Betty Bauman’s phone bill nearly doubled in April, but it was worth every penny to hear the joy and surprise in the voices of widows across Nova Scotia, she said in a phone interview.

Bauman’s first husband had only been working for six weeks at a coal mine when he died as the result of a rock fall over fifty years ago. As a 26-year old widow with three young daughters to raise, Bauman simply did not have time to grieve. She moved to Ontario where she focused on working and raising her family. She was also re-married briefly. It was only  when she moved back to Nova Scotia twenty-one years later that she finally got her first chance to really mourn her loss.

Satisfaction for widows across the province

For years, a group of widows has been fighting to change the provincial law governing widow’s workers compensation for those who lost their husbands in workplace accidents. That is why it was so satisfying for Bauman to call the other women to tell them they would be getting around $110,000 in back pay. Bauman says they were all thrilled, but many of them were filled with disbelief. “I said: ‘Well, it’s happening, believe it!’” said Bauman matter-of-factly.

A long battle

Before 1999, widows who remarried no longer received their survivor’s pensions. In the 1990s, several widows protested that this law violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically, the section based on equality, which prohibits discrimination.

In 1999, the law was changed because it discriminated based on marital status. While the change was encouraging, there was a catch; women who remarried before 1985, when the section on equality was added to the constitution, were excluded. This meant that widows like Bauman would only receive compensation from 1999 onwards. She did not think it was fair for them not to be compensated simply because they had remarried.

In the following years, Bauman led the other widows in a campaign to change the law–writing letters, calling politicians, and pleading with community leaders. In 2000, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruled in favour of compensating the widows. However, the government at the time, led by former premier John Hamm, appealed and the decision was overturned. It was a big letdown for the widows who had been granted their wish, only to have it snatched away.

Support and a new bill

Bauman finally found a supporter in Frank Corbett, the Minister of Labour and Advancement Education in Nova Scotia.  She received a call from Corbett the second week of April asking if she and some of the other widows could make a trip to Halifax on the 19th. He told her not to let on to anyone except the widows she was bringing with her that there would be an announcement. Bauman called a few of the other women. “I said, ‘Look, we’ve got to go to the legislature on the 19^th, but you’ve got to promise me that you won’t say a word to anybody. If you do, I’ll kill you!’” she recalled, with a chuckle. Seven widows made it to Halifax to hear an emotional Corbett announce that they would be getting the compensation. A week later the bill was officially passed. The women were thrilled.

Bauman, who will turn 80 next year, says that her late husband often told her that she was too strong and independent. But she’s pretty sure that he would be proud of how she used her strength and independence to tirelessly fight for her cause.