This is not acceptable. Please take action and tell the Governor to keep methyl iodide of California's fields.

http://www.ufwaction.org/ct/YpzuCuF1wBaN/takeaction

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THE LETTER:

Please go to THIS LINK to send the following letter to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,
I am writing to urge you to allow science and public process to take their due course in the review of methyl iodide, a dangerous new fumigant pesticide.

California's Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) is currently weighing the public health risks associated with registering methyl iodide as a soil fumigant in California. DPR's plans include convening an independent Scientific Review Panel -- a critical step to ensure scientific integrity of the decision.

Methyl iodide is a known carcinogen and prone to drift. It has no appropriate place as a new chemical in California agriculture--one of the largest agricultural states in the U.S.
Bush's USEPA registered this chemical last year despite serious concerns from environmentalists, farm workers, rural residents and a group of over 50 eminent scientists, including five Nobel Laureates. These scientists expressed profound concern for the health of people living near methyl iodide application sites--especially pregnant women, farm workers, children and the elderly.

However, this is no excuse for California to bow to the pressure of agribusiness and introduce a new pesticide to our environment. There is overwhelming evidence of potential harm from exposure to this pesticide--a chemical so toxic that scientists take precautions to use methyl iodide in a ventilation hood in very small quantities. In contrast, if registered as a soil fumigant, methyl iodide would be applied in agricultural fields at rates up to 175 pounds per acre. Since fumigants spread as a gas, they drift from the application site, poisoning neighboring residents and farm workers in nearby fields.

California needs to follow the example of New York where Methyl iodide's manufacturer, Arysta, withdrew its application for registration after state officials raised concerns about groundwater contamination and potential exposure for workers, bystanders and nearby residents--especially children, pregnant women and the elderly.

Methyl iodide is a clear threat to public health, could contaminate groundwater, and is not needed to build a secure, viable and healthy agricultural economy in California. We strongly urge you to not fast-track the registration of methyl iodide. Instead allow DPR's process that incorporates independent scientific review and public input to proceed as planned.
Thank you.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR/LOCAL LABOUR:

WORKERS' MEMORIAL DAY:

Today was the International Workers' Memorial Day, a national day in many countries worldwide set aside to remember workers killed or injured on the job, including those affected by workplace induced illness. The facts themselves are startling enough. Each year over two million workers die of workplace injuries and illness across the globe. The rate of occupational accidents (270 million per year) and work-related illness (160 million) is even more disturbing (see the Wikipedia article on Workers' Memorial Day). Here in Canada, according to a CBC article, there have been 13,106 people killed in workplace "accidents" from 1993 to 2007. In 2007 alone 972,407 Canadian workers were injured or became ill due to work.

Workers' Memorial Day is actually a Canadian innovation. It was initiated by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in 1984, and the Canadian Labour Congress declared the day to be official in 1985. The US government recognized the day in 1989, and the Canadian government followed suit in 1991.

Here in Winnipeg this year's events were distinctly low key, and mostly in commemoration of the 61 Winnipeg City employees who have been killed on the job since 1978. Here's the story from the CBC article mentioned above.

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Firefighters remembered during Manitoba's day of mourning:

CBC News
The names of three Winnipeg firefighters were added to the list of workers killed on the job, as the annual National Day of Mourning was commemorated Tuesday in the courtyard at city hall.

Leslie Helman, Alfred McDonald and Fred Roy died of work-related illness in the past year.

"These workers are not statistics. They are parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, friends and neighbours," Manitoba Labour Minister Nancy Allan said to the crowd. "Their loss and the loss felt by their families, their colleagues and their communities lingers."

The National Day of Mourning, held annually on April 28, was officially recognized by the federal government in 1991 — eight years after the day of remembrance was launched by the Canadian Labour Congress.

The national event to remember workers who were injured or died on the job, or who died from a work-related illness, is now marked in more than 100 countries.

In Winnipeg, Tuesday morning's commemoration was the start of a full day of observances.

Worksite ceremonies are also being held at city facilities at 1155/1199 Pacific Avenue, 1220 Pacific Avenue, 598 Plinquet Street, and at the Millennium Library.

Sixty-one city employees have died of work-related causes since 1978.

"As public servants, it's our mission to serve citizens well, to do so safely, and return home safely to the ones we love," said City of Winnipeg chief administrative officer Glen Laubenstein.
Political and labour leaders will also gather at 11:55 a.m. at the Union Centre, 275 Broadway Ave., and then walk to the Manitoba legislature.

A news conference with Allan will be held at 12:15 p.m. in front of the grand staircase at the legislative building.

The event is organized by SAFE Workers of Tomorrow, a local organization dedicated to promoting workplace health and safety among young workers.

According to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, in the 15-year period from 1993 to 2007, there were 13,106 people who lost their lives due to work-related causes.
In 2007 alone, 1,055 workplace deaths were recorded in Canada — an increase of 976 from the previous year. Another 972,407 were injured or become ill.

Data from 2007 is the most recently available.

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Of course Winnipeg, not being the centre of the universe, was hardly the only place where the day was commemorated. The website of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union has a fine list of where there were events in Canada, and Hazards Magazine has a more general list of events worldwide. Down in the States there is also a fine new site, the United Support & memorial for Workplace Fatalities that I have mentioned before on this blog. Speaking of "mentioned before" it seems that i have written quite frequently on the subject of WMD over the years. Three times in 2009-Feb 27, March 7 and April 26. Three time in 2008-April 12 and two articles on April 28, and once in 2007-April 28. That first one is still my favourite. Here's what Molly said about this day two years ago.

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WORKERS' MEMORIAL DAY:
Today, April 28th is international Workers' Memorial Day. This is a day set aside each year to remember workers killed or injured on the job and to demand changes that will prevent such occurrences in the future. This day is one of Canada's lesser known contributions to the world.

Workers' Memorial Day was first promoted by CUPE and other Canadian unions in 1984 following the deaths of four miners in Sudbury. The Canadian Labour Congress declared an annual day of remembrance in 1985 on April 28th, which is the anniversary of the first Workers' Compensation Act proclaimed in 1919. The Americans followed in 1989 with credit being given to the fact that April 28th is also the anniversary of the establishment of OSHA. The Canadian Parliament passed an act recognizing this day in 1991.

The campaign spread to the UK in 1992 where it was adopted by the TUC in 1999.

Meanwhile the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions began to observe the day in 1996, and in 2002 the International Labour Organization(ILO) announced that Workers' Memorial Day was to be an official event in the United Nations system. Today the day is observed worldwide as an "official" day in many countries while in others the union movement is pursuing recognition.

The ILO estimates that two million people die per year of work related accidents and diseases and that, every year, there are 270 million occupational accidents and 160 million incidents of work related illnesses. Work actually kills more people in the modern world than wars do. In the USA 5,734 workers were killed and 4.2 million people were injured at work in 2005. The Canadian statistics are available at http://awcbc.org/english/NWISP_stats.asp . The situation is grimmer in Canada than in the USA in terms of fatalities which were at 1,097 in 2005. On a per capita basis workers are killed almost twice as frequently in Canada as in the US. This number has been steadily increasing in the last decade. The number of workplace injuries, however, has been steadily declining since it peaked in 1989, and in 2005 337,930 Canadian workers had suffered "compensatible injuries".

Hazards magazine maintains a website devoted to WMD with links to events worldwide. Together with the Labour Start online union solidarity site Hazards has initiated the Health and Safety Newswire. See this for more information.

For other resources on workplace health, injuries and deaths see the following:
Labour Start
Hazards Magazine
Trade Union Sustainable Development Unit
The Pump Handle
The Weekly Toll
Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK)
Centre for Corporate Accountability
Life Quilt (a quilt project honouring young workers killed on the job)
Canadian Injured Workers Society
Community of Injured Workers in Canada
Canadian Injured Workers Alliance
Canadian Council for the Rights of Injured Workers
Research Action Alliance on the Consequences of Work Injuries
And, of course, go to Le Revue Gauche for megablogger Eugene Plawiuk's take on this Worker Memorial Day with lots more info than Molly has presented here.

Finally, there is a petition at the Canadian Injured Workers Society calling on the Canadian federal government to hold a federal public judicial inquiry into wrongdoing by workers compensation boards across the country. Go here to view the petition or to sign it.
Labels: Canada, CUPE, events, labour, Workers' Memorial Day, workplace health

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR:
MATERIALS FOR WORKERS' MEMORIAL DAY:
Worker's Memorial Day (April 28) is fast approaching. This is a day set aside for the memory of the myriad of workers killed and injured on the job. Molly has blogged on this day both in 2007 and in 2008 (see our archives), and I will undoubtedly do so again this year. But, until then, here's a little early bird announcement from the AFL-CIO Blog about what they are doing to commemorate this day. Workers' memorial day, by the way, is a Canadian contribution to the world. It was first initiated in 1984 by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), and the next year the Canadian labour Congress took up the idea. See the link above for other details.
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Workers Memorial Day 2009 Materials Ready Now:
by Mike Hall, Feb 25, 2009



For many of America’s workers, going to work can literally be deadly. The most recent edition of the AFL-CIO’s annual Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect shows that an average of 15 workers a day were killed on the job and each day, another 11,000 workers were injured or made ill in 2007. Overall in 2007 (the latest figures available), 5,488 workers died from workplace injuries and 4.0 million were hurt or made sick by their jobs.




Recent studies have shown that the workplace injury reports may miss as many as two out of three workplace injuries, meaning that the real toll of workplace injuries is much higher than reported.





On April 28, to honor those killed and injured on the job and to call for improved workplace safety, workers in the United States and around the world will mark Workers Memorial Day. The theme of this is “Good Jobs. Safe Jobs. Give Workers a Voice for a Change.”
You can start planning and organizing a Workers Memorial Day event in your workplace or community with materials now available online from the AFL-CIO. The materials include:

**Workers Memorial Day flier.
**Workers Memorial Day poster.
**Workers Memorial Day clip art in English and
Spanish:
Mourn for the Dead, Fight for the Living and
Good Jobs, Safe Jobs. Give Workers a Voice for a Change;
**Workers Memorial Day stickers.
**Workers Memorial Day events form.
**Workers Memorial Day proclamation.
**Safety and health update (February 2009).

The 2009 edition of Death on the Job, set for release in April, will examine workplace death, injuries and illness by occupation, state and cause. It will analyze trends and examine the federal government’s track record on developing workplace safety standards. It also will look at the enforcement—or lack of it—of current safety laws by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).





The AFL-CIO Workers Memorial Day online tools include links to a collection of workers’ memorials in the United States and around the world and poems and other tributes to workers killed on the job.





The first Workers Memorial Day was observed in 1989. April 28 was chosen because it is the anniversary of the creation of OSHA in 1971 and the day of a similar remembrance in Canada.(As I said above the day actually originated in Canada-Molly) Trade unionists around the world mark April 28 as an International Day of Mourning for workers killed.





Click here to read how health and safety experts from the labor, scientific and academic fields say OSHA can be rebuilt after the Bush administration spent eight years tearing down the safety agency.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-INDIA:

WORKERS FIGHT BACK AT CONSTRUCTION SITE OF COMMONWEALTH GAMES:

Here's an interesting item from the LibCom website. Working people worldwide are exposed to unsafe and unhealthy conditions at their place of work, but far too often they merely tolerate the inevitable toll on themselves and their workmates. Sometimes, however, they do fight back. This is one of those instances.

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Death sparks building worker riot in Delhi:
After a fatal accident on the Commonwealth Games construction site more than thousand building workers destroyed company offices, cars and trucks.

The aggravating global crisis imposes a new social frame-work for incidents like this: the daily deaths and legal murders become explosive.

The cops shooting a fifteen year old became the trigger of social unrest in Greece, the fatal accident of a building worker sparked the simmering unrest.

The construction site in Delhi is a prestigious show-piece of the capital city, a costly parasitic display of anti-social wealth in times of proletarian misery, desire and wrath...

The Hindu reported that a 28-year-old worker was killed at the Commonwealth Games Village site near Akshardham Temple on Sunday morning when a portion of the crane being used to lift materials to the eighth floor of an under-construction building in the complex fell on him.

The accident led to tension at the site as thousands of workers demonstrated against the project developer, EMAAR-MGF, and the contractors, Ahluwalia Contracts.

Three of their offices were ransacked and more than half-a-dozen vehicles, including SUVs, an ambulance and a dumper truck, were damaged by the mob. The violence, which took place in phases, lasted over four hours.

A case of negligence against the contractors has been lodged with the Pandav Nagar police station. Meanwhile, a company of Delhi reserve police was deployed inside the village to control the situation. The workers claimed that another labourer, Manish (24), was also injured in the incident. There were claims, too, that B P Singh, legal advisor for the contractors was attacked by the workers.

Police said that matters went out of hand around 9.30am. "Thousands of workers at the site suddenly went on the rampage after finding that senior officials had fled the scene. With no news on Shailendra's condition, they barged into the adjoining three offices, broke windows, ransacked the rooms and destroyed computers. Later, they marched to the main security room and tried to set it on fire. They also attacked cars at the site," said a senior police officer.

However, the workers were in no mood to relent. "There have been regular accidents at this site. But the management has never taken our warnings seriously. We demand immediate compensation and a proper identity-card that mentions our designations," said Changoori Singh, a worker at the site.

CANADIAN LABOUR-MANITOBA/LOCAL NEWS:
FIFTEEN YEAR OLD WORKER KILLED IN CONSTRUCTION ACCIDENT IN STONY MOUNTAIN:




Stony Mountain Manitoba is a bedroom community just north of Winnipeg. Its only industry is Stony Mountain Penitentiary. The other day, Friday July 25, a 15 year old boy who was working for Interlake Asphalt was killed when he was buried beneath a load of hot asphalt unloaded from a truck working on road repair at the site of an old Manitoba Hydro substation. Manitoba law states that people under the age of 16 cannot be employed at construction sites. Here are a few stories relating to this death. Stay tuned to Mollys Blog for further details as the story develops.

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From Live Link .Com

Worker fully buried in hot asphalt:

STONY MOUNTAIN, Manitoba, Canada



A 15-year-old boy, working construction at a Stony Mountain site, died after he was buried in hot asphalt late this morning.



RCMP say the youth was working for a paving company which was doing road repairs at the time. Still early in the investigation, it appears he was helping unload a truck when he was buried beneath a large amount of asphalt.


His name is being withheld at the request of his family.



Officials with Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health are also investigating.



Stony Mountain/Rockwood fire chief Wallace Drysdale said emergency crews arrived at the old Manitoba Hydro substation at 66 Vincent Rd. minutes after being notified of the accident, at around 10:55 a.m.



"There was a young man buried completely up to his hair in hot asphalt," he said.



"Drysdale said a construction company, Interlake Asphalt, had been dumping a trailer full of asphalt into a massive pile to use for various projects around town.


"He'd been standing behind the truck, from what we gather, and the load dumped on him. It knocked him over,” he said of the victim. "You could just see some of his hair sticking out of the asphalt. Some tried to dig by hand too, so they were burning their hands trying to do it."



Drysdale said crews knew the man was dead immediately after arriving, and had to dig to extricate his body.



"In a case like this, when you're buried that deep, whether it's asphalt or not, you’re usually deceased," he said, adding it's impossible to breath with so much pressure.



"It's horrible,” he said. "Especially this guy. He s pretty young.”



Two other workers suffered burns to their hands while trying to dig the man out.




Richard Hill of Stony Mountain said he was in his driveway loading up his truck "when I heard screaming 'Help, help.'"



I ran through the backyard and saw one guy running with a shovel saying 'he's buried.' I looked around for a shovel and ran over and began shovelling."We got down to his hair. It was salt and pepper, but there was just no movement. No movement at all.



"It was so hot my boots were burning because of the asphalt and I burned my hand. It's burning a bit, but it's nothing major.



Two other men were with Hill, including one who phoned 911.


Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health has sent an investigator.
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AND ANOTHER STORY FROM THE GLOBE AND MAIL:

Teen dies in Manitoba after buried in hot asphalt
STONY MOUNTAIN, Man.

— A 15-year-old boy died in a horrific construction accident Friday when he was buried under a mountain of searing-hot asphalt.





The boy, too young to work on construction jobs under Manitoba labour laws, was part of a paving crew working on a parking lot in the Winnipeg bedroom community of Stony Mountain.
“I believe [the truck] dumped off way too much asphalt unexpectedly,” said Stony Mountain fire Chief Wallace Drysdale.




“I was one of the first members on scene and we just saw the hair sticking out of this individual. It was extremely hot asphalt. Our crews, when we were digging out, had to shuttle different members in and out in about four- or five-minute intervals because our feet were burning.”





Police and labour officials were investigating.





Richard Hill, who lives less than 100 metres from the accident scene, heard the boy screaming and ran over.





“I guess it was the truck driver that said, ‘There's a guy buried in here' and I ... found a shovel, and me and another guy tried digging him out,” Mr. Hill said.





It took about 15 minutes to get the boy out. He was pronounced dead at the scene.





“We got to the back of his head and there was no movement,” Mr. Hill said. “We pretty much knew there wouldn't be any hope because of the heat and the weight of that [asphalt].
“There's no way a person can breathe with asphalt.”





Manitoba workplace health and safety officials were trying to figure out how the accident occurred and would not comment.





Having teenagers work such jobs is not uncommon, according to Chief Drysdale.





“It's usually a good summer job for them.”





However, Manitoba's Employment Standards Code bars young people under 16 from working on construction sites, as well as other industrial locations where there are drilling rigs and scaffolding. RCMP didn't say whether charges would be laid.





RCMP said they were not releasing the boy's name immediately at the request of his family, but the Winnipeg Free Press identified him as Andrew James.





Katie Coburn, a friend of the boy's older sister, told the Free Press he “was a good kid” who was preparing to enter Grade 10. She said it was the second summer he had worked for Interlake Asphalt Paving(Oh, so he worked for them when he was 14 !!!! Love those labour laws-Molly.)





“He was a normal guy and he was a hard worker,” she said. “He would cut grass and do other jobs around here. He worked throughout the year.”




Brian Yeadon, a family friend, told CTV Winnipeg that the boy had worked since he was seven years old(!!!!!-Molly).





“He was a good kid. The family is all devastated.”




Mr. Yeadon said the owner of the local paving company was also distraught and suffered bad burns in his efforts to extricate the teen.




“It's a fluke accident,” said Mr. Yeadon. “The load – whether it let go, I don't know. But I'm devastated because they were both friends of mine.”





The death has touched everyone in Stony Mountain, Chief Drysdale said.




“Our [fire department] members knew this person, 'cause it's a small town,” he said. “It's very hard.”
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And yet another story from the CBC:

Buried in asphalt, 15-year-old Manitoba boy dies:

A 15-year-old Manitoba boy died after being buried in hot asphalt at a workplace in Stony Mountain, Man., on Friday morning.



Andrew James was working for a paving company that was doing repairs near an old Manitoba Hydro substation on Quarry Road, RCMP said.



It appears the boy was helping to unload asphalt from a truck when he somehow was buried under its contents.



"We arrived on scene and there was an individual buried by asphalt. Only his hair was sticking out," said Stony Mountain fire Chief Wallace Drysdale.



"Individuals buried in that much fill or asphalt or anything, he is dead. He's deceased. Because your body cannot survive that."



Drysdale said he believed the truck unexpectedly dumped too much asphalt, overwhelming James in the process.



Two workers on the site suffered burns to their hands trying to dig the boy out, Drysdale said.



Firefighters eventually freed him from the asphalt. The material was so hot, the rescuers' toes were burning inside their boots, Drysdale said.



"There was just tons and tons of material," he said. "It took us about 14 minutes to get him out."



Accident under investigation
Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health and Stonewall RCMP are investigating the accident. Police said they did not know yet if charges would be laid.



People under the age of 16 are allowed to work in Manitoba, but they must have a permit from the provincial employment standards branch.



Employees under the age of 16 are not allowed to work between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. or on construction sites, in industrial or manufacturing processes, drilling or servicing rigs, on scaffolding or doing tree maintenance.



The teen's death is the second construction-related fatality in the past three weeks in the province.



Earlier this month, a 21-year-old man fell under the wheels of a skid steer loader at a home construction site in south Winnipeg.



Thirteen other people have died in workplace accidents so far in 2008, said officials with the province's Workers Compensation Board.


As I said before, Molly will report on this story and comment further later. For now I can say that this is evidence of how little laws can affect the actual practice on work sites, and how much such laws have to reinforced by a good and strong union willing to enforce the "paper" prohibitions against unsafe work practices- including the use of child labour. I would also like to emphasize the number of deaths and injuries that occur at work, a great issue that is often ignored by the mass media until some spectacular event- such as this- occurs. More later...Molly

CANADIAN LABOUR:

NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR HEALTH AND SAFETY ACTIVIST AWARD:

April 28, Workers Memorial Day, a day devoted to the memory of workers killed and injured on the job, is coming up soon. Please see the post 'Workers' Memorial Day' on April 28 2007 here at Molly's Blog for further details and references. Just to set the tone, the ILO estimates that two million people die each year of work-related accidents and diseases, and that there are 270 million work related accidents each year in the world. This carnage surpasses the death toll from war in most years.

This year the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) has opened nominations for the recognition of individuals who are trying to reduce this toll. They hope to honour such activists. here is their press release....

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National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured on the Job -- Health and Safety Activist Recognition
Monday, April 28th, 2008 is the National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured on the Job. This is a time to mourn for those lost on the job, as we work to strengthen safety standards and reduce the health and safety risks that workers take each day.

This April we will take time to applaud the remarkable gains that have been made in the protection of workers' health, safety, and environment. Health & safety activists work the front-line in the battle to establish standards and compliance with legislation.

Over the history of the health and safety movement there have been difficult fights against employers and a culture that too often accepts workplace risk. Worker safety has not always been a top concern.

We appreciate the battles fought and the sacrifices made by health and safety activists for the benefit of us all. This year we would like to pay special tribute to these labour activists.
Nominate a Health and Safety Activist
If you know a person in your union who has made a special contribution in health and safety nominate them for National Union recognition!

All nominees will be featured on a special National Union web page. Nominees will be contacted to confirm their acceptance of the nomination and the publishing of their information on the web site.
Receive a free copy of Tony Mazzocchi's biography
If you nominate someone we'll send you and your nominee a copy of Les Leopold’s new biography, “The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi”. Tony Mazzocchi was a legendary union leader who saw the need for a massive movement that would popularize workplace health and safety issues. This new release is a must read for every trade union activist.

WORKERS' MEMORIAL DAY:

Today, April 28th is international Workers' Memorial Day. This is a day set aside each year to remember workers killed or injured on the job and to demand changes that will prevent such occurrences in the future. This day is one of Canada's lesser known contributions to the world. Workers' Memorial Day was first promoted by CUPE and other Canadian unions in 1984 following the deaths of four miners in Sudbury. The Canadian Labour Congress declared an annual day of remembrance in 1985 on April 28th, which is the anniversary of the first Workers' Compensation Act proclaimed in 1919. The Americans followed in 1989 with credit being given to the fact that April 28th is also the anniversary of the establishment of OSHA. The Canadian Parliament passed an act recognizing this day in 1991. The campaign spread to the UK in 1992 where it was adopted by the TUC in 1999. Meanwhile the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions began to observe the day in 1996, and in 2002 the International Labour Organization(ILO) announced that Workers' Memorial Day was to be an official event in the United Nations system. Today the day is observed worldwide as an "official" day in many countries while in others the union movement is pursuing recognition.

The ILO estimates that two million people die per year of work related accidents and diseases and that, every year, there are 270 million occupational accidents and 160 million incidents of work related illnesses. Work actually kills more people in the modern world than wars do. In the USA 5,734 workers were killed and 4.2 million people were injured at work in 2005. The Canadian statistics are available at http://awcbc.org/english/NWISP_stats.asp . The situation is grimmer in Canada than in the USA in terms of fatalities which were at 1,097 in 2005. On a per capita basis workers are killed almost twice as frequently in Canada as in the US. This number has been steadily increasing in the last decade. The number of workplace injuries, however, has been steadily declining since it peaked in 1989, and in 2005 337,930 Canadian workers had suffered "compensatible injuries".

Hazards magazine maintains a website devoted to WMD with links to events worldwide. Together with the Labour Start online union solidarity site Hazards has initiated the Health and Safety Newswire. See this for more information.

For other resources on workplace health, injuries and deaths see the following:

Labour Start

Hazards Magazine

Trade Union Sustainable Development Unit

The Pump Handle

The Weekly Toll

Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK)

Centre for Corporate Accountability

Life Quilt (a quilt project honouring young workers killed on the job)

Canadian Injured Workers Society

Community of Injured Workers in Canada

Canadian Injured Workers Alliance

Canadian Council for the Rights of Injured Workers

Research Action Alliance on the Consequences of Work Injuries

And, of course, go to Le Revue Gauche for megablogger Eugene Plawiuk's take on this Worker Memorial Day with lots more info than Molly has presented here.

Finally, there is a petition at the Canadian Injured Workers Society calling on the Canadian federal government to hold a federal public judicial inquiry into wrongdoing by workers compensation boards across the country. Go here to view the petition or to sign it.