From “Men at Work,” a companion video to “Boys Don’t Cry,” directed by Crackdown collaborator Brenda Longfellow
Too often we view “occupational health and safety” from a lens that explores physical dangers of workplaces but misses subtle ways in which workplace structures that stress productivity and profit contribute to mental health issues. We all know about the crisis of drug addictions that is claiming the lives of thousands of mostly young Albertans. But we rarely see materials that link uncaring employers, on the one hand, and mental health and addictions on the other.
The links can be complicated. Injured workers may become addicted to opioids that they use to ease their pain. Overwork, dangerous work, and toxic interpersonal situations on the job drive many to illegal drug use to deal with stress. Workers who were already using drugs end up expanding that use because employers and perhaps fellow workers create an atmosphere in which mental health issues are never discussed.
Edmonton filmmaker Lorna Thomas was drawn to the subject of workplaces and mental health/addiction issues, with a focus on construction workers, after she lost her son, Alex, a welder, to substance-related suicide. She co-produced a video series with two other filmmakers from White Rock, British Columbia, which raises awareness about the opioid overdose crisis and the impact of the toxic drug supply on people in the trades. The video, Building Hope: Substance Use in the Trades, features interviews with construction industry workers who have dealt with drug issues.
Thomas is active in Moms Stop the Harm, an organization that advocates for compassionate treatment of drug users to replace failed, punitive policies while providing peer support to grieving families and assisting people with loved ones who use or have used substances.
Here we present Thomas’s 9-minute video that weaves four stories together as well as 1-minute spotlight videos featuring each of the four men.
We also have a link to a full interview with construction worker Trevor Botkin that traces the complicated ways in which work life contributes to severe drug addictions that can lead to overdose deaths or suicide. That interview is part of a series by Ontario film director Brenda Longfellow. It is Episode 40 in her Crackdown series and is entitled “Boys Don’t Cry.” “Men at Work,” a companion video to Boys Don’t Cry, “weaves the stories of four construction industry veterans who survived the culture of exploitation, secrecy, and hypermasculinity that drives overdose deaths among men in the trades.” The videos offer information on how to stay safer in the drug-poisoning era.
Beyond the materials here, we also recommend a documentary by two other Edmonton-based filmmakers, Omar Mouallem and Dylan Rhys Howard. “Digging in the Dirt: Uncovering the Silent Epidemic Among Albertan Oil Workers” is “a documentary about the psychological costs of working in Alberta’s oil sands and the mental health crisis that’s been ignored for a decade.” It can be streamed for free at CBC Gem. An article about the documentary can be found at https://lumaquarterly.com/issues/volume-five/020-spring/digging-in-the-dirt-uncovering-the-silent-epidemic-among-albertan-oil-workers/.
Finally, the best-selling graphic novel, Ducks: Two Years in the Oilsands, by Kate Beaton, vividly paints a disturbing picture of what work life is like for the minority of women who work in the oilsands. In yet another culture of exploitation, secrecy, and hypermasculinity, women are frequently rape victims as they work alongside men torn from family and community and using drink and drugs to survive long, brutal work periods. The employers, interested only in productivity and profits, deem the high wages that they are paying as a form of hush money to shut the mouths of all employees about working and living conditions that fail to respect human needs. The workplace is unsafe and doubly so for women.
Building Hope: Substance Use in the Trades is a video series that raises awareness about the opioid overdose crisis and the impact of the toxic drug supply on people in the trades. The films have been co-produced by Edmonton filmmaker Lorna Thomas and two others from Whiterock, B.C. working with the media production company BaseTwoMedia.com. The videos offer information on how to stay safer in the drug-poisoning era. The main video is 9 minutes long and features the stories of four men with experience in the trades as well as with substance use.
Crackdown: Episode 40: Boys Don’t Cry
There are also 1-minute spotlight videos featuring each of the four men:
Trevor Botkin
Kale Moth
Daniel Snyder
Rob Tournour