Document generated on 09/27/2021 11:14 a.m. Labour Journal of Canadian Labour Studies Le Travail Revue d’Études Ouvrières Canadiennes The Elliot Lake Uranium Miners’ Battle to Gain Occupational Health and Safety Improvements, 1950–1980 Laurel Sefton MacDowell Volume 69, Spring 2012 Article abstract Uranium miners in Elliot Lake went on a wildcat strike in 1974 to protest their URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1011330ar occupational health concerns on the job after a spike in cancer cases. They learned that the provincial government had known of the poor working See table of contents conditions causing their illnesses, but had not informed them of the dangers or acted to improve their situation. As a result of union and political pressure, the Ontario government created the Ham Commission to investigate and make Publisher(s) recommendations. Its hearings revealed the industry’s scandalous conditions, and its report eventually resulted in the Ontario Health and Safety (ohs) Act in Canadian Committee on Labour History Ontario. It did not cover the miners until 1984, so they worked through their internal health and safety committees to gain improvements in the work ISSN environment. Others have discussed this situation in relation to the emergence of the ohs and environmental movements. This paper discusses the events in 0700-3862 (print) terms of the mine owners’ attitudes towards their employees, the industry’s 1911-4842 (digital) relationship to governments, and the impact of the uranium mining industry (part of the nuclear industry) on the local community and environment. Explore this journal Cite this article MacDowell, L. S. (2012). The Elliot Lake Uranium Miners’ Battle to Gain Occupational Health and Safety Improvements, 1950–1980. Labour / Le Travail, 69, 91–118. All Rights Reserved © Canadian Committee on Labour History, 2012 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ ARTICLE The Elliot Lake Uranium Miners’ Battle to Gain Occupational Health and Safety Improvements, 1950–1980 Laurel Sefton MacDowell The 1974 Wildcat Strike On 18 April 1974 Elliot Lake uranium miners at Denison Mines staged a wildcat strike and picketed to protest their unhealthy working conditions. When an Ontario Ministry of Health study was presented to an international symposium in Bordeaux France on the hazards of mining uranium, two union representatives attended the conference and learned that the miners’ cancer rates were unusually high. Many had died prematurely from uranium-related cancers because their exposure to radiation was over the permitted level. Another paper presented by Dr. E. Mastromatteo, director of occupational health in Ontario, at a conference in San Francisco revealed that 80 Elliot Lake workers who had worked in the mines for different lengths of time had devel- oped radiological pneumoconiosis.1 The Canadian and Ontario governments knew these facts but did not inform the miners. In their close relations with the uranium mining companies, they gave precedence to industry profits over protecting employees’ health and safety. Throughout the 1960s union pressure had been mounting over miners’ occu- pational health problems.2 In November 1973, the miners’ union, the United 1. Archives of Ontario (hereafter ao), Ontario Mining Association Papers, F1352, F1352-2-0-8, B244378, Julian Hayashi, Free Press (London), 17 January 1975. (Hereafter press reports come from these archival files.) 2. Brief to the Royal Commission on the Health and Safety of Workers in Mines in Ontario, A History of Steelworkers’ Action For Occupational Health in Ontario, January 1976, 27–28, Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources Library, University of Toronto (hereafter Laurel Sefton MacDowell, “The Elliot Lake Uranium Miners’ Battle to Gain Occupational Health and Safety Improvements, 1950–1980,” Labour/Le Travail, 69 (Spring 2012), 91–118. LLT-69.indb 91 12-06-13 1:58 PM 92 / LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL 69 Steelworkers (usw), met with Stephen Lewis, provincial New Democratic Party (ndp) leader, to discuss the hazards of uranium mining and the Workmen’s Compensation Board’s (wcb) inadequate response to sick miners. It also met with the ministers of health and natural resources to express its “grave concern” that many members had silicosis and also had “developed lung cancer from exposure to silica dust and radiation in the mines.” Government agencies were indifferent when the union first requested proper medical examinations of miners and information about the mines’ air quality. Nevertheless it again asked the government to survey the mines’ air quality and send specialists to Elliot Lake to give each miner a thorough medical examination. The ministers promised to investigate the situation and report back.3 The wildcat strike led the Ontario government to establish the Royal Commission on the Health and Safety of Workers in Mines (the Ham Commission); it resulted in the introduction of occupational health and safety (ohs) legislation in Ontario in 1978 and was influenced by the growing anti-nuclear and environmental movements in the province.4 A substantial literature exists on the ohs hazards of mining and attempts to regulate them.5 This article focuses on the uranium mining industry’s approach to occupa- tional health and safety before the Ham Commission and on the effects the industry had on the lives of mining employees in Elliot Lake, who experienced daily hazards in the workplace from uranium mining. It does not discuss the parallel negative health effects of uranium mining on the town and the indus- try’s toxic environmental legacy, except to note that during the 1974 ohs crisis in the mines, concern increased about the effects of hazardous waste on the community’s environment.6 By 1973, sixteen years after the Elliot Lake mines opened, union staff rep Andy Lavoie noted “an increasing number of miners in Elliot Lake who are starting to show the effects of dust in their lungs. When we consider that there is also radiation exposure involved this could lead to a very dangerous situ- ation.” As early as 1959 the union sought information about “the hazards of uranium mining and radiation,” and in 1960 it began to organize local health Steelworkers’ Brief, 1976). 3. nac, usw Papers, vol. 80, Elliot Lake Miners’ Voice, 5, 10, November 1973. 4. Robert Storey, “From the Environment to the Workplace …and Back Again? Occupational Health and Safety Activism, 1970s–2000+,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 41, 4 (November 2004), 419–447. 5. Lloyd Tataryn, Dying For a Living (Montreal 1979); Doug Smith, Consulted To Death: How Canada’s Workplace Health and Safety System Fails Workers (Winnipeg 2000); Michael A. Amundson, Yellowcake Towns: Uranium Mining Communities in the American West (Boulder, Colorado 2002). 6. Laurel Sefton MacDowell, “The Environmental Effects of Uranium Mining on the Elliot Lake Area 1955–2004,” Paper presented to the American Society for Environmental History, Phoenix, Arizona, April 2011. LLT-69.indb 92 12-06-13 1:58 PM THE ELLIOT LAKE URANIUM MINERS’ BATTLE 93 and safety committees in every workplace, attempting to get them recognized in collective agreements. In 1961 workers at Milliken mine in Elliot Lake wanted the results of radiation and dust control tests reported to the union, yet the usw did not receive information on dust levels until 1975, and data on radiation continued to be withheld. In 1965, the usw told the government that the existing annual x-ray and medical examinations were inadequate. Eight years later, in 1973, it repeated demands for medical exams with “the results made known to the individual;” surface jobs for those with silicosis so they could maintain their income and lower their exposure to radiation; and legis- lation to minimize or eliminate hazards.7 Without medical information from the companies or government, the union surveyed its members in 1973 and asked them to report any silicosis or cancer cases. To prepare for more meet- ings with political leaders, it announced in the local union paper Miners’ Voice, “we want to know exactly how many men in the Elliot Lake area are suffer- ing from silicosis” and information about miners who had died of lung cancer so that on behalf of the families it could investigate and make compensation claims to the wcb.8 As the number of sick miners increased quickly, the 14-day walkout in 1974 prompted action. Immediately the company permitted workers to change their facemask filters once a day instead of once a week. Under pressure, it granted a 15 cent an hour increase in the cost of living allowance, which the union had sought for months. As Leo Bernier, minister of natural resources, refused to meet a delegation of 20 Elliot Lake miners, ndp mpp Eli Martel demanded action as “the workmen in the Elliot Lake area have been trying to have their working conditions improved for the past 16 years.”9 The government did an air quality survey, which the miners contested as some areas were not tested, and the company had reduced chute blasts to lower dust levels just before the survey. After the survey, the company installed more ventilation doors. The outbreak of lung cancer and the companies’ inadequate response to the union’s concerns led one miner to conclude at an ohs committee meeting that the Elliot Lake mines had the “worst underground conditions in Canada.”10 In 1975, the usw again pressed safety and health concerns in negotiations, while the ndp federal convention passed a resolution in support of the uranium miners: more than 40 miners had died of lung cancer, and over 400 suffered the effects of unsafe working conditions; the province and the companies had 7.