ONA80 Local Vice-President Serge Ganzburg has been a frequent speaker at Day of Mourning events at Toronto’s Larry Sifton Parkette, noting, “I strongly believe safety is non-negotiable and no one should ever be subjected to cutting corners.”
Similarly to Labour Day and May Day, National Day of Mourning, acknowledged on April 28, is inherently a day for us, the workers.
It offers us an annual opportunity to remember those who lost their lives on the job and those whose lives were irrevocably changed because of work-related injury or illness.
Its genesis comes from one day in April 1983 when two labour activists were stopped by a funeral procession for a firefighter while driving. It occurred to them that not every worker who died on the job was honoured in this way, and they sought to change that. They used their contacts to gather enough support for CUPE to pass a resolution to hold an annual workers’ remembrance day. A year later, the Canadian Labour Congress passed a similar resolution and National Day of Mourning was born.
It’s a sobering fact that sometimes workers get injured, become sick, or die on the job. According to the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada, there were 1,057 worker fatalities in 2023, including 12 in the health-care and social assistance industries.
Rules and guidelines are put in place, but the dangers persist, especially when negligence or lax enforcement come into play.
Young workers, migrant and immigrant workers, and gig or precariously employed workers are particularly vulnerable because they have less work experience and less access to resources that can help keep them safe at work, like unions. Health-care workers also face particular types of workplace dangers.
In Ontario, health-care workers see some of the highest rates of workplace injuries and illnesses.
ONA members may think of ourselves as nurses and health-care professionals first and workers second, and while that’s true, we still face some of the same issues that other workers do. Nurses face many potential dangers in the workplace, from biological and chemical exposure to harassment and violence to such simple dangers as lifting injuries. They might not be the typical stories you hear in the news about being hurt at work, but health-care workers deal with a lot.
In Ontario, health-care workers see some of the highest rates of workplace injuries and illnesses – more than construction, mining and manufacturing. In a survey of ONA members, 54 per cent said they’ve experienced physical violence or abuse in the workplace, 85 per cent said they’ve experienced verbal abuse, 39 per cent reported other forms of violence/abuse, and 19 per cent said they’ve experienced sexual violence or abuse.
Even with all this evidence, health-care employers lag far behind their industrial counterparts in addressing occupational health and safety issues. If workers aren’t safe, patients and the public aren’t either.
We will always need to fight for ourselves and our fellow workers to make sure we’re safe at work. That’s why part of our work through ONA is advocating for measures that help make workplaces safer. This includes: making sure politicians are confronted with the reality that health-care workers deal with in the course of their jobs; working with Bargaining Unit teams across the province to create health and safety committees that drive strong internal responsibility systems; and educating our coworkers about their rights, how and when to refuse unsafe work, and about the statutory limits that apply in certain sectors and circumstances.
There are big and small ways to mark National Day of Mourning. Choose the one that makes the most sense for you:
The more we acknowledge the dangers we face at work, the better armed we are to fight for safe, equitable workplaces for all nurses and health-care professionals.
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