Max Lafontaine’s speech at CUPE Ontario Convention 2024

2024-05-29 Transcript: 00:00 Can you guys hear me? No? You guys hear me? All right. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I’d like to thank my nominator, my brother, Ryan Keith, and the committee for this award. 00:15 As mentioned, my name is Max. I’m a municipal worker and the vice president of Local 4705 in Sutterwood. 00:22 I’m a heavy equipment operator and currently certified member of the Joint Health and Safety Committee for approximately six years. 00:30 I decided to participate in the Joint Health and Safety Committee to create a safer workplace and hold the employer accountable. 00:37 What I never thought I’d be doing is participating in two workplace fatality investigations within the past two years. 00:45 On March 13th, 2024, while having dinner with my family, I received a haunting phone call where I was informed that brother Michael Adam had lost control of a dump truck and hit a rockpit. 00:59 Nearly two years prior, on May 6th, 2022, I received another disturbing call afterward to inform me that we had a tragic workplace fatality where brother Michael Boulanger had been entangled in an unguarded piece of equipment. 01:17 I find it quite frustrating when we continue to use the term workplace fatality when there are clear violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. 01:30 I think we need to start using the term social murder. 01:36 A term coined by Comrade Frederick Engels in his 1845 book, The Condition of the Working Class in England. 01:45 Social murder is the unnatural death that occurs due to social, political, or economic oppression. 01:56 Comrades, our institutions are failing us. The Ministry of Labour, the police, and the courts. 02:04 In the labour movement, we always say, kill a worker, go to jail. 02:09 But that was not the case for brother Boulanger. 02:14 A $150,000 fine and a 25% victim surcharge to the employer for the life of brother Boulanger who leaves two kids behind. 02:26 This year was the 20th anniversary of the Westray Act. 02:30 Can anyone guess how many employers have been prosecuted under this law? 02:35 Zero, exactly. It’s not worth the paper it’s written on. 02:40 Comrades, our power is in the streets. With our ability to withhold our labour power, we need to build our own institutions. 02:50 Under a workers’ government, a democracy of the working class, not the democracy of capital. 02:56 Thank you very much.