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 Marking Workers Memorial Day 2008, CWA will join
with other unions Monday, April 28, at the National Labor College in
the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., to break ground on a
garden-style national memorial honoring fallen workers.
The memorial will feature bricks, pavers and
benches that unions can sponsor to honor members who died on the
job. Plans for a CWA section are underway and information about how
locals and members can participate will be publicized soon.
The memorial will also honor the legacy of Mother
Jones, the self-described hell-raiser who organized workers and
fought for their health and safety during most of her 100-year life.
Mother Jones, who died in 1930, is famous for her saying, "Pray for
the dead, but fight like hell for the living."
The events at the labor college are among
hundreds of events that union locals and labor councils will be
holding throughout the country. CWA locals will take part in
memorials and moments of silence. Some are submitting op-eds and
letters to the editor to newspapers in their areas that seek to
raise awareness about worker safety and health issues.
A toolkit to help locals plan activities,
including a sample letter to the editor, is available on the AFL-CIO
website at
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/L1z_1k915PpB/.
 The nation's workplaces remain unsafe, and
current safety laws and penalties are too weak to protect workers.
That's the conclusion of the AFL-CIO's annual "Death on the Job"
report, which provides grim statistics on how many workers were
killed and injured on the job in the past year, as well as
information on penalties assessed for serious violations and other
data.
In 2006, the most recent year for which
government statistics are available, 5,840 workers were killed by
job hazards, an increase of 106 deaths from 2005. Some 4.1 million
workers were injured and an estimated 60,000 died due to
occupational disease. On an average day, 153 workers lose their
lives as a result of workplace injuries and disease, and another
11,233 are injured, the AFL-CIO report found. The full report is
available at
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/21z_1k91Oqpr/.
David LeGrande, CWA's occupational safety and
health director, said the increase in the fatality rate was a major
concern, because it demonstrated that our nation's system of safety
rules and enforcement simply wasn't addressing workplace hazards and
protecting workers. He also pointed to the Labor Department's
underreporting of workplace injuries and illnesses, as documented by
the report, as more evidence that workplace safety and health has
declined over the past eight years.
 Certain health and safety issues, like job stress
and ergonomics, have received virtually no attention under the Bush
administration, he said. Those topics will be discussed at the
District 3 health and safety meeting next month in Jacksonville,
Fla., with a panel of local leaders to discuss ergonomic and job
stress issues for customer service and outside plant workers.
On April 28, CWA locals across all districts will
be joining with other unions and AFL-CIO labor councils to remember
their co-workers killed on the job and focus attention on the need
to better address workplace hazards.
To check on events on your area, go to
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/21z_1k91Oqpr/.
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