Join us.

We’re working to create a just society and preserve a healthy environment for future generations. Donate today to help.

Donate

Workers’ Memorial Day: Honoring Fallen Workers, Fighting for Safer Jobs

Every worker has a right to a safe job. Yet on an average day of the week, 13 U.S. workers die on the job due to unsafe working conditions. An additional 137 lives are lost daily due to occupational diseases – mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, among others. 

On Friday – Workers' Memorial Day – we will stand with the families, friends, and colleagues of fallen workers to remember each of them as individuals whose lives represent much more than a statistic. We will also renew our vow to fight for workers' rights so that every single person who leaves home for a job in the morning returns at the end of the day with all their limbs accounted for and with their health intact. 

Workers, advocates, and forward-thinking companies have already developed many worthy ideas to improve working conditions across the nation. Some basic changes we could make that would save lives and prevent injuries include: 

  • Enhancing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA's) authority to protect workers from hazardous conditions, especially exposure to toxic chemicals;  
  • Boosting the maximum civil and criminal penalties that OSHA can impose against violators to a level that deters bad actors from breaking the rules in the first place;  
  • Providing workers who report health and safety hazards or refuse to perform dangerous work with better protections against retaliation;  
  • Denying government contracts to companies with lengthy rap sheets; and  
  • Increasing OSHA's budget so that the agency has resources to bring on more safety and health inspectors. 

With roughly 150 deaths per day, and thousands of work-related injuries, workers need more protection. Unfortunately though, the Trump administration, conservative members of Congress, and industry lobbyists are doing everything they can to block common-sense solutions. President Trump has already signed two congressional resolutions that roll back important Obama-era rules to improve working conditions – one rule would have ensured that federal contractors protect workers from hazardous conditions, wage theft, and retaliation, and the other would have required employers to maintain accurate records of work-related injuries and illnesses.

And that's not all Trump has done in his first months in office to dismantle worker protections at the behest of big businesses. He has also delayed implementation of OSHA's newest chemical exposure limits – for silica dust and beryllium. These rules took decades to finalize and will save hundreds of lives a year once they are in effect. But every time they get delayed, workers are left in harm's way for no good reason, increasing the chance they'll develop debilitating, often fatal diseases that will devastate their families. Not only is the fate of these rules unknown, new safeguards to address other hazards like heat stress, toxic chemicals, and workplace violence seem exceedingly unlikely from the Trump administration, putting even more lives in danger. 

Trump has proposed cutting the Department of Labor's budget by 21 percent, making it practically impossible for OSHA to carry out its basic tasks like conducting inspections and citing employers for violating worker health and safety standards. At current funding levels, federal OSHA has only 815 safety and health inspectors, meaning it would take, on average, 159 years for the agency to inspect all workplaces under its jurisdiction. The states that oversee their own occupational safety and health plans (state-plan states) don't fare much better than federal OSHA – with a total of 1,023 inspectors, it would take an average of 99 years to inspect every workplace in these states. Clearly, OSHA needs more inspectors, not less. 

This Workers' Memorial Day, join with others in your community to commemorate fallen workers and resist bad polices and budget cuts by attending one of the hundreds of gatherings taking place across the country. To find an event near you, visit http://coshnetwork.org/workers-memorial-week-events-2017.

Showing 2,913 results

Katie Tracy | April 26, 2017

Workers’ Memorial Day: Honoring Fallen Workers, Fighting for Safer Jobs

Every worker has a right to a safe job. Yet on an average day of the week, 13 U.S. workers die on the job due to unsafe working conditions. An additional 137 lives are lost daily due to occupational diseases – mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, among others.  On Friday – Workers’ Memorial Day – we […]

James Goodwin | April 25, 2017

New CPR Project – CRA by the Numbers: The Congressional Review Act Assault on Our Safeguards

If Donald Trump has learned anything over the last 100 days, it’s that unlike in golf, you can’t call a Mulligan on the beginning of your presidency, no matter how much it might improve your score.  These last few months have been long on scandals and failure (Russian probes, the spectacular implosion of Trumpcare, etc.) […]

James Goodwin | April 20, 2017

New Report: Trump’s New ‘Regulatory Czar’ and the Continuing Assault on Our Safeguards

As the clock ticked closer to the end of the work day a few Fridays back, the Trump administration quietly made an announcement certain to put smiles on the faces of many corporate interest lobbyists in and around the DC Beltway: Neomi Rao, a little known but very conservative law professor at George Mason University’s […]

Evan Isaacson | April 13, 2017

Baltimore’s Experience May Yield Lessons for Senate as It Debates Integrated Planning Bill

The City of Baltimore is wrapping up an $800 million upgrade of its largest sewage treatment plant. At the same time, the city is starting a $160 million project to retrofit a drinking water reservoir; is in the midst of a $400 million project to realign a major section of its sewer system; and is […]

James Goodwin | April 12, 2017

The Key Ingredient in Trump’s Anti-Reg Two-for-One Executive Order? Fuzzy Math

Steve Bannon’s crusade to deconstruct the administrative state took two big steps forward last week, concluding with Donald Trump nominating George Mason University Law School professor Neomi Rao as his “regulatory czar.” CPR will publish a new report on the role of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator during the Trump administration […]

Karen Sokol | April 11, 2017

How Trump’s Proposed Cuts to EPA Disempower States

Last month, President Trump released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2018, which calls for sharp cuts to many agencies in order to fund increases in defense and military spending. Hardest hit is the Environmental Protection Agency. Already underfunded, EPA will simply not be able to carry out its statutory mandates to keep our environment […]

Matt Shudtz | April 10, 2017

Looking for Inspiration Outside the Beltway? See What’s Happening in Maryland.

Thank goodness for state-level policymakers who are resisting the Trump administration’s extreme policies. Attorneys general from around the nation are making headlines by fighting Trump’s discriminatory immigration ban. Governors from both major political parties stood up to the attempt to strip away health care from millions of hard-working Americans and their children. And mayors and […]

Michelle Zemil | April 7, 2017

Why Trump’s Environmental Rollbacks Won’t Boost the Economy

It was Ronald Reagan who popularized attacks on regulations when he was on the campaign trail in 1980, and since then, the tactic has been an inescapable feature of our political landscape. The false claims about environmental regulations, job creation, and the economy have been repeated so frequently and for so long that many Americans […]

Sidney A. Shapiro | April 5, 2017

News and Observer Op-ed: Bill Would Weaken Neighbors’ Ability to Be Compensated in Hog Farm Lawsuits

This op-ed originally ran in the Raleigh News & Observer. The civil justice system in North Carolina exists to protect people and their property from unreasonable actions by others. One of the longest standing causes of action in civil courts is for nuisance claims, which allow you to bring suit when your neighbor creates a […]