Poverty and Obesity - Breaking the Link: Workers' Memorial Day Lecture Friday 28 April 2017

International Workers Memorial Day is the day throughout the world on which all those killed, injured or made ill through work are remembered.

As one of the major events in Scotland, Dundee City Council and Workplace Chaplaincy Scotland organise a free lecture in Dundee. This year we are pleased to have Dr Drew Walker, Director of Public Health for NHS Tayside giving a lecture on the topic of ‘Poverty and Obesity-Breaking the Link’.

The lecture will take place in the Steeple Church, Nethergate, Dundee on Friday 28 April 2017 and will start at 12.30 pm followed by a free finger buffet lunch. Please enter by the west door at the tower.

To reserve your place please complete and return the booking form on the back of the flyer or fax (01382) 431557 or email iwml@dundeecity.gov.uk

Rowena Arshad Challenges Audience to Focus on Workplace Issues for Young People

Chic Lidstone and Rowena Arshad

On Friday lunch time 27 May, Rowena Arshad, Head of Moray House School of Education,University of Edinburgh, delivered the Workers' Memorial Day Lecture at The Steeple Church in Dundee.

The purpose behind International Workers' Memorial Day has always been to "remember the dead: fight for the living" focusing on remembering all those killed through work but at the same time ensuring that such tragedies are not repeated.

This was especially poignant on the day following the death of a construction worker in an incident on the Queensferry Crossing, the new £1.4bn bridge being built across the Firth of Forth. Before the lecture, Industrial Chaplain Chic Lidstone led a one minute silence to remember those that had died at work or whose lives had been foreshortened by occupational disease.

Dr Arshad's lecture was entitled, "Taking Control for Life and Work:

Young People Need to be Part of the Policies and Spaces that Shape Their Tomorrow".

She certainly challenged us to think critically about young people and their preparation for entering the world of work work. I was particularly struck by two of the issues she raised. The first was the current trend, following the Wood Report, to enhance the "workplace readiness" of young people in our schools. She suggested that this was predominantly an employers' agenda. She wondered whether, in our schools, there was any awareness raising about health and safety and trade unions. The second was the age discrimination inherent in the minimum wage for young workers whose minimum hourly wage rate is governed by their age and not by what they can do.

I shall certainly be following the issues Dr Arshad raised with Michael Wood, Dundee's Executive Director of Children and Families' Service (not the Wood of the Wood Reports by the way.)

Dr Rowena Arshad is Head of Moray House School of Education at the University of Edinburgh and Co-Director of the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland. She has a particular interest in equity and anti-discrimination issues and how these issues are taken forward in education. She was the Equal Opportunities Commissioner for Scotland from 2001 to 2008 and was awarded the OBE for services to race equality in Scotland. 

International Workers Day Memorial Lecture 29 April 2016

"Taking Control for Life and Work:

Young People Need to be Part of the Policies and Spaces that Shape Their Tomorrow"

23rd Annual Workers' Memorial Day Lecture - Friday 29 April 2016

International Workers' Memorial Day is the day throughout the world on which all those killed, injured or made ill through work are remembered.

As one of the major events in Scotland, Dundee City Council and Workplace Chaplaincy Scotland organise a free lecture in Dundee. This year Dr Rowena Arshad OBE will be giving a lecture on the Need for Young People to be Part of the Policies and Spaces that Shape their tomorrow.

Dr Rowena Arshad is Head of Moray House School of Education and Co Director of the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland. She has a particular interest in equity and anti-discrimination issues and how these issues are taken forward in education. She was the Equal Opportunities Commissioner for Scotland from 2001 to 2008 and was awarded the OBE for services to race equality in Scotland. 

The lecture will take place in the Steeple Church, Nethergate, Dundee on Friday 29 April 2016 and will start at 12.30 pm followed by a free finger buffet lunch. Please enter by the west door at the tower.

To reserve your place please fax (01382) 431557 

or email health.safety@dundeecity.gov.uk 
Places will be allocated on a quickest response basis.

Workers' Memorial Day Lecture Dundee

According to the STUC, every year more people are killed at work than in wars. Most don't die of mystery ailments, or in tragic "accidents". They die because an employer decided their safety just wasn't that important a priority. Workers’ Memorial Day commemorates those workers.

Worker’s Memorial Day is held on 28 April every year, all over the world workers and their representatives conduct events, demonstrations, vigils and a whole host of other activities to mark the day.

The day is also intended to serve as a rallying cry to “remember the dead, but fight like hell for the living”.

Earlier today in Dundee, I attended the eighteenth Workers' Memorial Lecture. This had been organised by Dundee City Council in conjunction with Workplace Chaplaincy Scotland. Each year a guest speaker is invited to address an audience representing all sections of the community on a general health and safety theme. This year's lecture was delivered by Professor Annie Anderson, Professor of Food Choice and Director of the Centre for Research into Cancer Prevention and Screening at the University of Dundee. Her informative and wide ranging lecture was entitled 'Food Futures - the health of the population and the planet'.