They are making our jobs less safe

Each year, on April 28, the American Labor Movement commemorates Workers Memorial Day — the day that the Occupational Safety and Health Act went into effect nearly 55 years ago, promising every worker the right to a safe job — our fundamental right. 

On this day, we honor the lives of those lost on the job the previous year and recommit to fight for safer jobs,envisioning a day when there are no names listed to honor. Because what we know is that each day in this country more than 340 workers are still killed and more than 6,000 suffer injury and illness because of dangerous working conditions that are preventable. Job safety agency resources already are critically underfunded: it would take the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 185 years to inspect every workplace once, while Congress only allows the agency to spend less than $4 protecting each worker it’s responsible for. Cuts to hazard investigations and coal mine inspectors take us back decades and harm workers. 

Many of our hard-won workplace safety and health rights are under threat. Working people have fought for our rights for decades and still do every day — from the shop floor to the halls of government. But now under the Trump administration, new anti-regulatory attacks — such as executive orders and removal of important information from OSHA’s website and cuts to coal mine inspections — threaten the gains we have won. In the past decade, we have seen a steady creep of child labor law rollbacks, with reports of children injured in factories and construction sites becoming normalized. Funding and staffing cuts will make oversight on business nearly impossible. When no one is watching, many employers fail to do the right thing. 

In the labor movement, our job is far from finished. 

We must protect the rights we have won while continuing to fight for safer working conditions. Our nation’s job safety laws are dangerously weak, allowing scores of employers to violate the law without consequence or repercussion. For many, the exceedingly low fines issued by federal or state agencies for even the most grievous of injuries are merely a cost of doing business. Employers retaliate against workers who speak out against unsafe working conditions. Workers still cannot freely join a union without retaliatory threats from their employers. Black, Latino, and immigrant workers are killed on the job at higher rates than others. Heat, workplace violence, infectious diseases, and chemical exposures are dangerous and uncontrolled hazards that must be addressed. 

Together on this Workers Memorial Day, we fight for our lives and confront attacks on safety and health agencies that keep our workplaces safe — and we demand action for independent oversight. We hold employers accountable to keep workers safe. We demand more — not fewer — government resources to do this. We demand dignity at work. 

Across the United States, workers will organize for strong health and safety standards from employers and governments to improve working conditions. A seat at the bargaining table can be a matter of life or death in the workplace, securing a better livelihood and safer future for workers and our families. 

We will fight for our lives in the halls of government and on the shop floor. We will fight to protect our fundamental right to a safe job. Our nation’s — and our state’s — strength depends on safe workplaces and workers who without exception return home to their families at the end of each shift. 

This year in Oregon, as we honor and remember the 45 lives lost in 2024 from injuries sustained while working, we rededicate ourselves to improving safety and health in every single workplace.

Graham Trainor is president of the Oregon AFL-CIO, the statewide federation of labor unions, representing over 300,000 working Oregonians.