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Autumn 2006

Fallen Workers Remembered

Union representatives and workers gathered outside Parliament house on 28 April to commemorate International Workers Memorial Day.

The gathering remembered those who had lost their lives at work and shared a minutes silence.

Unions Tasmania Secretary addressed the group, asking them to spare a thought for the Beaconsfield community where, after a rock fall, one miner had recently been found dead and two were still missing.

"We must not lose sight, however of the fact that Tasmanian workers are regularly dying on the job," he said.

"In '02/'03 twelve Tasmanian deaths were identified as work related, in '03/'04 there were four, in '04/'05 six, and already this year there have been seven. That is over 30 workers over the past four years."

"We have to add to that grim total this week's death at the Beaconsfield Mine."

"In our campaigning for workers rights we have to see health and safety as a critical issue and be a loud and forceful voice in support."

International Workers Memorial Day was first marked in 1984 in Canada and was adopted as an International Day in 1996.

The event in Hobart was one of an estimated 10,000 such events worldwide, with the Day marked in over 100 countries.