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New Job Safety Bill, Workers Memorial Day Events at Labor Dept., Labor College |
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Fantastic news from Congress this week as we move closer to commemorating Workers Memorial Day on April 28. A new bill, the Protecting America’s Workers Act (H.R. 2067), introduced yesterday, will strengthen and modernize the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
How great it is to see the strong commitment by the Obama administration and the new Congress to worker safety and health after eight years of neglect and scorn for worker safety by the Bush White House.
This Workers Memorial Day, family members of workers killed on the job will join with safety and health activists in Washington, D.C., to attend two congressional hearings on workplace safety and health and gather for a Workers Memorial Day observance and rally at 8 a.m. on the front steps of the Department of Labor. Later that day, at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md., we will join with Labor Secretary Hilda Solis for a groundbreaking of a new national workers memorial.
Each year on April 28, working families and their unions mourn for those who lost their lives as a result of workplace accidents and illness and pledge to fight for the living. On average, nearly 6,000 workers die on the job each year. Check back next week for the latest “Death on the Job” report.
Click here to download materials to help commemorate Workers Memorial Day and join the fight for worker safety and health.
The two congressional hearings on April 28 will focus on strengthening the nation’s workplace safety and health protections. The House Education and Labor Committee’s hearing is “Are OSHA’s Penalties Adequate to Deter Health and Safety Violations?” and the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Worker Safety’s hearing is “Introducing Meaningful Incentives for Safe Workplaces and Meaningful Roles for Victims and Their Families.”
Later in the day, Solis, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts, Bricklayers (BAC) President John Flynn, Plasterers and Cement Masons (OP&CMIA) President Patrick Finley and National Labor College (NLC) President William Scheuerman will break ground for a new workers’ memorial at the National Labor College.
On April 30, another hearing will review the Enhanced Enforcement Program of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). A report by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), released April 1, revealed the Bush administration’s OSHA systematically failed to perform follow-up inspections for employers who put workers in serious danger. That failure could have led to nearly 60 deaths on the job.
According to the report, OSHA failed to, or was deficient in, following up on 97 percent of the cases in its Enhanced Enforcement Program, which, ironically, was designed to step up enforcement against serious violators. The OIG found that at 45 worksites where OSHA oversight was deficient, 58 workers subsequently were killed by job hazards.
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To My Brothers and Sisters who still live
When the Roll is called up yonder,
Of all the workers who have died.
Will my name be among them?
So my heart will fill with pride.
I am a Union Member in life and when I am Dead;
So every April 28 I want to hear my name be read.
I died because of the job, so remember me by name.
Correct the unsafe condition; I do not want the Fame.
I was proud of being union all the time I was alive.
I want to stay union even if my body won’t survive.
Let my death be an example to those who still live.
Be Safe and Healthy is the message I would give.
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 us each year meet this tragic fate.
Safety first, last and always before it is to Late!
David Hurlburt CWA Local 9410
Thank God for a new administration who’s hearing our voices for all who have been killed or injured on the job however; those computer injuries that have caused muscular skeletal disorder need to be address has while.
If so, you will really get behind the scene of why George W. Bush vetoed the recommendation that President William Clinton brought before OSHA before leaving office.
Let’s not put off any longer and bring the injustice to full circle.
Send an e-mail to your representative and ask him or her to co-sponsor this legislation!