The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
Twenty-eight years ago, when four Falconbridge miners were killed after a rockburst 4,000 feet underground, no one imagined Sudburians would still be marking the event today, says the president of the union to which the men belonged.
Almost three decades later, the Workers’ Memorial Day held by Mine Mill Local 598/CAW is a rallying cry for ongoing improvements in workplace health and safety.
More than 200 people gathered Wednesday at the Caruso Club to remember the four men — Sulo Korpela, Daniel Lavallee, Richard Chenier and Wayne St. Michel — who died as a result of the June 20, 1984, seismic event.
Three of the men died instantly, but St. Michel survived 27 hours while more than 50 mine rescuers worked to reach him. Sadly, the young man died minutes before rescuers could get to him. Local 598 president Richard Paquin said miners can’t “live in fear each and every day, wondering what is to come.”
But they can — and should — endeavour “over and over again … to make the safest possible workplaces for men and women.”
Workers’ Memorial Day has become an opportunity to highlight the “preventable dangers” of most industrial accidents and illnesses, said Paquin.
Accidents at work, and not just in mines, happen fast and frequently.
“One worker in this world of ours dies every 15 seconds,” Paquin told the audience. “It … could mean that someone in this room may be affected by death today.
“Work itself kills more people than wars, so we need to do something about this. We need to remind, we need to educate our workers, our governments, our families and even ourselves that any incidents or accidents (are) too much.”
Successes do occur, such as the dramatic rescue of 33 Chilean miners in October 2010, but those “are too few and far between.”
Mines go years without fatalities and laws are changed regarding health and safety, “but it is still not enough,” said Paquin.
Speaker after speaker at the 90-minute ceremony called on employers and employees to co-operate to ensure workers return home safely every day.
Greater Sudbury Mayor Marianne Matichuk, who worked in the health and safety sector at the city and then for Vale Ltd., said Workers’ Memorial Day strengthens the resolve of the community to prevent accidents.
“As a city, our goal is to demand the highest standards of safety in all workplaces,” said Matichuk.
Community leader Geoffrey Lougheed said Workers’ Memorial Day “makes a difference. This is the reason we get better.”
One way to make workplaces safer would be to make first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation training mandatory in high schools, said Lougheed.
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