The urgent need to protect workers against climate-related hazards will be among the pressing concerns highlighted at upcoming National Day of Mourning events.

Heat waves, unprecedented wildfires and flooding devastate communities but the impact on workplaces and workers can no longer be ignored. On April 28 workers, their families, labour councils, unions and community partners will gather at events across Ontario to remember workers injured, killed, or made ill because of hazardous work and unhealthy environments, and they will recommit to creating safer, healthier workplaces, communities, and ecologies.
 
Workers, their representatives, and their environmental allies can and have been the agents of change our workplaces and communities so desperately need. From experience, they know that fighting for change at source, or upstream, can help prevent harm before it occurs, protecting both people and the planet.

Change for the Better

With this in mind, CHANGE MAKERS: Mourn for the Dead. FIGHT FOR THE LIVING is the theme Workers Health & Safety Centre (WHSC) chose for our 2024 Day of Mourning communications.

For WHSC executive director, Andrew Mudge, “This April 28, the Workers Health & Safety Centre, like the International Labour Organization, has focused our Day of Mourning messaging on the intersection between worker health and safety and ecological health. Both are threatened by the growing climate crisis. The ‘Fight for the Living’ however is more than one of mitigating the effects of heat stress or even green energy sources. True change includes using every tool in our arsenal and it includes meaningful worker participation. Workers and their representatives must be made part of the solution. It isn’t enough to mourn our dead. People and the planet need positive steps forward. I for one want to get beyond despair and inaction.”

Declared by the Canadian Labour Congress in 1986, today more than 100 countries now observe the Day of Mourning.

WHSC Day of Mourning Resources

Visit our dedicated Day of Mourning web page. We will update our events listing as additional information becomes available. Plan to attend at least one event. Download and share:

• 2024 WHSC’s Day of Mourning brochure entitled, “Change Makers”
• A list of Day of Mourning events across Ontario
• Day of Mourning: A more accurate picture of worker disability, disease, and death.

Training for Ensured Learning AND Change

To achieve their goals for safer, healthier work and environments workers and their representatives require comprehensive and transformative instructor-led learning in real-time, in-person or virtual classrooms. So called online e-learning is not learning at all.

In support of Day of Mourning for the first time ever, Workers Health & Safety Centre is offering a special 20 per cent discount for most scheduled training during the month of April. Discounts apply to both in-person and virtual classroom options.

Register for Training

Need more information?
Contact a WHSC training services representative in your area.
Email: contactus@whsc.on.ca
Visit: whsc.on.ca
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