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.

Congress must fix “the glaring safety issues revealed in the wake of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) this week, as he introduced legislation to bring the nation’s mine health and safety laws up to date.

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.

What youngster hasn’t had a thought or two about being a firefighter? And in a world where role models are sometimes hard to find, what kid doesn’t look up to the men and women who put their lives on the line, almost every day?

Recently in Erie, Pa., members of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 293 and Engine 8, 4th Platoon of the Erie Fire Department, hosted an open house for several dozen grade school students.

Here is a great story about unions giving back and making a big difference in their community from David Groves, editor for the Washington State Labor Council’s (WSLC‘s) news site The Stand. Groves reports on the Central Washington Building and Construction Trades Council’s (CWBCTC's) volunteer efforts that provided 100% of the labor to build a 14,000-square-foot warehouse for Second Harvest, a network of 250 neighborhood food banks and meal centers throughout eastern Washington and north Idaho.

Tragedy struck again in Bangladesh this morning when a building that housed several garment factories collapsed, killing at least 194 people, mostly garment workers, injuring hundreds of others and trapping an unknown number of people in the rubble. A number of shops were also in the building.

The West, Texas, fertilizer plant, where a fire and explosion last week claimed at least 14 lives—including 11 firefighters and EMTs—and injured more than 200, was last inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1985.

Would you trust that your food is clean and uncontaminated, the plane you’re flying in airworthy or your workplace safe, if those were certified by companies counting on the profits they’ll make from your purchases, travel and labor? Of course not.

But that’s the dilemma millions of workers around the world face—often with deadly results—when it comes to their safety on the job, a new report from the AFL-CIO reveals:

www.aflcio.org/csr. 

On the heels of its successful “Boots on the Ground” outdoors rehabilitation initiative for hunting and fishing areas, the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance (USA) has launched a new “Adopt-A-Park” program to help renew, rebuild and restore the nation’s state parks.

On Monday, we brought you the story and photos of the Tax Fairness Rumble in Raleigh, N.C., that pitted masked Mexican luchadoras (female wrestlers) Juicy Buns, wrestling as “The People’s Champion,” against corporate-created and -backed “Champion of the Powerful,” The Scrambler. Here’s the video.