Workers Memorial Day

CLICK HERE if your Local would like to purchase ribbons to distribute at work

Elevating workplace safety and health issues is more important than ever. At a time of deep division, the desire for a safe and healthy workplace is something that unites people, and is important for our organizing, bargaining and advocacy. 

This is an urgent moment to hold the line against attacks on worker health and safety. 

This Workers Memorial Day, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health turn 55 years old, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is nearly 50 years old. 

The laws creating these agencies promised every worker the right to a safe job—our fundamental right. These laws were won because of the tireless efforts of the labor movement, which organized for safer working conditions and demanded action from the government to protect working people. Since then, unions and their allies have fought hard to make that promise a reality—winning protections under the law that have made jobs safer and saved lives. 

But all of that is under attack. After years of underinvesting, the Trump administration has fired agency staff, defunded and outright decimated or eliminated federal job safety agencies.

The situation is dire. EACH DAY, more than 380 workers are killed and more than 8,600 suffer injury and illness because of dangerous working conditions that are preventable.

On April 28, we commemorate our fallen, but each day, we fight for safer jobs, so that no one will die while earning a day's wage.