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.

In the United States, Workers Memorial Day has been celebrated since 1989, and April 28 was chosen because it was the date the Occupational Safety and Health Act became law in 1971. It has become an international day of commemoration for workers killed on the job around the globe.   

The tragic and preventable deaths this week of more than 300 people—mostly garment workers—in the collapse of a building in Bangladesh that housed several clothing factories will be the centerpiece in the global call for stronger worker safety rules and workers’ rights. Read more from the International Trade Union Confederation.    

Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

No worker should have to sacrifice life, limbs or health to earn an honest day’s pay—not here in the United States, not in Bangladesh or anywhere else. Yet, corporations continue the push for profits, seeking to avoid regulation and oversight. They claim that stronger worker protections and enforcement kill profit, when the reality is that failure to act kills workers.

In conjunction with Workers Memorial Day, the AFL-CIO will release its annual Death on the Job report May 7. The 2013 report will analyze the just-released U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) fatality, injury and other workplace safety figures for 2011—the most recent data available. The BLS figures show there were 4,693 workplace deaths in 2011.

Death on the Job provides a national and state-by-state examination of workplace deaths and injuries by industry, occupation and other factors. The report also provides a comprehensive overview of federal and state safety and health issues, including where progress has been made and where improvements must take place.

Be sure to check back Sunday when our correspondent Berry Craig will take a historical look at workplace safety and the role unions have played in advancing on-the-job safety and health.