Speakers at this year's International Workers' Memorial Day commemoration in Dunedin yesterday were alternately rousing and sober, militant and mournful.
Unions Otago's Roger Tobin in his speech to about 30 people gathered at the Otago Workers Memorial in Princes St, highlighted workers' deaths around the world, including a high-profile building collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, which killed more than 1000 workers.
''Here in New Zealand, our government and employers don't put safety and workers' lives ahead of profits,'' he said.
''That's why we keep dying.''
Mr Tobin also drew a comparison between annual Anzac ceremonies in Dunedin - which a record 20,000 people attended this year - and the annual workers' commemoration, which attracts many fewer than 100 people.
''I [compare the two] not to trivialise or minimise the catastrophe of World War 1, but rather to contrast our response to the two issues: Anzac Day is a national holiday, International Workers' Memorial Day is not.''
Since the Battle of Gallipoli a century ago, about 30,000 Kiwis had died in battle, Mr Tobin said.
Citing Statistics New Zealand figures on work-related deaths, Mr Tobin estimated that ''if you extrapolate back for population trends, we find that, in the same 100 years since Gallipoli, over 60,000 New Zealanders have died because of their work - twice the number killed in wars''.
Union member Judith Trevathan stood up towards the end of the ceremony to speak about her uncle, Robert King, who died at the age of 62, while working as a roofing contractor.
She was the one to identify him in the morgue, she said.
''It was quite horrifying as a family member,'' she said.
The commemoration concluded with attendees placing white crosses around the memorial statue for the estimated 56 people who have died in Otago since 1992 for work-related reasons.
Ms Trevathan, who started attending after her uncle's death 13 years ago, placed a white cross for him this year.
Chris Smith, of Unions Otago, announced the apologies of Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull and Dunedin Labour MPs David Clark, and Claire Curran; the latter two have given speeches at the ceremony in previous years.
