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.

The La Crosse event, where 70 crosses representing western Wisconsin workers killed on the job, was one of more than 100 services around the nation honoring the nearly 4,700 who went to work and didn’t come home. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

This year our thoughts are particularly with the families of West, Texas, where two weeks ago a horrific explosion at a fertilizer plant killed 15 people, injured hundreds more and caused widespread destruction. While the investigation is still under way, from all reports regulatory authorities had not inspected this dangerous facility in years.

Workers Memorial Day is also an international day of commemoration for workers killed on the job. Trumka called last week’s horrid collapse of a building in Bangladesh that killed at least 377, with hundreds still missing, an “outrage.”

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.  

Read his full statement.

Elsewhere, the Marquette (Mich.) County Labor Council held a ceremony at the Cliffs Shaft (Iron) Mine Museum, near the site where 51 miners were killed in the 1926 Barnes-Hecker Mine disaster.

In Spokane, Wash., workers gathered at the city’s Mission Park (see photo) where the Spokane Regional labor Council has erected a monument and plaque honoring workers killed on the job. With local members of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM) playing taps, the name of each Washington State worker killed on the job—including a young fisherman, a veteran truck driver, a bridge painter and an office manager working at her desk—was read, as a bell tolled.

In Detroit, workers held a silent march for workers in the United States and around the world.

New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech wrote in a guest column in the Camden Courier-Post that even with improvements in job safety and workplace safety laws:

Our work both at home and abroad is far from over. Every day in this country, an average of 13 workers die as a result of workplace hazards. In New Jersey, about 41 workers were killed on the job in 2012. Because of a strong union presence in New Jersey, our state consistently has one of the lowest injury rates in the nation.

In an op-ed piece in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento writes:

We believe that the best method to ensure workplace safety and health is for working people to come together through unions and raise their voices collectively. But we must also safeguard existing protections and secure new standards for all workers at the state and federal levels.

Read his full column.

On the national level, Trumka said, “Corporations that exploit workers and put them in danger must be held accountable,” and called on the Obama administration to:

Act without further delay to implement important regulations on silica, coal dust and other hazards. And we must strengthen our job safety laws to give all workers the protection they need and deserve.

In conjunction with Workers Memorial Day, the AFL-CIO will release its annual Death on the Job report May 7. 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.