On April 28, the unions of the AFL-CIO observe Workers Memorial Day to remember those who have suffered and died on the job, and to renew the fight for safe workplaces.
Thirty years ago the U.S. Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, promising every worker the right to a safe job. Unions and our allies have fought hard to make that promise a reality, winning protections that have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prevented millions of workplace injuries.
But now these hard-won gains are under attack by industry groups who overturned the OSHA Ergonomics Standard and who now want to further weaken OSHA and make complience with the law voluntary. On this Workers Memorial Day, we call upon Americans to oppose any effort to roll back workplace protections, and to defend the promise of safe jobs for all workers.
Last year, 114 workers died on the job in Wisconsin. Yet we were only able to obtain 56 names from the lists provided by OSHA and the Wisconsin Workers Compensation office. Because of a law passed in 1993, the government will not release the names of those who died unless a death benifit is paid.
If you, or someone you know, have lost a loved one to occupational illness or a death in the workplace and are looking for some help figuring out what to do and who to contact the United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities may be of help. This web site and the caring people who run it can provide support, awareness, tributes, memorials, article, self-help, workers comp. laws, wrongful death attorneys and safety resources. And most of all they care! They listen!
If you have a name of someone who died on the job in 2003, please forward it to WisCOSH so that we may include it in our memorial. Please include the date, cause of death and city/town, if you know it.