For immediate release: Wednesday, April 28, 2004

EDMONTON — The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees marked the International Day of Mourning today by paying tribute to an AUPE member and other workers killed on the job.

In his remarks, AUPE Vice-President and Health and Safety Committee Chair Garnett Robinson remembered ATB Financial employee Sylvia Vega, a member of AUPE Local 020, who died last December when a car crashed through the wall of the Calgary bank in which she worked.

“Today, we join over 100 other countries around the world in recognizing workers killed and injured on the job,” said Robinson. “Fifty-seven of our members have been killed on the job since 1977. Our heart-felt thoughts go out to the families of those members.

In paying pay tribute to Vega, who was killed on Dec. 10, 2003, Robinson also noted that several other ATB Financial employees were also seriously injured but survived the accident. “Two minutes before or after that event, those members wouldn’t have been there.”

ATB Local 020, Chair Linda Kneeshaw and Secretary Cindy McFeeters and about 40 other AUPE members and staff paid tribute to their fallen colleague during the ceremony at AUPE’s Edmonton headquarters.
“Today was a very hard day,” said Kneeshaw. “It brought back all the emotions of that day when we found out Sylvia had been killed. To think that you can go to work, sit in on a meeting and a car comes crashing through and one of our members ends up being killed — it’s unbelievable.”

The accident, said McFeeters, is still fresh in the minds of many ATB Financial employees.
“We’ll never forget that day or Sylvia,” said an emotional McFeeters. “I think about Sylvia a lot, about that tragic day, and about how we can help one another move on.”

The 11 a.m. ceremony commenced with Robinson leading members in a moment of silence, followed by a special reading an update on the AUPE Occupational Health and Safety Committee’s plans for the remainder of the year.

One of the committee’s top priorities will be to ensure compliance with the province’s new Violence in the Workplace Code, which comes into effect May 1 under the auspices of the Health and Safety Act.

In 2003, Alberta had close to 150,000 work-related injuries. Of those injured, 127 workers died. In 1996, the UN established the International Day of Mourning, partially as a result of a formal request initiated by AUPE and other Alberta labour groups.

For more information, contact:
Dan MacLennan, President, AUPE, 780-930-3301 or 780-232-8392 (cellular phone)
Garnett Robinson, Vice-President, AUPE, 780-404-9167 (cellular phone)
David Climenhaga, Communications Director, AUPE, 780-930-3311 or 780-717-2943 (cellular phone)