Worker Memorial Day
2005
Pray for The Dead
Fight For The Living


Departments

Worker Memorial Day
By Region 8 Webmaster John Davis

On April 28 the annual observation of Worker Memorial Day will be held across the country. This event is a day set aside to remember those who have died on the job within the past year. The unions of the AFL-CIO remember these workers on April 28, as it is celebrated in over 100 countries and has been held each April 28 since 1989.

The date of April 28 coincides with the creation of OSHA in 1970. That year there were 13,800 workplace deaths across the country, a fatality rate of 18 deaths per 100,000 workers. In 2001, that rate had fallen to 5,900, a fatality rate of 4.3 per 100,000 workers. While this improvement of over 400% is encouraging, we cannot rest until every worker leaves for home each day in at least as good as condition as when they came.

In 2004 there were six UAW members who lost their lives on the job. Each of these losses represent a love one, friend, provider and coworker to many survivors. Today there are 16 workers killed on the job and another 16,000 injured. That is a rate of one death or injury every five seconds.

The plight of worker safety has long been an issue in this country. In the early days of the country immigrant workers were given the most dangerous jobs. Thousands of Irish, Chinese and German immigrants died building the railroads, putting up skyscrapers and working in the coalmines. Former slaves and their children found themselves given the most dangerous jobs, with no worker protections or survivors benefits.

It was organized labor that laid the groundwork for justice for America’s workers. The craft guilds in New York City began the fight and the struggle was continued by the miner’s unions across the Appalachian Mountain chain. Along the way Child Labor Laws were enacted with working standards that protecting those who turned the cogs in the wheels of industry. OSHA was placed into law in 1970, providing further safe guards for America’s workers.

Any work place represented by a union has health and safety standards that surpass those mandated by the federal government. All union contracts have provisions for making certain that workers are protected. However, even with OSHA non-union workplaces have employees who are at risk. In the United States an average of 6,000 die every year as the result of a workplace accidents and another 50,000 die as a result of exposure to dangerous substances in their workplace.

How can it be in a society where technology drives so many improvements, that worker safety is still an issue? Because corporate greed drives reductions in policies and enforcement of the law. OSHA was founded in 1970 to be a voice for workers and to provide standards that employers must follow to insure the health and safety of their workers. However, the safety that OSHA provides has been constantly eroding through budget cuts and changes to the law. For years a battle waged to establish ergonomic standards for industry and it was finally signed into law in 2000. However, one of President Bush’s first actions after taking office was to repeal the law. To make matters worse, the Bush Administration repealed the OSHA requirement that mandated record keeping for muscular skeletal disorders in the workplace. Dozens of OSHA rules have been eliminated included requirements on the handling of cancer causing substances. Another slap in the face of workers included the refusal to require employers to provide personal protective equipment for workers, which particularly impacted low wage and immigrant workers.
In what was a classic case of the “fox watching the hen house” Eugene Scalia was named the chief lawyer at the Department of Labor. Scalia had been a driving force behind the repeal of the ergonomics standard, calling ergonomics “quackery” and “junk science” claiming worker’s injuries weren’t real. Anyone who suffers from carpel tunnel understands the pain and suffering that goes along with the disorder. But the chief counsel for the Department of Labor – the group who is suppose to be looking out for workers- doesn’t believe it is an issue.

In 2002 a study found that work place deaths among Hispanics had risen 53%. While this group only represents 11% of the total workforce, they make up 17.4% of construction workers. There are estimates that 620,000 construction worker are illegal immigrants so safety violations are not reported. In 1991 25 workers at the Imperial Foods Chicken Processing Plant in Hamlet, North Carolina burned to death when a fire swept through the facility. Doors to the outside were locked trapping the workers. The company stated they locked the doors to “keep workers from stealing chicken parts.” No charges were ever filed against the company and the worker’s families received very little compensation. As corporations tighten their grip on the government, more and more workers gains are being eliminated.

The “global economy” is also impacting workers around the world. As multinational corporations move more and more jobs off shore, the workers in these undeveloped countries that have no workplace health and safety standards are finding themselves at even a greater risk than U.S. workers. In the U.S. an average of 16 workers a day are killed on the job, however, world wide that number is 3,300 a day. Around the world factory fires account for many hundreds of deaths each year, particularly in Asia where the workforce has a heavy concentration of children. These Fortune 500 companies place children as young as 7 and 8 years old in a manufacturing environment without safe guards or training programs. There are Delphi factories in India where workers do not even have shoes. Can you imagine working in a metal grinding facility without shoes?

Workplace deaths among union represented facilities are much lower due to the additional standards placed in union contracts. However, the plight of workers everywhere is the union’s struggle, whether they are members or not. Organized Labor is first and foremost a social movement, where issues that involve all workers are dealt with. Walter Reuther understood this, A. Phillip Randolph understood and famous worker’s rights activist Mother Jones understood this. Mother Jones coined the phrase “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

This Worker’s Memorial Day let us “pray for the dead and fight for the living.” Contact your elected representatives and tell them that America’s workers deserve a safe workplace and to stop the gutting of standards that protect workers. Also, boycott those Fortune 500 companies who place children in under developed nations at risk in their sweatshops. Labor is about social activism and it is time we got back to it.

| UAW Members Who Lost Their Lives on the Job in 2004

Karen Algren
UAW Local 402
International Truck, Springfield, Ohio

Brian Bongiorno
UAW Local 1186
Accuride, Erie, Pa

Marcel Chagnon
UAW Local 909
General Motors, Warren, Mich.

Gregory Spranger
UAW Local 51
DaimlerChrysler, Detroit

Gerald F. Storey
UAW Local 387
Ford Motor Co., Woodhaven, Mich.

Joyce Williams
UAW Local 9212
Indiana Department of Transportation, Edinburgh, Ind.


 

Resources
Consumer's Union

Progressive Trail

Reclaim Democracy

Center for Economic and Policy Research

Economic Policy Institute

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