Remembering the martyrs of labour
- Apr 28
- 3 min read
By Elaine Pritchard
International Workers Memorial Day was marked by a service and wreath-laying at the National Memorial Arboretum near Alrewas in Staffordshire on April 28th. It was the 10th year that the event has been organised by East Staffordshire Trades Council at this national centre for remembrance.
Colourful floral tributes in remembrance of fire fighters, railway workers, teachers, health workers, factory workers and others, who tragically went to work one day and did not go home to their families at the end of their shift, were laid around the base of a tree planted by the Trades Union Councils.
Vale Rawlings did a lot to make work safer for Burton upon Trent brewery labourers in the early 1900s and helped introduce their first minimum weekly wage and maximum weekly hours. He was a driving force behind the formation of Burton’s first branch of the Workers’ Union in 1911. At this time almost 3,500 people died at work every year and almost 380,000 were made seriously ill, injured or disabled in work-related accidents and diseases contracted through their work.
Workers Memorial Day honours and remembers those we have lost but it also reminds us of the need to keep campaigning to ensure that our workplaces are safe and healthy and workers are treated with respect, dignity and compassion.
A key theme of this year’s event was the impact of work pressure and deadlines, new
technologies, insecure work and shift patterns on mental health. As a result, East Staffordshire Trades Council issued a special invitation to Burton and District Mind to attend the service, and the charity was represented by Ken Builth, Chair of the Trustees who laid a wreath and mentioned his own experience as a trade unionist in the 1970s and 1980s. Mind has been sharing ways to combat work stress as April is national Stress Awareness Month.
Last year, 124 workers died in work-related accidents and trade union leaders Rick Coyle of Unite the Union and Stuart Richards, Regional Secretary of Midlands TUC, spoke about how every death was a personal tragedy and gave examples of how trade unions today are still fighting to keep people safe and healthy at work and how that work positively impacts local communities as well.
Mayor of East Staffordshire, Cllr Kim Smith BEM, and her Consort Ewart James were among those who attended and laid a wreath.
The outdoor service ended with a speech by Rev Dr Robin Trotter of St Modwen's Church, Burton upon Trent. He spoke about the social teachings of Jesus and the need to remember his words.
I had the chance to say a few words on behalf of the Vale Rawlings Project CIC, which raises money for YMCA Burton and SARAC by raising awareness of the life and times of Vale, a social activist and a conscientious objector during World War One.
My co-director in the CIC, Will Walker, secretary of East Staffordshire Trades Council, played a major role in establishing the Workers Memorial Day event at the arboretum.
Speaking to Rick Coyle after the service, I was delighted to find out that this image (above) which Unite the Union gave me permission to use in my book, is on the wall of the Midlands regional office of Unite the Union. It shows a meeting of 1,500 brewery workers in Burton Town Hall on November 30th, 1913, learning that they were set to benefit from a 23-shillings-a-week minimum wage and a maximum 54-hour working week. Unite the Union is the modern day descendant of that original Workers’ Union that Vale helped to found.
My first visit to Workers Memorial Day at the arboretum was in 1918, long before I had heard of Vale Rawlings. I visited to lay a wreath in memory of my great great grandfather William Dennis and others who lost their lives in the Midlands coal mines. William died at the age of 66 when he was still working down Reservoir Pit, near Moira, on the border between Derbyshire and Leicestershire. He was killed by a fall of coal. His gravestone in Donisthorpe Cemetery bears the inscription 'A martyr of labour'.
