When Bill Brockmiller, president of the Western Wisconsin AFL-CIO, was asked why he and several dozen union and community members and local officials in La Crosse were taking part in Workers Memorial Day ceremonies Sunday, he told WXOW-TV:

You have a right to go to work and earn your daily bread, support your family and come back home at night. So when that doesn't happen, when you lose your life in the pursuit of a paycheck, I think we owe it to those people, and to their family, those they leave behind, to honor that sacrifice.

A century ago on Workers Memorial Day, millions of men, women and children worked long hours at low pay in jobs that threatened their lives and limbs. Many of them were immigrants.

“They don't suffer,” George F. Baer said of coal miners who had come to America from eastern Europe. “Why, hell, half of them don't even speak English."

Sunday, April 28, marks Workers Memorial Day. In prayer services, vigils and other ceremonies around the nation, union members, workplace safety activists and community, faith and other allies will honor and remember workers killed and injured on the job, from the 15—including 12 first responders—killed in the recent West, Texas, fertilizer plant explosion to the construction worker, store clerk and others who die on the job daily, but who we hear little about.

As we prepare for Workers Memorial Day April 28, here are some recent news articles that highlight the pressing need for strengthening and enforcing workplace safety rules and highlighting the fact our work is not done. 

Workplace deaths and injuries vary from the agricultural industry to reality TV. Read the stories after the jump.

This April 28 marks the 24th Workers Memorial Day, and around the country workers, workplace safety activists, community and faith leaders will honor the men and women killed on the job and renew their commitment to the continuing campaign for strong job safety laws and tough enforcement of those laws.

The theme this year is “Safe Jobs, Save Lives. Make Your Voice Heard.” You can prepare for Workers Memorial Day with fact sheets in English and Spanish, posters and other materials available here. Also local unions, central labor councils and other labor groups soon will be adding their events to our Local Action calendar. Be sure to keep an eye on that. 

This is a cross-post from the Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (SoCalCOSH).

Until just a few years ago, I never gave much thought to Workers Memorial Day. Sure, I understood that safety on the job was important, but that was something other people could worry about, it didn't have much to do with me. I was more interested in struggles to make sure people were paid fairly, so that they had enough money to put food on the table; that was the more important stuff.

When I started working on the CLEAN Carwash Campaign, that all began to change.

Hans Petersen said goodbye to his roommate and left for work to install solar panels. Hans didn’t return from work that day. He died on the job when he stepped backward off an apartment building roof and fell 45 feet.

OHB’s California Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) program created a four-minute “digital story” to explain the tragic events that led to Petersen’s fatal fall and what could have been done to prevent it.

Today in a Senate hearing room usually filled with sharp-suited lobbyists and other Capitol Hill insiders, more than two dozen family survivors of workers killed on the job took the front row seats. They stood and faced the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and held photographs for lawmakers to see--images of their fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, sons and daughters.

In Michigan yesterday, workers not only honored those killed and injured on the job as part of  Workers Memorial Day ceremonies at the state Capitol in Lansing, they warned that plans to dismantle the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) and repeal the state’s workplace safety law would put workers at risk.

On Workers Memorial Day, the global union movement is warning that more lives will be lost at work if business groups and companies around the world succeed in reducing legal protections against hazardous jobs. In the United States, Big Business and congressional Republicans have launched campaigns to turn back health and safety regulations, claiming they hinder competitiveness.