Workers Memorial Day

Hold the Line for Safe Jobs

Elevating workplace safety and health issues is more important than ever. At a time of deep division, the desire for a safe and healthy workplace is something that unites people, and is important for our organizing, bargaining and advocacy.

This is an urgent moment to hold the line against attacks on worker health and safety.

This Workers Memorial Day, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health turn 55 years old, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is nearly 50 years old.

The laws creating these agencies promised every worker the right to a safe job—our fundamental right. These laws were won because of the tireless efforts of the labor movement, which organized for safer working conditions and demanded action from the government to protect working people. Since then, unions and their allies have fought hard to make that promise a reality—winning protections under the law that have made jobs safer and saved lives.

But all of that is under attack. After years of underinvesting, the Trump administration has fired agency staff, defunded and outright decimated or eliminated federal job safety agencies.

The situation is dire. EACH DAY, more than 380 workers are killed and more than 8,600 suffer injury and illness because of dangerous working conditions that are preventable.

Job safety inspections have never been so few. As of 2025, the United States now has the lowest number of OSHA inspectors and conducts the lowest number of OSHA inspections ever.

It now would take the federal OSHA 191 years to inspect every workplace once, and Congress only allows the agency to spend $3.85 protecting each worker it's responsible for. Cuts to independent hazard investigations and coal mine inspectors take us back decades and harm workers. When no one is watching, many employers fail to do the right thing. Funding and staffing cuts will make oversight on businesses nearly impossible.

Our hard-won workplace safety protections are being stripped away. Working people have fought for our rights for decades and still do every day. But now, accelerated deregulatory attacks—such as the removal of OSHA coverage, weakening mineworker silica protections and destroying the regulatory process altogether—threaten the gains we have won, and will prevent OSHA and MSHA from setting needed job safety standards that raise the floor for everyone.

Our job is not finished.

We must protect the rights we have won and keep fighting for safer working conditions. Our nation’s job safety laws are dangerously weak, allowing scores of employers to violate the law without consequence or repercussion. OSHA penalties still are too low to be a deterrent. Employers retaliate against workers who speak out against unsafe working conditions. Workers still cannot freely join a union without retaliation threats from their employers. Black, Latino and immigrant workers are killed on the job at higher rates than others. Heat, workplace violence, infectious diseases and chemical exposures are dangerous and unaddressed hazards.

Together on this Workers Memorial Day, we don’t just mourn; we must step forward to hold the line and confront the moment we are in. We must hold employers accountable to keep workers safe. We must demand more—not fewer—government resources to do this. We must demand dignity at work.

Across the United States, workers will organize for strong health and safety standards from employers and governments to improve working conditions. A seat at the bargaining table can be a matter of life or death in the workplace, securing a better livelihood and safer future for workers and our families.

We will hold the line in the halls of government and on the shop floor to protect our fundamental right to a safe job. Our nation’s strength depends on safe workplaces and workers who can return home to their families at the end of each shift.

Observe Workers Memorial Day on April 28.

Resources

Recursos

What You Can Do

As we grieve those we have lost from unsafe working conditions, we must hold the line against worker health and safety attacks. We must:

Defend hard-won safety and health protections and workers’ rights from attacks.
Demand increases in job safety staff and funding to write strong standards and for strong enforcement of all job safety laws.
Hold our elected leaders accountable for any actions that weaken workers’ right to a safe job.
Win new protections against heat illness, workplace violence, exposure to asbestos and other toxic chemicals, and other preventable hazardous exposures.
Increase efforts to protect Black, Latino and immigrant workers who are disproportionately affected by and especially targeted for speaking up against unsafe working conditions.
Guarantee all workers have a voice on the job to raise safety concerns and the right to freely form a union without employer interference or intimidation.
Pass the Protecting America’s Workers Act to provide OSHA protection to the millions of workers without it, stronger criminal and civil penalties for companies that violate job safety and health laws, and improved anti-retaliation protections.

Your Workers Memorial Day Event

Organize an event at your workplace to hold the line for safe jobs for every worker and hold your employer accountable for keeping you safe.
Organize a campaign to demand stronger safety and health protections using our digital toolkit. Demand that elected officials put workers’ well-being over corporate interests.
Hold a candlelight vigil, memorial service or moment of silence to remember those who have died on the job, and highlight job safety concerns in your community.
Host events with members of Congress in their districts. Involve injured workers and family members who can speak firsthand about the need for strong safety and health protections, the ability to speak up against unsafe working conditions, and to join together in union to keep workplaces safe. Invite local religious and community leaders and other allies to participate in the event.
Conduct workshops to train and empower workers to report job safety hazards and exercise workplace rights. Invite union members, nonunion workers and community allies to participate.
Create a new memorial site at a workplace or in a community where workers have been killed on the job.
Create and share a photo and storyboard campaign on social media to remember workers who have been killed on the job.
Invite the press to your Workers Memorial Day events to increase public awareness of the dangers working people face on the job.
Continue to hold our leaders and employers accountable to provide safe working conditions. As a labor movement, we mourn for the dead and fight for the living on April 28 and every day of the year.