Workers' Memorial Day Summit in Los Angeles
In observance of Workers' Memorial Day, Secretary Solis last week announced a major new outreach and education campaign to prevent deadly falls at construction sites. Solis, speaking at the Action Summit for Worker Safety and Health at East Los Angeles College, said, "This is how we can honor the fallen: by standing up together with courage and conviction and saying two words that will echo across this country: Never Again." The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will lead the awareness campaign. The event brought together business, trade organizations, union and government officials and workers committed to eliminating workplace deaths and the needless suffering experienced by workers and families across the nation.
A Memorial March, and a Powerful Moment
Labor Department agencies and staff joined with the nation last week in commemorating Workers' Memorial Day with events from California to Maine. The events gave worker advocates, union representatives, state and local government officials and others the opportunity to reflect on the terrible costs of unsafe working conditions. At one Philadelphia event, a Workers' Memorial Day procession took on an unexpected, urgent meaning. The event was organized by the Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health, and it closed with a march from the Sheet Metal Workers' Hall to Penn's Landing on the Delaware River, where the assembled mourners read the names of fallen workers and floated roses into the river in their honor. Along the way, members of the procession spotted two workers in a forklift elevated 18 feet above the ground, doing electrical work on a lamp in the Penn's Landing parking lot. Neither worker was using proper fall protection. Several Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials immediately left the procession to remove the workers and address safety issues. As the forklift was lowered, a clip snapped that was holding in place the cage being used as the workspace — a potentially fatal incident if not for the intervention of OSHA officials. The incident proved that memory is not always a passive exercise, and the awareness generated by an event like Workers' Memorial Day can ensure the immediate safety of workers.
OSHA's Michaels Honors Fallen Workers
On the eve of Workers Memorial Day, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels gave remarks at the memorial ceremony hosted by the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md., to honor those who have died on the job. Michaels was joined by United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts and the Association of Flight Attendants International Vice President Sara Nelson in a program that also paid tribute to first responders and public employees as part of the college's mission to serve the educational needs of the labor movement. Speaking from the campus' famed National Workers Memorial, Michaels invoked the inspiration drawn from these lives as a driving force behind OSHA's mission to protect workers from preventable workplace hazards. "We must remember that no job is a good job unless it's a safe job," Michaels said. "We resolve to honor their memory by pursuing our shared mission to ensure the safety and health of America's workforce." The event followed an earlier observance at the Labor Department, during which employees observed a moment of silence to honor fallen workers.
