Workers Memorial Day

A MEMORIAL TO OUR SISTERS AND BROTHERS WHO HAVE FALLEN AT WORK

AND WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR ALL FOR THE BELIEF OF FAIR WAGES FOR FAIR DAYS WORK

On June 27, 2009, Geneva Lewis passed today at approximately 2:00 A.M. She was a remarkable woman. Geneva helped to organize USW Local 7739, and served in several different offices throughout her 39 years of employment at American Water Heater. She helped organize the Upper East Tennessee Central Labor Council and served in several different offices throughout it's existence. She helped organize Women of Steel and SOAR Chapter 9-5. Geneva was an editor of her local’s union newsletter and attended many USPA conferences. She certainly was a woman of Steel and will be greatly missed.

Workers Memorial Day 2009

From the AFL-CIO BLOG by Mike Hall, Apr 27, 2009

The very real threat of being killed or seriously hurt on the job hangs over every worker and workplace in the nation. In 2007—the year with the latest available figures—5,657 workers lost their lives on the job and more than 4 million other workers were hurt or made ill, according to the AFL-CIO’s 18th annual “Death on the Job” report.

Death on the Job” reports that another 50,000 to 60,000 workers died due to occupational diseases. On an average day, 15 workers lose their lives as a result of workplace injuries and disease, and another 10,959 are injured. Yet little has been done in recent years, says the report, to improve job safety and protect workers.

For eight years, the Bush administration failed to take action to address major safety and health problems. Many OSHA and [Mine Safety and Health Administration] MSHA rules were withdrawn or blocked. The rules that were issued were largely in response to court challenges, congressional mandates or tragedies. New and emerging hazards were not actively addressed. Voluntary efforts were favored over strong enforcement.

The report is released each year in conjunction with Workers Memorial Day. Unlike the past eight years, the U.S. Department of Labor will join the AFL-CIO, working families and their unions this year to mark the day set aside to honor those killed and hurt in the workplace and to fight for strong workplace safety laws to protect the living.

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, along with family members of workers killed or injured, will take part in a Workers Memorial Day ceremony at the Department of Labor at 8 a.m. April 28. Later in the day, she will join AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and other union leaders and help break ground for a new national workers memorial at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md.

Also set for Workers Memorial Day is the first of two hearings this week by the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee examining the need for stronger penalties for workplace safety violations and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) record on enforcing the nation’s workplace safety laws. The Senate Employment and Worker Safety subcommittee also will hold a job safety hearing April 28.

“Death on the Job” calls current civil penalties for employer violations of workplace safety laws

woefully inadequate, even in cases of workplace fatalities. The OSHAct’s criminal penalty provisions are also very weak and rarely utilized.

The report also notes that years of budget cuts and inadequate funding have crippled the safety agency’s ability to adequately enforce workplace safety standards.

OSHA funding and staffing has not kept pace with the growth in the nation’s workforce. As a result, OSHA’s ability to provide oversight has diminished with the average frequency of federal OSHA inspections now more than once every 137 years for covered workplaces.

The new Obama administration and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate hold the promise for new and stronger workplace safety standards, says Sweeney.

Working people are looking to the new President to strengthen the OSHAct with tougher civil and criminal penalties, increase funding for OSHA to provide greater oversight, and fully implement the provisions of the MINER Act.

Just last week, legislation (H.R. 2067) was introduced to strengthen health and safety penalties, bring more workers under the protection of OSHA, protect workers who blow the whistle on employers who break the law and strengthen worker safety rights.

The report also shows that Latino workers continue to face much higher risks of death on the job. In 2007, 937 Latino workers were killed on the job. The fatality rate among these workers was 4.6 per 100,000 workers, 21 percent higher than the fatal injury rate for all U.S. workers. Since 1992, the number of fatalities among Latino workers has increased by 76 percent from 533 fatal injuries in 1992.

The report provides an in-depth state-by-state analysis on workplace safety, the most dangerous occupations, a breakdown of fatalities by race, the dollar toll of workplace deaths and injuries, a look at OSHA inspection and enforcement actions and more.

Click here to download a copy of “Death on the Job.”

Hundreds of Workers Memorial Day events around the nation, including at Wildwood School in Los Angeles, where 12th graders will join with members of CLEAN (the Community Labor Environmental Action Network) and the Carwash Workers Organizing Committee (CWOC) of the United Steelworkers (USW), to spotlight the unsafe working conditions in the Southern California car wash industry.

In Boston, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH) and the Greater Boston Labor Council will hold a ceremony on the state House honoring Bay State workers killed on the job. MassCOSH will release its annual report “Dying for Work in Massachusetts: The Loss of Life and Limb in Massachusetts.” You can download a copy of the report at www.masscosh.org and www.massaflcio.org.

In Minnesota, unions will honor workers killed on the job at events in Apple Valley, Duluth, Mankato, Minneapolis, Oakdale, Rochester and St. Paul.