Year:2005
Location: Hinton
Profile: Wally Land worked as an electrician in a coal mine and a pulp mill, in both cases focusing on pressuring employers to take measures to protect workers’ workplace health and lives. Beginning his work career at CN Freight in Prince Albert, Land was on strike within a few weeks of starting work. Next he worked in the coal mine at Grande Cache for ten years as an electrician, five underground and five in the coal preparation plant. He was a member of the United Steel Workers of America. While taking his fourth year electrician apprenticeship studies at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton, he learned that four members of his crew had died in a cave-in of the mine roof. His subsequent “shit disturbing” about health and safety eventually got him fired. He moved to Hinton and was hired at the pulp mill where he served on the joint management-union committee that worked on safe lockout procedures. When the company refused to recognize the dangers of asbestos in the plant, the members of Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Local 855 (now part of Unifor) walked out on a safety refusal that forced the company to take the issue seriously.
Keywords: Asbestos; CN Freight; Communications Energy, and Paperworkers Local 855; Electrician; Grande Cache; Hinton pulp mill; Joint management-union safety committee; Mine cave-in, Grande Cache; Northern Alberta Institute of Technology; United Steel Workers of America
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See also: Coal Mining in Alberta; Occupational Health and Safety in Alberta; Unifor