Memorial service held for four dead construction workers
Posted January 7, 2013 5:09 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It happened 32 years ago today, four construction workers plunged to their deaths from a platform on the 37th floor of the Bentall IX Tower.
The annual memorial service was an emotional one with victim’s families, construction workers, and local politicians gathering to demand safer work conditions.
NDP Labour critic Shane Simpson says there’s no excuse for losing upwards of 30 people a year and we can do a better job. “We need to do that working together, we need to improve public awareness, we need to improve education and training and we need a regulatory regime.”
Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid was in attendance as she has previously been the Labour Minister. “We’re all here for the same reason, it’s really important to stop and remember the men whose lives were lost on this date and tot think really carefully about what each and every one of us can to do bring that culture of safety into the workplace that we know is so vital. Things have improved over the last number of years but there still are lives being lost and people being injured.”
They are called ‘The Bentall Four’ and in 1981 they were standing on a beam when it gave way and they fell to their deaths.
In 2011, there were 32 deaths in the construction industry in BC. Four were from motor vehicle incidents; 18 from occupational diseases; and 10 from traumatic injuries resulting in death.
