{"id":4963,"date":"2021-04-28T16:09:37","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T16:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/28april.org\/?p=4963"},"modified":"2021-04-28T16:10:08","modified_gmt":"2021-04-28T16:10:08","slug":"global-on-a-day-to-mourn-who-dies-on-the-job-covid-19-looms-large-psi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/28april.org\/?p=4963","title":{"rendered":"Global: On a day to mourn who dies on the job, Covid-19 looms large – PSI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each year on this date, labor unions, other advocacy groups and family members mark\u00a0Workers Memorial Day<\/a>\u00a0in recognition of lives lost on the job. In 2019, the most recent year for which data is available,\u00a05,333 workers died<\/a>\u00a0of traumatic injury or sudden illness. It\u2019s as if the entire population of Dayton, Kentucky, were erased.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0Workers Memorial Day\u00a0<\/a>has a different timbre than previous ones, which have tended to focus on\u00a0explosions<\/a>, transportation accidents, falls,\u00a0trench collapses<\/a>\u00a0and other easily measurable events, as opposed to chronic, work-related diseases, which develop over time and take an estimated 95,000 lives a year.<\/p>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic has added a fearsome, invisible layer of risk to all of this. And the government agency responsible for workplace health and safety enforcement, which turns 50 today, is under pressure to do something about it.<\/p>\n

Since COVID invaded the United States 15 months ago, advocates have urged the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to adopt an emergency temporary standard that would force employers to take steps to quell the spread of the virus, or face penalties. Such standards, intended to address \u201cgrave danger,\u201d are exceedingly rare; OSHA has put out nine over the past half-century, none since 1983.<\/p>\n