CANADIAN LABOUR-TORONTO:

CAW SLAMS ONTARIO GOVERNMENT OVER LACK OF PUBLIC INQUIRY:

Molly has reported before (here and here) about the deaths of four construction workers in Toronto on Christmas Eve. Despite the many troubling aspects of this scaffold collapse the government of Ontario has decided not to hold a public inquiry about the incident. The following, from the website of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), tells how labour has reacted to this apparent unconcern for workplace safety. Molly became aware of this statement via the CEP Union Blog.

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CAW Blasts Labour Minister After Refusing Public Inquiry into Construction Worker Deaths:
January 7, 2010, 4:04 PM EST
CAW President Ken Lewenza is calling on the Ontario government to reverse its decision not to hold a full public inquiry into the deaths of four Toronto construction workers on Christmas Eve, following a statement today by Ontario Minister of Labour Peter Fonseca that no public inquiry would take place. Lewenza called this decision "shameful."

"The government of Ontario must respond responsibly and hold a public inquiry into both the accident and the factors that allowed it to happen," said Lewenza, reiterating earlier calls by labour leaders for a public inquiry. "There should be no excuse for such an accident to happen, after years of improvements to health and safety standards and legislation. Even the strongest of legislation will not protect workers if they are unaware of their rights or unable to exercise them and I fear this was the case."

Lewenza expressed grave concerns that the workers were uninformed on their right to refuse unsafe work, a fundamental right under the province's health and safety legislation.

In a letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty, Lewenza urged that a public inquiry must also reveal how common the disregard for basic safety rules actually is in the non-unionized construction industry, the same industry where many new Canadians find themselves working.

"There are a number of systemic issues which led to the circumstances of this tragic accident and the terrible disregard for human life," said Lewenza, "and they must be thoroughly investigated in a transparent and publicly accountable manner."

CANADIAN LABOUR-TORONTO:

WERE THE TORONTO SCAFFOLD DEATHS PREVENTABLE:

This story still 'has legs' since Molly last reported on the Christmas Eve deaths of 4 workers when a scaffold collapsed in Toronto. The comment that has followed reiterates certain things that Molly raised questions about in her first article ie the use of immigrant labour who may not either know their rights to a safe workplace or may not dare to demand it. Also the matter of the record of the company involved. Here's a recent editorial from the Toronto Star about the incident.

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WERE DEATHS AVOIDABLE ?:

The four workers who plunged 13 storeys to their deaths on Christmas Eve were all reportedly new to Canada. They may not have known that we have numerous laws and regulations to protect workers and ensure construction sites are safe.

But we do. And we owe it to these men, their colleague who remains in hospital with serious injuries, and all the other workers in Ontario, to find out why the system appears to have failed them.

Are the protections insufficient or were they not properly applied?

We know that provincial inspectors were so concerned about the scaffolding being used to repair balconies at the Etobicoke highrise that they ordered the company to stop work until safety was improved. That was in October.

Then, on Dec. 17, after seeing the changes, a government inspector concluded: "Compliance achieved. Stop work order lifted." Tragically, just one week later, with the five men working on it, the scaffolding, a multi-part swing stage, apparently snapped in two.

The workers did not appear to be wearing safety harnesses. Were they not supplied or were the men not trained in their importance? How did the company address the original safety concerns? Was that work properly inspected before they were allowed to resume work?

"This was a preventable accident," says a construction union representative. The province needs to determine whether that is the case and ensure that any shortfalls in the system are fixed to prevent a repeat occurrence.

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Rather than waiting patiently until the "trusted government" completes its investigation (which, not so incidentally, is also an investigation of itself and its own regulatory processes- is there a conflict of interest here ?) others in Toronto are moving to bring the issues that underlie this tragedy to light. This Thursday, January 7, the Toronto No One Is Illegal group will be holding a public vigil for the workers who died. Here is the press release from their website.

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PUBLIC VIGIL FOR MIGRANT WORKERS KILLED AT WORK:
January 7, 2010, 7pm – 8:30pm

2757 Kipling Avenue

Buses leave 252 Bloor West at 5:15 sharp.

RSVP by Noon, Jan 6, migrantworkervigil@gmail.com
Four construction workers with precarious immigration status fell to their deaths on Christmas Eve in one of the worst workplace disasters that Toronto has seen in decades. The swing stage scaffolding they were working on broke into two pieces, plummeting the four workers over 13 stories to the concrete below at 2757 Kipling Avenue. A fifth man is in critical condition and will need medical attention for the rest of his life.

We mourn the deaths of these workers. We are enraged that such injustice can take place. Migrant workers take care of children, feed communities, construct housing, clean offices, and take up many other occupations in almost all industries but are treated like second-class workers and denied even the most basic protections.

The workers who died were provided insufficient safety harnesses and forced to work on a site where a cease and desist order had been issued. Workers without full status work the most dangerous jobs in the country and are systemically prevented from being able to assert their rights. These workers died because Canada denied them full status.

50 years ago, five Italian construction workers including Pasquale Allegrezza, Giovanni Correglio, Giovanni Fusillo, and Alessandro and Guido Mantella, died while working in a dangerous tunnel near Yonge Street in Toronto, remembered as the Hoggs Hallow disaster. Knowing that workers without full status were facing flagrant workplace violations, negligent employers and little legislative protection from occupational hazards, workers across the city rose up, and carried out a series of actions and strikes in a fight to organize the building trades.

Today, fifty years later, racialized communities, immigrants, migrants and undocumented people continue to work in dangerous and sometimes murderous conditions. Not having full status means lax enforcement of health and safety legislation, absence of meaningful laws to protect workers, and negligent employers and recruiters who sacrifice health and safety of workers to gain further profit for themselves. This long-term negligence reveals the lack of social and political will in Canada to ensure justice and protection of all workers.

Workers without full status are often denied just compensation when they get injured or ill due to their labour. They are prevented from access to healthcare and translation services. They get deported because they are considered a burden on the health care system, and their injury is named a “breached employment contract.” They are unable to access full care in countries they are deported to. Like all injured workers, compensation by Workplace Safety and Insurance (WSIB) is inadequate.

Four men died on Christmas Eve, but every day, countless workers are killed or maimed on the job, while those responsible, employers, recruiters and government officials, do not face media or public scrutiny. In 2008, 488 workers were reported killed because of their labour in Ontario alone. Many more deaths went unreported. Thousands more workers were injured, many of whom have to learn to live with their injuries permanently. How many will have to die or be injured before this government ensures that our communities are meaningfully protected?

Government officials, recruiters and employers need to be persecuted while those precariously employed need to be protected at work! While we commemorate and celebrate the lives of these workers, we also demand justice for the workers, their families and all migrant workers across this province. Broad and far reaching changes are needed.

Dilshod Mamurov, Aleksey Blumberg, Fayzulla, Vladimir Korostin, and all injured and killed workers demand this.

This is first in a series of actions, please keep checking the website for updates.