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Sylvia Clarke

The 2009 recipient of the Eddie Cauchi Award is Sylvia Clarke. Sylvia was injured in 1986 falling while cleaning a hospital. As a result of ankle, back and hip injuries, she was forced to stop working.

Sylvia is still fighting, today, for justice and for financial security. She believes that injury should result in financial security, not poverty. When she was working she had medical and dental coverage. Now it's all gone, and even getting a walker is a big battle.

But Sylvia does not give up. She says, "I have to talk for myself, they won't do it for me". Sylvia has attended and organised many meetings with the WCB/WSIB officials and the Minster of Labour. She and the other injured workers have continued to remind them that injured workers are not a number, not a statistics but real people who deal with pain and poverty! Sylvia's efforts have not been in vain. The groups she works with, Women of Inspiration (WOI) and Bright Lights, are a constant reminder to the Government and WSIB officials that the injured watch them and don't give up!

Sylvia is one of the steady hands - she spends hours on the phone organising meetings - of the injured worker movement. The system may be broken, but her spirit is very strong, and our spirit is strong.

...Introduction by Orlando Buonastella, IWC, at the Activists Dinner, October 16, 2009, held by the Toronto Workers' Health & Safety Legal Clinic and the Toronto and York Region Labour Council

Here's Sylvia's poem: