A Toronto construction worker and union representative has drawn praise for raising concerns about workplace safety in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, after a video showed him addressing workers at a job site in Etobicoke.

As the pandemic continues, and regular workplaces close across the GTA, increasing concerns have been raised by those in the construction industry about on-site failures, both in social distancing and everyday sanitation facilities. The industry, deemed an essential service in recent emergency directives, has largely remained at work.

“If I lose my job I lose my job, I shouldn’t be speaking like this, but I don’t care,” the man, now identified as Jack Da Silva of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA) Local 183, says in the short clip, which was record on Wednesday morning.

“I don’t give a f— anymore, because I’m scared too. My wife is crying every time I come home, because she doesn’t know if I’m going to kill her (elderly) father, if I have something.”

Da Silva’s union, after the video did the rounds on social media, called him “a passionate and proud LiUNA Local 183 Business Rep who stood up and expressed the fear and concern that most of the industry is currently facing.” The union does not say it wants work on its sites to be stopped, but is asking for a radical improvement in conditions, which it says are “deplorable” on some jobs.

Keep reading and watch the video on NationalPost.com

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