By Jeremy Abbott
In the midst of federal election voting, and in a province where workers’ rights are being systemically attacked by the right-wing United Conservative Party (UCP) government, working people gathered in Edmonton’s Grant Notley Park on April 28 to commemorate the National Day of Mourning.
The focus this year was on invisible injuries in the workplace. Despite a federal election being called by the Liberal Party on the same day as this important day for labour, the tone of the event was sombre. Participants were united in their calls for better action for worker protections in the workplace and better labour laws in the province, as well as calls to action on promoting health and safety education for both employees and employers, and for stiffer penalties including jail time for employers who cut corners on safety in the workplace.
In 2025 over 1000 workers across Canada and 203 in Alberta lost their lives due to a work-related accident or injury. Out of these, 103 lost their lives due to occupational disease; they ranged from as young as 28 to 91 years old. Fifty-three workers lost their lives due to a trauma-related incident on the workplace – nine from cardiac arrest, two from plane crashes, and 23 from automobile collision. Of all on-the-job injuries in Alberta, 8.7% of were reported to be related to mental health, and it is estimated that 500,000 workers across Canada are currently off the job for reasons of mental health caused by conditions on the worksite.
The emcee for the Edmonton gathering, from UFCW Local 401, drew attention to risk factors that create conditions for injury. These include pressure to meet productivity demands, lack of education on risks, and accumulating stress, anxiety and depression which workers endure over prolonged periods of time.
Albera’s Bill 47, Ensuring Safety and Cutting Red Tape Act, was singled out for criticism, as it has been correlated to the 25 percent increase in work related deaths across Alberta in this year alone.
The bill was passed into law in 2020 under the UCP government. Sweeping changes were made to both the Workers Compensation Board and the Workplace Health and Safety Act. Mental health injuries such as post-traumatic stress disorders were removed as diagnoses which workers could cite in applying for compensation. Workers have been forced to go out of their way to prove that stress-induced injuries are caused by their workplace, and injured workers must attend an increased amount of rehabilitation programs to get coverage.
Bill 47 also removed the requirement for employers to re-hire workers who were injured at work after they have recovered. Furthermore, employers were given authority to select for themselves employees they deem most appropriate to sit on the health and safety board, thereby shifting the influence of joint health and safety boards further in favour of the employer.
The watershed of consequences from this law has resulted in increasing precarity in the workplace, caused by increased demands and less supports being offered to working Albertans.
Cori Longo, Secretary Treasurer of the Alberta Federation of Labour, highlighted the contradiction between what workers are expected to do and what they get. “I was just thinking about how perverse our system is that we go to work, we put our bodies on the line – sometimes our lives on the line – and for the transaction of the service we provide, what we get are wages. What is the impact that has on our daily lives? This is the transaction that we have with our employers.”
Shelly Lavallee from CUPE Local 3550, representing Edmonton public support staff, explained the compounding effects of long-term stress caused by the mental strain that support staff endure, along with enduring regular injuries from scratches, bruises, being groped and hit for 196 days of the year. They called on the courts, the provincial and federal governments, and employers to put in place the proper supports for workers to minimize the mounting stress caused by being stretched too thin in the school setting.
The Communist Party of Canada has been campaigning during the federal election for reforms to help workers. These include calls for Employment Insurance to cover 90 percent of take-home wages and for EI to be non-contributory for workers, but instead paid for by the employer; a four-day week for five days of pay; full medical coverage for any injury suffered on the workplace; and for a labour bill of rights that recognizes the right to strike, picket and organize. Party candidates have also called for prices to be rolled back on fuel, food and rent; for interest rates to be cut; and for a living wage, starting at a minimum wage of $25 an hour.
These standards are the bare minimum of what is required to attend to the increasing risks workers are experiencing in a rapidly changing workplace environment, with contracts that are not suited towards workers’ needs.
Maintaining workplace health and safety is everyone’s responsibility. Workers must be educated on their rights, empowered to act through organization, and take the power to make the workplace safe for every worker on the jobsite.
An injury to one is an injury to all! On this May Day the needs of the injured and disabled worker is a struggle all workers must rally around for expanded supports both within and outside of the workplace.
Mourn for the dead, fight for the living!
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