Last Friday in Toronto at an annual health and safety ceremony Sang-Hun Mun, of Injured Workers Action For Justice became the 15th recipient of the Eddie Cauchi Award for injured worker activism. [read his acceptance speech].
Recently interviewed on the Talking Radical radio show (Oct. 31, 2017 episode), he travelled earlier this year with other injured workers, lawyers and organizers to Ottawa to show support for a Supreme Court workers’ compensation appeal (read his account). In addition to his advocacy in injured worker public events and community campaigns, including the Board’s disregard for medical evidence, inadequate health care benefits and treatment of migrant workers, Sung-Hun Mun has contributed also to policy and research discussions such as the Bancroft Institute’s 2016 Barriers to Return to Work in a Context of Social Vulnerability [see his Youtube presentation].
The Eddie Cauchi award is named after the activist leader and member of the Chemical Workers’ Union who headed up the group Asbestos Victims of Ontario, seeking better health & safety protections and fair workers’ compensation. A worker at the Johns Manville plant in Scarborough who died from occupational exposure to asbestos, Eddie was very aware also of the impact of work-related illness and injury on workers’ families.
The annual Health & Safety Activist Awards dinner event, featuring again this year a special performance by the Justice Singers , is sponsored by the Workers Health and Safety Centre, Toronto & York Region Labour Council, and Central Ontario Building Trades Council. In combining the health and safety awards with an award for injured worker activism, the WHSC and Labour Councils recognized that unions and injured workers fight together, that they march side by side. We thank the unions and locals that offered tables to injured workers: IBEW local 353, Canadian Union of Skilled Workers, LIUNA local 183, Power Workers Union, UNIFOR National Office.