Young workers most likely to be injured

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More than 32,000 people were injured at work in Saskatchewan in 1999 and approximately 25 per cent of those injuries were suffered by workers under the age of 25 years, Saskatchewan Labour reports.

Workplace injuries are no small matter - 800,000 people across Canada are killed or injured on the job each year. As part of the fight against this dangerous, painful and expensive state of affairs, the provincial government has designated April 28 as the Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured on the Job.

The purpose of the day is to increase awareness of the need to reduce the numbers of on-the-job injuries and deaths. Labor specialists acknowledge that education and training aimed at increasing the public's awareness of potential dangers in the workplace and the catastrophic effect a disabling injury can have on a worker and his or her family can reduce the numbers.

With Aboriginal people increasingly forcing their way into the economy as First Nations become business and industry owners - and considering the simple fact of the growing population numbers of Aboriginal people and relative youth of that population - it is becoming more and more important that the workplace safety message is repeated in Indian Country.

First Nation leaders in the province can look to a national leader for assistance in this area. Saskatchewan was the first province to formally observe the Day of Mourning. In 1988, Moose Jaw MLA Glenn Hagel introduced an act to declare a day of mourning. Now the minister of post-secondary education and skills training, Hagel still sees workplace safety as an important issue.

"I'm proud to associate myself with Canada's first provincial legislation that mourns the injuries and deaths of workers killed on the job," he said. "I hope it encourages vigilance on occupational health and safety."

It was the Canadian Labour Congress which first introduced the idea of a memorial day for injured workers. The CLC declared the day in 1984. April 28 was chosen because it was the 70th anniversary date of the first Worker's Compensation Act in the country, passed in Ontario in 1914. Nearly 100 countries now observe the day.

On April 28, the people who died on the job in Saskatchewan during the previous year were remembered as their names were read into the record at the legislature. Saskatchewan Labour and First Nations leaders hope to someday end that tradition or at least minimize it by convincing workers to put safety first.