Three Receive The Dick Martin Award

Harry Mesman, Les Ellsworth and Ellen Olfert honoured for their health and safety work.

The Dick Martin Award was established by the Occupational Health Centre to recognize people who have shown leadership in working to make the prevention of injuries and occupational diseases a high priority in Manitoba. Three people received the award during the 2006 MFL Convention.

All three have made outstanding contributions towards the advancement of healthier workplaces and communities by identifying workplace problems and solutions to protect workers. They have empowered workers to use their workplace influence for safer and healthier working lives.

Harry Mesman has participated in many ways to bring about changes to a large number of individual workplaces. Some of them as small as a handful of workers and others as large as a few thousand. He has helped in establishing and protecting rights, strong health and safety laws and just compensation for the injured and disabled. Education, always a high priority, received much of this brother's time.

In addition to securing the rights of workers, Harry Mesman also participated when called upon to fill positions on committees or boards that promote safer or healthier workplaces. This commitment to occupational health also included participating on the Occupation Health Centre's Board of Directors for many years as well as the Minister's Advisory Council on Workplace Safety and Health. Comments from Harry Mesman upon receiving the award.

The second recipient of the Dick Martin Ward was Les Ellsworth, who has also assisted workers to make their workplaces both safer and healthier. He served as an elected safety and health rep for 21 years and is a passionate and strong believer in the power of the worker. His commitment included passing the message to the youth of his community, negotiating money from the employer to study workplace health impacts on his members and promoting the rights of workers on a provincial, national and international stage.

In addition to all this, Les Ellsworth also works within his community, his local and especially his family, and is from Brother Dick Martin's own Local in Thompson. Comments from Les Ellsworth upon receiving the award.

The third recipient of the Dick Martin Award at the 2006 MFL Convention was Ellen Olfert. She has workers' safety and health not only in her heart but constantly in her mind's eye. Indeed, her every waking moment is dedicated to finding new ways to reach out and get the message of safety and health to as many Manitobans as possible. Ellen Olfert has built a network of dedicated activists who will go anywhere at any time to bring the message of workers' rights and workers' safety.

She has single handedly been responsible for making over 120,000 young workers aware of their rights. She has impacted the lives of so many by making sure young workers come home alive and healthy. Comments from Ellen Olfert upon receiving the award.

The relationship of Brother Martin to the Occupational Health Centre defies either a straightforward description or a brief explanation. The best way is to simply state that they are one in the same.

From the very beginning when Brother Luis Rufo had an idea that an industrial clinic was needed to deal with lead poisoning to the opening of the center and its shift to prevention of occupational diseases, Brother Martin was instrumental in bringing it to reality. When the government of the day turned their back on the workers Brother Martin decided something had to be done by the workers themselves.

In 1981, the MFL, under Dick Martin's leadership, approved a proposal to launch a fundraising campaign to establish the Occupational Health Centre. They were successful in raising $230,000 and the OHC opened on April 8, 1983