Moving workers memorial day service remembers dead and pledges to fight on for living

Photo by Norman Adams

Aberdeen Trades Union Council hosted a very moving Workers’ Memorial Day ceremony at the beautiful Persley Walled Garden in Aberdeen on Friday 28 April 2023.

Chaired by President, Graham Farquhar, those gathered laid wreaths to remember all those killed, injured or made ill at their work. Wreaths were laid by many trades unions and community groups as well as by ATUC and Aberdeen City Council.

Trade union speakers and politicians all spoke powerfully of the importance of keeping up the fight for proper health and safety legislation and regulation and called on us to "remember the dead, fight for the living."

Joyce Davies

We were joined by Joyce Davies whose father was killed when she was 8 in the James Watt Street fire in Glasgow in 1968 when 22 people died in a furniture factory. Joyce spoke poignantly on the huge impact it has had on her life, highlighting that a death at work has a wide-reaching effect on family and friends and across generations.

It brought powerfully home the importance of keeping up the fight for decent health and safety laws and regulation and the need to hold employers to account here and across the world.

There followed a minute's silence to remember and mourn the workers who went to their work and never came home, and to reflect on the impact on families and communities.

More photos below

With thanks to Norman Adams for some of these photos.