WORKERS and their unions marked International Workers’ Memorial Day at ceremonies across Britain and around the world today.

Every year on April 28 the labour and trade union movement remembers the deaths of thousands of workers killed in needless accidents and the many more who die from avoidable work-related illnesses.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “In the last year alone, 135 people went to work and never came home again. They died from fatal injuries while doing their jobs.

“An estimated 50,000 people in this country lose their lives through work-related illnesses and injuries every year. They all have one thing in common: their deaths were avoidable — things that could have and should have been put right in their workplace.”

In Hartlepool, 65 wreaths were laid at a moving gathering where Fran Heathcote, general secretary of PCS union, told how the government had “played fast and loose” with Civil Service workers’ lives during the Covid-19 pandemic.

She spoke of her pride when 1,400 workers at the DVLA driving licence centre in Swansea, the location of Britain’s biggest workplace Covid-19 outbreak, walked out demanding their employer do more to keep them safe.

GMB Scotland Young Workers’ Network chairman Nathan Hennebry spoke at a memorial rally organised by Paisley & District Trades Council in Renfrewshire.

He said inspirational stories from older comrades have empowered him and other younger workers to confront bosses who think they can get away with poor workplace safety.

“Let’s remember the dead and fight for the living,” he said.