Workers Memorial Day is an observance most notably given attention within the labor movement. But everyone who works should care about it. Everyday, 12 workers in America will not go home at the end of the day. They will die on the job. That’s more than 4,000 workers every year, and it doesn’t include the 50,000 workers who die each year from work-related illnesses and disease.
The South Bay Labor Council, along with Working Partnerships USA, organized a breakfast panel discussion in honor of Workers Memorial Day this year, with a specific emphasis on the fastest growing segment of the employment sector: temporary workers. Many of these temp workers are hired as subcontractors for larger companies, and they’re slipping through the cracks of occupational safety and health laws.
“Subcontracting is sometimes referred to as the future of work,” said Ben Field, Executive Officer of the South Bay Labor Council. “But we’re not going to allow things to continue as “business as usual”, where many companies don’t take responsibility for their subcontractors because they’re not really their own employees.”
Ben Field, Executive Officer of the South Bay Labor Council, moderates the panel discussion on worker safety
Gail Bateson, Executive Director of Worksafe, advocates stronger enforcement of OSHA rules where she says job site inspectors are overwhelmed and hugely underrepresented. “We need to get more inspectors from the labor community,” Bateson said. She described the partnership between her organization and the California Labor Federation to recruit and train Cal OSHA inspectors.
But workplace accidents and deaths are not the only safety concern among worker advocates.
“I would argue that wages and benefits are every bit as much a health and safety issues as are working conditions,” said Doug Bloch, of Teamsters Council District 7 and a member of the California Commission on Health and Safety.
Bloch’s Teamsters recently won contracts for newly unionized Silicon Valley tech company shuttle drivers, giving drivers $9/hour raises, full benefits and protections against risky working conditions. Bloch lauded a new California law that applies the burden of worker protection to the employer that hires temp agencies and their workers. AB 1897 went into effect in January of this year.
The event included a moment of silence for those who have lost their lives on the job this year, and it closed with a recognition of the number of people who die on the job every day. Its purpose was to renew the commitment to change those somber realities.
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