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Workers Memorial Day 2009 Materials Ready Now |
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For many of America’s workers, going to work can literally be deadly. The most recent edition of the AFL-CIO’s annual Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect shows that an average of 15 workers a day were killed on the job and each day, another 11,000 workers were injured or made ill in 2007. Overall in 2007 (the latest figures available), 5,488 workers died from workplace injuries and 4.0 million were hurt or made sick by their jobs.
Recent studies have shown that the workplace injury reports may miss as many as two out of three workplace injuries, meaning that the real toll of workplace injuries is much higher than reported.
On April 28, to honor those killed and injured on the job and to call for improved workplace safety, workers in the United States and around the world will mark Workers Memorial Day. The theme of this is “Good Jobs. Safe Jobs. Give Workers a Voice for a Change.”
You can start planning and organizing a Workers Memorial Day event in your workplace or community with materials now available online from the AFL-CIO. The materials include:
- Workers Memorial Day flier.
- Workers Memorial Day poster.
- Workers Memorial Day clip art in English and Spanish:
- Workers Memorial Day stickers.
- Workers Memorial Day events form.
- Workers Memorial Day proclamation.
- Safety and health update (February 2009).
The 2009 edition of Death on the Job, set for release in April, will examine workplace death, injuries and illness by occupation, state and cause. It will analyze trends and examine the federal government’s track record on developing workplace safety standards. It also will look at the enforcement—or lack of it—of current safety laws by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).
The AFL-CIO Workers Memorial Day online tools include links to a collection of workers’ memorials in the United States and around the world and poems and other tributes to workers killed on the job.
The first Workers Memorial Day was observed in 1989. April 28 was chosen because it is the anniversary of the creation of OSHA in 1971 and the day of a similar remembrance in Canada. Trade unionists around the world mark April 28 as an International Day of Mourning for workers killed.
Click here to read how health and safety experts from the labor, scientific and academic fields say OSHA can be rebuilt after the Bush administration spent eight years tearing down the safety agency.
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The poems prayers and songs have not changed since 2001.
Here is a newer one:
To My Brothers and Sisters who still live after 911 2001
When the Roll is called up yonder,
Of all 911 workers who have died.
Will my name be among them?
So my heart will fill with pride.
I am still a Union Member even though I am dead;
So every 9/11, I want to hear my name be read.
I died because of terrorism, so remember me by name.
Go after Bin Laden, the fight in Iraq is not the same.
I was proud of being union all the time I was alive.
I want to stay union even if my body did not survive.
Let my death be a memorial to those who still are free.
Bring the terrorists to justice; do not steal our liberty.
We just came to work here we didn’t come here to die.
With Solidarity in my heart I will never say Good-bye.
Thousand of workers are sick because they worked the 911 site,
But No health care, that must not stand! It’s just not right!
Mother Jones said “Pray for the Dead
and fight like hell for the living”.
As you remember the dead today,
get health care for the living.
Written By David Hurlburt CWA Local 9410
Thank you for the beautiful poem David Hurlburt. It is very thought provoking.