United Steelworker (USW) members gathered at work sites, plant gates and union halls across North America on Monday, April 28, to mark the annual Workers' Memorial Day.
International President Leo W. Gerard joined USW brothers and sisters at his home local, Local 6500 in Sudbury, Ontario, where members paid tribute to Steelworkers who had died on the job over the past year, including Local 6500 member Paul Rochette, 36, who was killed April 6 while working at Vale's Copper Cliff Smelter.
In Pittsburgh, International Vice President Tom Conway led a solemn memorial service at USW headquarters, where USW members read the names of 33 of their fallen brothers and sisters, tolling a bell with each name, lighting candles, singing songs and joining in prayer to commemorate their passing.
Those 33 members who died on the job over the past year were among thousands who lose their lives at work each year in North America, Conway said. Too often, the reason is that companies put the pursuit of profits ahead of their concern for worker safety, he said.
“No pound of steel, no unit of production is worth someone’s life,” Conway said.
The job of the union, Conway said, is to rearrange those priorities to make sure safety is always first.
“We are losing a Steelworker every 10 days, and that is unacceptable,” he said. “It is this union that will lead us through that.”
Conway was joined by AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre, who reminded the overflow crowd that one year after an explosion at a fertilizer plant killed 15 people in West, Texas, little progress has been made to create safer workplaces and communities.
Too often, Gebre said, whistleblowers are disciplined rather than celebrated, and too often hazards such as silica dust are well known for decades before official regulations can be put in place that can save lives.
“We work to live,” Gebre said. “We don’t work to die.”
USW Health Safety and Environment Director Mike Wright said that if deaths from work-related diseases were included, the list of fallen members would be much larger.
Wright said the USW’s efforts to protect workers will not be complete until the number of deaths reaches zero.
“What price can you put on a life?” he said. “The value we put on a life can be measured by what we do to protect that life.”
Click Here for a copy of the touching speech by the USW Director of Health, Safety and Environment Mike Wright.