The AFL-CIO and 27 labor unions on Thursday marked May Day with a letter calling on members of Congress to push U.S. President Donald Trump to reverse his gutting of a key federal agency.
The Trump administration last month made major cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a “small but mighty agency” that “aims to ensure safety in a wide variety of occupations, such as mining, construction, agriculture, firefighting, and among healthcare, service, and office workers,” according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
While May 1 is International Workers’ Day, April 28 is Workers’ Memorial Day, “a poignant reminder of the real human cost of unsafe workplaces,” notes the letter to U.S. lawmakers. “We remember all we have lost on the job and recommit ourselves to fulfill the promise of a safe job, so that every loved one returns home unharmed at the end of each shift.”
“The most recent data show that 385 people still die each day in the U.S. because of their jobs—more than 5,000 from job injuries and an estimated 135,000 from job illnesses, annually,” the coalition continued. “These staggering numbers are completely unacceptable and entirely preventable; these deaths are a systemic failure. Behind every life lost each day is a family across the United States mourning a parent, sibling, child, neighbor, or friend.”
