Personal stories of tragedy underscored the importance of workplace safety Tuesday as residents gathered to honour those killed or injured on the job.
More than 90 people – the most in recent memory – stood before the USW Local 7106 monument near the Trailer Court for a ceremony marking the International Day of Mourning.
“I think we’ve all had people in our lives – friends, colleagues – that have died in the workplace,” Flin Flon Mayor Cal Huntley told the mourners as the adjacent Canadian flag hung at half-mast. “And [this is] the one day of the year that we officially acknowledge it, but I think we should keep it in our heads every day of the year and do whatever we can going forward to really try and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Flin Flon MLA Clarence Pettersen, a retired teacher, shared a poignant story of a phone call he received from the mother of two of his students at École McIsaac School.
The mother informed Pettersen that the students’ father had died underground and that she would be arriving at the school to pick them up from gym class.
“I’ll never, ever forget when I looked through the gym doors in McIsaac seeing the two kids playing basketball, playing whatever, having a great time and smiling and waiting for the end of the class,” Pettersen said. “And then the mother coming there, crying. And you never want that to happen to anybody.”
Pettersen had grown up with the students’ father. He also recalled how he was “devastated” by the passing of another childhood friend who accidentally died in Snow Lake.
Ald. Don Aasen of Creighton told the mourners he saw friends and colleagues injured, and in two cases killed, when he worked in the wood industry.
Aasen said his own father was “blown up” at Flin Flon’s South Main mine, and although he survived he spent several weeks in the hospital.
“I hope all of us never have to go through any kind of injury or death again,” said Aasen.
Tom Lindsey, a former USW health and safety rep who emceed the ceremony, said the fight for workplace safety is not over yet.
Representatives from area unions were called up one by one to lay wreathes along the rock slope beneath the monument.
A moment of silence was also observed as mourners, clad in black arm bands, bowed their heads in reflection.
