Remember the personal on World Day for Safety and Health at Work

All around the world today, governments, unions, safety professionals, and - we hope - ordinary civilians like you and me are stopping to remember those men and women who died on the job. In Canada it's called National Day of Mourning; the U.S. calls it Workers Memorial Day, and other nations label it World Day for Safety and Health at Work.

I was seeking something profound or pithy to mark this important occasion, when I came across the thoughts of an Australian safety blogger in his SafeatWork blog, with the headline: "Remember the Personal..." on this auspice day.

The blogger, Kevin Jones, is a safety professional, but he doesn't focus on that in this entry; he talks about real tragedies that happened to real people that he knows.

Dying from work

I particuarly like that he gave the example of a man who died not on the job, but from his job - the occupational health side of things that often gets buried under the focus on injuries and deaths at work.

Kevin writes about a man who lost his battle with mesothelioma just two months ago, after recovering from a series of injuries, including a year of blindness, sustained over his career as an industrial chemist.

This man's daughter, Sherry Dell, tells Kevin, “Yes, it’s a tragedy when someone goes to work and never comes home but thousands more, like my father, come home to die.”

'My Safe Work' gains momentum

Another item of note for me is that the International Labor Organization (ILO) based in Geneva, Switzerland, has a new report, published on the occasion of World Day for Safety and Health at Work, that's called “My life, my work, my safe work: Managing risk in the work environment." I just love how our website name is right there in the title of a leading international paper!

Why the emphasis on my safe work? Because society is starting to wake up and get it: that workplace safety is PERSONAL, not just occupational or professional!

It's great to be Canadian

I am very proud that the Canada labour movement was responsible for starting the international memorial day, back in 1990. I am also not surprised; Canadians are a caring country - and now is the time for us to lead the way, again, this time in a fed-up grassroots movement that rivals environmental activism!

I want your ideas on how we can mark this day - beyond such symbolic acts like lowering a flag to half-mast.  When I blogged about that subject recently, it got quite a reaction from several readers - check out their comments and see if you agree...