More than 120 people, including Dunedin Mayor Peter Chin, attended the 11.45am ceremony at the Otago Workers Memorial in the Market Reserve.
The names of more than 40 people, who had been killed while working in Otago since 1992, were later read out and a row of small white crosses marked their deaths.
About 35 staff and management from Waste Management, a waste collection and management firm, many wearing orange high visibility vests, attended as a mark of respect for a former workmate, refuse collector Andrew Sime, who died in February after being hit by a van.
"All workers deserve a safe and healthy workplace," Glenda Alexander, the Unions Otago convener, told those assembled.
The commemorative event was organised by Unions Otago, an affiliate council of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.
Ms Alexander, who is also an industrial adviser to the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, said this country's nurses had long served in the theatres of war but had, most commonly, been working in New Zealand "caring for us and our whanau".
Sometimes they had incurred work-related illness and injuries.
ACC support in enabling injured workers to return to the workforce was crucial and, for those unable to continue their previous career, ACC-backed retraining was also "incredibly important".
She was pleased with the ceremony and that attendance seemed to be growing each year.
The presence of so many Waste Management staff had clearly showed "the degree of respect" for Mr Sime she said.
ACC figures show that 119 New Zealanders were killed at work in the 2007-08 financial year and that more than 37,700 people were injured sufficiently seriously to require more than a week off work.
Dunedin commemoration organisers said there had been about six such deaths in Otago over the past year.
Wayne Butson, general secretary of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union, said that each year the number of New Zealand workers receiving significant injuries at work was roughly the equivalent of the population of Timaru.
"Our union has suffered real loss in recent years," he said.
Among those to speak were Mark Murray, the Labour Department's Dunedin service manager, and Andy Redfern, an ACC Dunedin representative.
The ceremony closed with a prayer led by Kiwhare Mihaka, a Dunedin kaumatua and workplace delegate.
