IN FULL: The Chief Minister’s Message on Workers’ Memorial Day

I think this is an important point of reflection and a demonstration of our commitment as a community to health and safety at work, on which we must all, always do more.

I am deeply touched by these issues as I never got to know my grandfather because he died at work.

My now also deceased grandmother, mother and uncle told me the story of my grandfather's death at work, leaving a widow, in the late 1930s, with three young children and a fourth child in her belly.

The pain and horror of the realisation that a loved one - a husband, a father - had died at work and was not coming home, is one that those of my family members who remembered it never got over.

It is a pain that no family should ever feel.

When we say goodbye to our loved ones as they set off to work, we must all be secure that nothing at their place of work is going to put their health, safety or their lives at risk.

It was therefore my honour to introduce this day as a public holiday in 2011 in order to recognise the contribution of workers to Gibraltarian society and to keep workplace rights and conditions at the forefront of our consciousness.

My Government is committed to protecting and promoting the rights of workers in Gibraltar and I am proud to work year-round alongside Gibraltar’s Unions - even though we might not agree on everything - to the benefit of workers and their families. That is why I am pleased to jointly organise the remembrance events for Workers' Memorial Day with Unite the Union.

For all the reasons I have set out, the greatest accolade of my time in office, as far as I am concerned, is that there have been no deaths at work in the seven and a half years I have been Chief Minister, despite many large construction projects having been completed in that time.

But we must take nothing for granted and each day we must protect those at work by remembering the dead to fight for the living.

Happy Workers' Memorial Day 2019.

26-04-19 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR