MOURN for the Dead, Fight for the Living!
So says Berry Craig, a member of the Kentucky State AFL-CIO Executive Board. On the occasion of Workers Memorial Day, he said: ‘The voice of history, the subject I taught in a community college for two dozen years, could hardly be louder or clearer when it comes to unions and to worker safety and health laws. We need them both.
‘In an ideal world, everybody would live by the Golden Rule, some form of which can be found in just about every religion. But we live in a real world where greed is the gospel of many employers. If many bosses had their way, we wouldn’t have unions or worker safety and health laws. For a long time, we didn’t have either in the United States. Not until the 1930s did a Democratic-majority New Deal Congress pass legislation giving workers the right to bargain collectively and requiring their employers to recognise unions.
‘President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, signed the legislation into law. Not until 1970 did Congress create the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The landmark bill passed with bipartisan support. Even Republican President Richard Nixon, who was less than labour-friendly, hailed the bill.
‘Hogs will fly and kids will stop shooting hoops in my native Kentucky before the current Republican president and his GOP-majority Congress would approve anything close to the Occupational Safety and Health Act that created OSHA.
‘OSHA was needed because many, if not most, state and local worker safety and health laws were inadequate or were not rigorously enforced. Before strong unions and meaningful protection for worker safety and health, most workers toiled long hours at low pay in jobs that threatened, and often claimed, life and limb.
‘April marked the 100th anniversary of United States’ entry into World War I, the bloodiest conflict in history to that point. The war – called the Great War before World War II – started in 1914, when some 35,000 US workers were killed in industrial accidents, according to historian Howard Zinn. That death toll equals two-thirds of all US battle deaths in the war, which ended in November 1918.
‘A century ago, railroads, mines and factories were slaughterhouses. Many children were among the dead. Child labour was widespread in American industry. Adults were so poorly paid that boys and girls as young as ten had to go to work to help their parents make ends meet. Industrialists praised child labour as a godsend. They claimed work taught children responsibility and kept them off the streets and out of trouble. Also, mine and factory owners saw a practical side to child labour. They could pay children less than grown-ups.
‘Many industrialists bragged about how often they went to church. Some said God gave them their money. Christian “Captains of Industry” hated Charles Darwin’s scientific theory of evolution. But they loved Social Darwinism, a philosophy which claimed that business works like nature.
‘It was “survival of the fittest” in both, Social Darwinists said. There was nothing anybody could do – or should do – about it, they added. Hence, Social Darwinists argued that unions and worker safety and health laws should be opposed because they interfered with the “natural operation” of the “free market.” One Social Darwinist said such laws were a waste because they only protected “those of the lowest development.”
‘With Social Darwinism, millionaires didn’t have to worry about workers losing a leg, an arm, an eye or their lives on the job. Social Darwinists said workers were inferior beings; otherwise they would be millionaires. Besides, worker safety and health laws would cost the millionaire industrialists a few bucks. ‘Social Darwinist millionaires had friends in high places. The plutocrats bankrolled politicians to bust unions and to keep worker safety and health laws off the books or to ensure such laws were toothless.
‘Sound familiar? How many union-despising politicians enjoy the largesse of rich reactionaries today? Here are a few, all of them well-heeled enough to afford store-bought: President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton, Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers and Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover.
‘Anyway, while employers and their puppet politicians are still fighting organised labour and government safety and health regulations, a lot of the media is still cheerleading for American business and industry.
‘Not so long ago, right-wing newspapers editorialists smeared unions as “un-American” and “communist.” They slammed union leaders as “labour bosses” and rank-and-filers as “union thugs”.
‘Since the demise of the “Evil Empire” uber-conservative editorial writers and TV and radio bloviators mostly stop at “socialist”. But they still trot out “union bosses” and “union thugs”. History teaches that employers, helped by their bought-and-paid for politicians and a sympathetic media, ensured that a strong union movement and something like OSHA would be a longtime coming. But come they both did.
‘Since 1989, unions have been observing April 28 as Workers Memorial Day because OSHA was born on April 28. OSHA did much to improve worker safety and health for all workers, not just union members.
‘But if the Tea Party-tilting reactionaries who run the GOP these days had their way, unions and OSHA would disappear. When Republicans extol “free enterprise,” they mean free of unions and free of laws that safeguard workers on the job. When we pause this Workers Memorial Day to remember those who lost their lives on the job, let’s remember the words of one of the greatest union heroes from history – Mary Harris “Mother” Jones: “Mourn the dead; fight like hell for the living!”.’
• A new AFL-CIO study released last Wednesday found 4,836 workers died after suffering workplace injuries in 2015, the most recent year data is available from the Bureau of Labour Statistics.
In addition to the employees who died from workplace injuries, the AFL-CIO pointed to an estimate from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) that another 50,000 workers died from illnesses and occupational diseases contracted at work.
The AFL-CIO combined the figures to determine that 150 employees are killed each day from either injuries or illnesses suffered at the workplace. The numbers were about the same as the labour group’s analysis for 2014 and 2013.
‘Corporate negligence and weak safety laws have resulted in tragedy for an astonishing and unacceptable number of working families,’ said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Instead of working for stronger protections, too many Republican politicians in Washington, including the Trump administration, are trying to roll back commonsense regulations that enable workers to return home safely to their families,’ he added.
The AFL-CIO claims older Americans and immigrant workers are among the most vulnerable people in the workplace. One-third of the workers who died from workplace injuries were over the age of 55. The fatality rates of workers over 65 and Latinos are notably above average as well.
And the number of immigrant workers killed on the job, 943, climbed to the highest level in ten years. This figure partially overlaps with the number of Latinos killed on the job.
Construction workers are more likely than those in other industries to be killed on the job, with 937 dying from workplace injuries they suffered in 2015. Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming are the most dangerous states to work, according to the AFL-CIO.
• United States Senator Bernie Sanders supports New School student employees’ push to unionise, he said in a letter sent on April 26th. The letter comes as a response to the upcoming vote that would allow the SENS-UAW to unionise, after several years of organising. The group is made up of student employees who work as teaching assistants, teaching fellows and research assistants.
In the letter Sanders said, ‘It is not my intention to tell you how to vote,’ and then goes on to discuss his experience with working with union members and the benefits that unionisation has brought them. This includes the ability to negotiate legally binding contracts that cover wages, benefits and working conditions.
‘Nationally, unionised workers make wages that are on average 27 per cent more than non-union workers, with significantly better benefits and working arrangements,’ Sanders wrote. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Congressman Jerry Nadler have also said they support the SENS-UAW vote. The vote will be held on May 3rd and 4th inside the Levinson Lobby of 6 E.16th St. from 10am to 4pm.
If the vote reaches a majority, The New School will be required to legally recognise the SENS-UAW union under the National Labour Relation Board’s decision. This will ensure that The New School meets with SENS-UAW and starts to negotiate with the union.
