Little sleep after husband’s work death

• Silent vigil for lives lost at work in Tokoroa, Lake Moananui on the corner of Balmoral Drive and Arawa Cres behind the Cosmopolitan Club.

Sunday 9 August 7am, Tokoroa - After the death of Maryanne Butler-Finlay’s husband Charles, she only sleeps for two hours a night “if I’m lucky”.

The mother of three says she hates it when her kids go to sleep.

“When they’re awake I’m busy doing things and when they’re asleep it’s just me all to myself,” she says. “That’s when you start to do your thinking, wishing things were better.

“That feeling will never go away, but I know it will get better.

“Our family won’t be normal for a long time.”

Mrs Butler-Finlay often talks with other widows of forestry-men, often from 1am until 4am.

Butler-Finlay has organised a silent vigil in Tokoroa today.

She says will be putting up 297 crosses representing lives lost at work since the Pike River tragedy and the Prime Ministers promise to improve health and safety laws.

One cross if for her husband Charles Finlay, 45, who was killed on July 19, 2013 at a forestry work site in the Taumata Forest, Kinleith.

M&A Cross Ltd pleaded guilty to breaches of safety laws that led to Mr Finlay’s death after the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) launched a private prosecution.

The summary of facts said a log struck Mr Finlay on his head while he was standing behind a truck’s trailer which was being loaded.

The company will be sentenced in the Rotorua District Court on October 2 2015.

Mrs Butler-Finlay says her “soul-mate’s” death has consumed her life and she hasn’t had time to grieve.

“People say I can grieve now, I have a guilty plea but I’ll wait for the sentencing and will probably hit the wall then.”

She says she went into “robot mode” to support her three children, Charles Junior, 22, and 11-year-old twins Shelby and Sharneica who “are still not coping”.

“The kids doted on their father.

“After Charles death my son fell to pieces and the twins were a mess.

“I can’t crumble and fall to pieces, I have to look after my babies, who else will?”

Her husband left for work and died before 5:08 am. She didn’t find out until after 8 am.

She ”turned to stone” and immediately thought of her son and wanted to make sure he heard from her first.

“When I saw him and told him, we both collapsed.”

Charles, or Charlie to his friends, was well liked and many people spoke at his large funeral.

Charles was known as a joker, safety-conscious and hard-working.

Mrs Butler-Finlay says after 27 years’ experience he was only earning $16 an hour.

“Charles was the first one to get to work and the last to come home.”

“He got up at crazy hours of the morning like one or two am, like the other men, pressured to get the stock out.”

She says he started work in the dark and finished work in the dark working long hours so the family could pay the bills.

“He wouldn’t turn a blind eye to safety issues. He was the first to pull people up if they weren’t being safe.”

Mrs Butler-Finlay and her twins survive on ACC payments set at 80% of her husband’s $16 an hour wage.

They are only entitled to the payment for two more Christmas’s when the twin’s 14th birthday will invalidate the allowance.

Since the accident, Mrs Butler-Finlay has become a champion for grieving families whose children or partners have died in work accidents.

“Charles was the sixth out of 10 forestry deaths in 2013,” she says. “The first forestry worker to die that year was only 19 years old.”

Last week she supported Deborah McMillan at another silent vigil. McMillan’s husband died in a forestry accident near Napier in 2009.

Butler-Finlay’s high-profile case, among a number of others championed by the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) helped pressure the forest industry in turning around work fatalities.

According to the CTU the forestry accident rate has dropped by 60 per cent and there has been one forestry accident in 15 months.

Worksafe, while it chose not to prosecute Mr Finlay’s employer and has been reluctant to prosecute others, is starting to step up its game the CTU says.

Mrs Finlay-Butler now has her sights on the Government’s Health and Safety Reform Bill.

“After the Pike River disaster, John Key wooed the mining families and promised to improve health and safety law,” she says. “Initially the new Bill was looking good, but a few small businesses lobbied the Government to gut it.”

Proposed changes include removing worker-elected health and safety representatives from low-risk businesses with fewer than 20 employees.

Most forestry contractors only employ 10 workers.

Mrs Butler-Finlay says the Government hasn’t defined what a high risk business is and isn’t expected to define it until after the bill is voted on.

“There are now more deaths in agriculture than forestry. Farmers are the Government’s biggest supporters and are the main lobbyist playing politics with workers lives.”

She says Government research shows workers are more likely to be injured in small businesses than larger ones.

Another change removes the requirement for employers to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) and allowing PPE allowances instead.

Mrs Butler-Finlay says under this proposed change it is unlikely her husband’s employer would have been found liable.

“Charles’s company failed to provide him with the proper equipment and gave him a measly equipment allowance.

“Young workers on the minimum wage with little experience aren’t going to get the right gear.

“This is going to kill workers.”

Mrs Butler-Finlay says she’ll keep fighting for forestry workers like her son and his friends until the Government honours its promises.

ENDS

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