The ceremony honored two Christchurch railway workers, Neil Faithful and Robert Burt, killed in shunting accidents in April and May 2000. The day before the event Tranz Rail, the owner of New Zealand's railways, had been fined $50,000 for Faithful's death. He was crushed when a train car derailed due to faulty tracks. At the time the company had known for at least six months that the rails on that section of track had drifted dangerously apart, and should have had them repaired within 24 hours, but did nothing.

Zac, a Tranz Rail track maintenance worker for 20 years, told the Militant the rail bosses "have a different mind set from us" regarding maintenance. "I'm certain every worker on the ground floor seeing faults would readily fix them," he said. Before the railroad was sold off to a private company in 1993, the bosses would have weekend gangs carry out urgent repairs on track faults like those that caused Faithful's death. But now, Zac explained, the bosses don't want to spend the money. "They want to maximize returns to the shareholders," he said.

The general secretary of the RMTU, Wayne Butson, who spoke at the meeting, said that 10 railway workers had been killed in industrial accidents since the sell-off of the railroad in 1993, with three deaths occurring in the space of three months last year. A subsequent government inquiry found that the rate of fatalities at Tranz Rail is about eight times the national average.

Butson noted that New Zealand was "the home of some of the most appalling industrial health and safety statistics in the world." Paul Corliss, the industrial officer for the RMTU, said that about 160 workers die each year from workplace accidents, while a further 400 die of illnesses caused by unhealthy or unsafe work environments.

The meeting also honored Mike Smith, a bank worker, who was driven to suicide last year by work stress caused by pressure to reach sales targets. A number of bank workers, members of the Finance Sector Union, participated in the meeting. Special mention was also made of Adam Hopkins, a worker at the local Firestone tire factory who was killed two months ago after being caught in machinery at the plant. There had been three previous accidents on the same machine. Workers struck the plant for several days after the accident and were outraged when an injunction gained by the company forced them to return to work halfway through Hopkins's funeral.

Stuart Needham is a member of the Meat Workers Union in Christchurch.  
 
 
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