Gary Howe, President, United Steelworkers Local 1005, Stelco in HamiltonThe slogan for April 28 is "Mourn for the Dead, Fight for the Living." Our members and retirees have been subjected to hazardous conditions and designated substances, such as asbestos and coke oven emissions. I've seen a lot of our workers pass away, a lot of my friends passed away in their fifties, many because they worked with designated substances.
COVID-19 is another hazard that workers have to work with and that's why it's so important that we recognize the workers who are dealing with this hazard now, all the essential workers, like the health care workers. For over 20 years now we've been talking about these workers, the problems that they are facing, the hospital workers and so on. That's why for me this day of mourning is so vitally important. It adds to all the problems that we have with the other designated substances and the immediate hazards. For us, on COVID-19, we've got to see some movement forward. There have to be rules and laws in place to protect workers and make it better for everyone there in the system. The whole health system has to be overhauled. And then on top of that, there's the issue of the right to refuse unsafe work. The workers' ability to have a meaningful right to refuse must be re-enforced, not just having the right to refuse, then the Ministry comes in and does nothing. It has to be meaningful. Besides, in the plant, it's difficult when working with your co-workers to try to stay six feet apart to respect physical distancing. This is one of the things that we're trying to do in the plant and it's challenging.
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For me and for
Local 1005, COVID-19 is another hazardous
substance that we workers, not just us but all
workers, must deal with.
So it's something more on top of everything else
that we are required
to deal with. The difference with COVID-19 is
that for some people it's
a lot more acute, they're seeing the results a
lot more immediately,
whereas with designated substances such as
asbestos, it takes a lot
longer before they evolve into a cancer. This
can take up to 20 or 30
years for workers.