Start planning for IWMD 2026
Unite resources ready for workplace action
Reading time: 3 min
IWMD is held on 28 April every year. It brings together workers and their unions from all over the world to remember all workers who lost their lives to workplace illness or injury.
It is the day to recommit to fighting to keep workers safe.
Unite notes that the themes for 2026 are fairly wide, but the important thing is that Unite reps support this day by running events and putting up Unite posters which will shortly be available to order or print. There is a selection on these web pages so you can get going straight away.
The key themes and focus for 2026
- Mental Health and Psychosocial Risks: The 2026 campaign highlights the impact of work pressure, new technologies, surveillance, algorithms, and insecure work on worker mental health.
- Preventing Workplace Violence: The TUC is placing a special focus on the need for greater legal protection against physical and verbal abuse in the workplace.
- Fight for Democracy: The ITUC’s broader strategy for 2026 is to “Fight for Democracy,” which includes protecting trade union rights to safety and dignity.
Unite’s branches and workplaces direct their own focus for IWMD. It could be mental health, asbestos, exposure to chemicals or the environment – whatever matters to your workplace.
The important thing is that Unite mobilises our reps to ensure 28 April remains the biggest and most effective OHS activity in the country. This is the day to move workplace health and safety centre stage.
Unite health safety representatives play a vital role in keeping workplaces safe and healthy and have traditionally come out in force to support this day and hold events both in person and virtually.
You can find posters and other resources, as well as how to get support needed regarding additional materials and social media images, here.
On International Workers Memorial Day last year hundreds of members across the country took part, and you see the UNITElive photo galley here – Unite remembers | One death is too many.
Below are just two of the many events happening this year, send in posters and photos from your event this years to [email protected] and we will include them in the 2026 UNITElive gallery.
Whatever your theme for the day, Remember the Dead and Fight for the Living.
By Keith Hatch
Photo by Mark Thomas
