Labor Union Searching for Former Shipyard Workers

March 20, 2007 - The CBC (Canadian Broadcast Company) reports that the Canadian Auto Workers Union is collecting names of past and present workers who may have been exposed to asbestos at the Halifax Shipyards, to ensure they are “fairly compensated for any illnesses that can be linked to their time on the job.”

Wes Holloway, a spokesman for the union, notes that they see their task of locating these workers as essential, as many men and women who were employed at the Halifax yard decades ago fail to connect the illnesses they acquire later in life to long ago asbestos exposure.

"Any worker that works in the shipyards that falls ill with something like cancer, asbestosis and that type of thing, they automatically should be covered because where else would they have received that exposure?" Holloway said.

The article notes that thousands of Canadians have worked at Canada’s many military and civilian dockyards over the years. While the union doesn’t know how many are sickened by asbestos exposure, they suspect that the numbers are rising.

Jim Brophy, an expert in occupational health in Ontario, told the CBC that “governments and compensation boards should be doing more to warn workers about the link between their workplace and their health.”

"The compensation boards are not proactive," Brophy said. "They're not notifying people [of] what they know to be serious risk mainly because in essence they're insurance companies and they're keeping their liabilities down.

"So workers are left and their families are left to reconstruct very elaborate work histories and so it is really left to unions and health groups to advocate for these workers."

Brophy says that widespread screening and scanning programs for high-risk people such as shipyard workers is essential and that earlier detection might prolong lives.