by Jordan Barab May 13, 2026
I was traveling abroad over Workers Memorial Day this year, so I missed the world-wide commemoration that will dwarf this nation’s upcoming Trumpian semiquincentennial. (at least in compassion.)
Workers Memorial Day, for those just tuning in, is an annual event to remember those killed in the workplace and re-energize ourselves to fight for safer work. Or, as Mother Jones said, “Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.”
So, as I catch up, I figured I’d include you in my catching-up activities — and feel free to leave any of your Workers Memorial Day experiences in the comments below.
Death on the Job
The highlight of this season is always the annual issuance of the AFL-CIO’s “Death on the Job,” now in its 35th edition. DOTJ is the bible of the occupational safety and health environment in the United States, an enormously detailed work containing not only a summary of the political environment that workplace safety and health finds itself in, but also injury and illness data in much more detail and clarity than the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases. Also current and historical budget and staffing information and what that means for workers. (For example, that it now takes 191 years for federal OSHA to visit each workplace in the country just once.)
And all of the information is available by state, e.g. injury, illness and death rates, number of inspectors, average and median penalties penalties, and how the states rank. You can find the summary points here and download the entire document here and you will mountains of information at your fingertips for any future meetings with journalists, legislators or that obnoxious MAGA uncle at Thanksgiving.
In summary, as the report documents:
Over the last 35 years of this report, job safety agencies’ resources have diminished dramatically, even as their responsibilities have grown immensely. For instance, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is now in charge of 85% more establishments, 44% more workers and new hazards and technologies, yet Congress has reduced its budget by 10% and staffing by 26%, including a 16% reduction in inspectors. These percentages have massive impacts on such a tiny agency and very real personal effects on workers and their families. Agencies now have a paltry number of staff to write standards, analyze data, conduct inspections, perform oversight on states, orchestrate needed research on important hazards and respond to emerging threats. The number of OSHA inspectors has now hit a new low, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) does not have enough inspectors to meet its statutory requirement to inspect each mine multiple times a year.
And why?
Corporate power has eroded worker protections for years, but under the Trump administration, corporations and billionaires are aggressively accelerating efforts to dismantle hard-won progress and the democratic institutions that uphold it. These structures have safeguarded workers from employers who prioritize excessive profit over effective safety measures, resist workers’ rights and protections and seek to shift the responsibility for providing safe jobs from employers onto individual workers.
You can find specifics on the Trump Administration, OSHA resources, and action needed from Congress and job safety agencies.
And there’s plenty of ammunition for your next OSHA Trivia party. For example:
- Which state has the highest fatality rate in 2024?
- What percentage of workplace fatalities occurred among workers ages 55 and older?
- In what fiscal year did federal OSHA have Federal OSHA have the lowest number of inspectors in the history of the agency?
- What is the average penalty for a serious federal OSHA violation?
- What is the average penalty for a serious violation for OSHA state plans?
- How much does OSHA have to protect the health and safety of each worker it is responsible for?
- How much does the Workplace Safety Index (published by Liberty Mutual Insurance) estimate the cost of the most disabling workplace injuries to employers?
- How many public employees in how many states do not have OSHA coverage?
- What was the highest OSHA penalty ever issued? To what company? Who was the (Acting) Assistant Secretary?
- What percentage of all serious work-related injuries and illnesses in private industry do musculoskeletal disorders from repetitive motion injuries accounting for?
(see below for answers)
Unions and Others
Workers Memorial Day is an international event, with hundreds of local events across the country conducted by unions, COSH groups and families of those killed or injured in the workplace. Throughout this country and around the world, rallies, marches, protests, concerts, picnics, festivals, trainings and town halls were held with community and movement partners to support thousands more local events. A partial list of worldwide events and graphics can be found here.
Dirty Dozen
Accompanying the annual release of the AFL-CIO’s Death on the Job is the National COSH’s Dirty Dozen report which you can download here. The Dirty Dozen report is “a list that shines a spotlight on twelve employers that have failed to protect their workers from preventable injuries, illnesses, and deaths.” They were chosen due to
- Repeated and serious violations of workplace safety laws
- A history of ignoring known hazards
- Power to set harmful industry standards
- Active campaigns by workers and allies demanding change
This year’s lucky winners were:
- Alliance Ground International: Repeated safety violations, unsafe equipment, and worker mistreatment allegations.
- Cambria Company, LLC: Engineered stone products linked to deadly silica disease.
- CommonSpirit Health: Unsafe staffing, workplace violence, and labor concerns impacting care.
- Consolidated Catfish Producers, LLC: Amputations, machine hazards, and dangerous indoor heat.
- D.R. Horton, Inc.: Repeated safety violations and hazardous construction jobsite conditions amid ICE enforcement actions.
- Hyundai-Kia U.S. Supply Chain: Worker deaths, child labor findings, and subcontracted exploitation.
- Jeny Sod and Nursery: Wage theft claims, heat risks, pesticide exposure, and housing concerns.
- LSG Sky Chefs: Extreme heat and lack of cooling protections for workers.
- Maker’s Pride LLC (formerly Hearthside, LLC): Amputations, child labor violations, and anti-union concerns.
- Revoli Construction Co., Inc: Decades of trenching violations ending in fatal collapse.
- Subway IP LLC: Wage theft, retaliation, and labor issues across franchises.
- Wellmade Industries MFR. N.A LLC: safety violations, labor exploitation, and trafficking investigation.
Some of these you’ve never heard of; some you will live in infamy. We’ve written about some of these before, for example Cambria, the artificial countertop company whose product is killing workers due to silica exposure and their efforts to convince Congress to shield them from lawsuits.
Department of Labor Events
The Department of Labor this year held one of the biggest Workers Memorial Day events ever, with panel discussions, a tear-inducing video of family members, a panel discussion by family members, a candlelight ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial and a three day virtual training on fall prevention, trenching and lockout-tagout. The program at the Department of Labor also featured two Republican Congressmen one of whom was Ryan McKenzie (R-PA), Chair of the House Workforce Protections subcommittee who frequently criticizes OSHA for overstepping its authority and accuses OSHA standards for creating more problems than they solve.
Pennsylvania Representative Dan Meuser also spoke at the event about the farmers he meets who “are missing a finger or two; some are missing arms.” But no mention of how farm workers are not covered by most OSHA standards and how Congress prohibits OSHA from setting foot on small farms even after workers are killed.
The OSHA effort is praiseworthy. I have heaped a lot of well-deserved criticism on Trump’s OSHA over the past year, but one area where they deserve praise is the continued employment of a one of my favorite people, OSHA Family Liaison Tonya Ford, and the Workers Memorial Day events they continue to support. Tonya lost her uncle Bobby in a fall in a grain elevator and was later the Executive Director of United Support and Memorial for Workplace Families, an organization dedicated to the family members of workers killed in the workplace.
But I also have mixed feelings about the DOL event. Last year, Workers Memorial Day came only days after DOGE’s invasion of DOL and the near elimination of NIOSH and I couldn’t bring myself to attend.
My problem is DOL they did a very good — and necessary — job of recognizing the indescribably sorrow and loss that a preventable workplace death inflicts on the worker’s family, friends and co-workers. But that’s the mourning part of Workers Memorial Day. What was missing from these events were the “fight like hell for the living” part.
My problem is that DOL did a very good — and necessary — job of recognizing the indescribably sorrow and loss that a preventable workplace death inflicts on the worker’s family, friends and co-workers. That’s important. And, again, I complement the agency for holding this event and giving such an important role to the grieving families.
But that’s only the mourning part of Workers Memorial Day. What’s missing from these events were the “fight like hell for the living” part.
There was no recognition of the merciless attacks on NIOSH or the drastic cuts to OSHA and MSHA proposed this year and last by the White House or the fact that OSHA now has the lowest number of inspectors in the agency’s history or the fact that the Trump regime has refused to enforce MSHA’s silica standard or the general hostile anti-worker political environment detailed so well in the AFL-CIO’s Death on the Job.
The only “solution” that comes out of this event — at least on the surface — is not fighting for more funding for workplace protection agencies, higher penalties for endangering workers and stronger standards; it’s mainly variations on “shit happens,” so “let’s be careful out there,” without any recognition of the evisceration of this country’s workplace safety and health infrastructure by the Administration that is staging this event.
OSHA Assistant Secretary Dave Keeling correctly stated that we need to “do all we can to work together to put the the safety and health of our workers first. At the end of the day, a safe workplace is not a privilege, it’s a promise that we owe one another.”
Nice words, but cutting the budgets of OSHA and MSHA, destroying NIOSH and eliminating the Chemical Safety Board are not the way to keep that promise.
MSHA Assistant Secretary Wayne Palmer remembered several workers by name who were killed on the job, but somehow failed to mention MSHA’s failure to enforce its silica standard.
About the closest it came to calling for action came from Stacy Sebald whose 19-year-old son, Mitchell, was killed in a grain auger — on a small farm that wasn’t covered by OSHA. Stacy has been on a campaign to eliminate that language: “I will not be at peace with that exemption.”
None of us should be at peace with what’s going on in this country and how this administration has treated workers. We need to keep fighting like hell.
But let’s not be too depressed. Let’s sing. Then go back to fighting.
Lyrics and music by Bobby Cumberland, former USWA safety steward.
_________________
Quiz Answers
1. Wyoming
2. One third
3. FY 2025
4. $4,678
5. $2,720
6. $3.85
7. $59 billion a year
8. 7.9 million in 23 states
9. $81,340,000, BP Products North America, Acting Assistant Secretary Jordan Barab
10. 32%
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