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Labour Day is about learning our history and applying the lessons of the struggle to improve workplace life.
A huge lesson can be learned from the militancy of the Elliot Lake uranium miners. On April 18, 1974 one thousand miners at Denison mine walked off the job in a wild cat strike. They weren’t striking over wages but over the right to a healthy work environment. The miners had been struggling with high accident rates and a frighteningly high level of lung cancer in the workforce. Government scientists had been studying the situation for some time and knew that the men were dying from radiation exposure. But neither government, nor management had bothered to tell the workers and their families.When the miners found out that the scientists were sharing the data about their illnesses at an international forum of radiation they had enough and walked out of the mines.
The Elliot Lake wildcat strike led to a major upheaval in the mining industry. The government established the Ham Commission and for the first time the issues of industrial disease began to talked about. Unions learned lessons of the Ham Commission and pushed for action to improve safety in workplaces across the country.
Elliot Lake was a game changer.
Nobody gave the working class anything. Workers fought for every change that has made life better on the job and for their families.
Happy Labour Day
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