I hope you’re all doing something to commemorate Workers Memorial Day — even if your own personal moment of silence and commitment to do more this coming year to ensure that workers come home safe and healthy at the end of the workday.
Last night I was interviewed on Houston’s KPFT “Voices at Work” radio show about Workers Memorial Day and the daily assault on working people. You can listen to it here (the April 27 show), if you have a half hour to burn. I come on at about minute 30:00
Fight For Your Union
Today I’m in Lake Placid, New York, to give the keynote speech to one-thousand very enthusiastic health and safety reps from CSEA/AFSCME representing state and local workers in New York. I won’t bore you with the entire speech here, except for one core message that no one should forget:
It comes as no surprise to anyone that the public sector has come under attack recently, and with it, everything that once made America great — great education, roads, infrastructure, health care — all seem to be things of the past.
As tax-cut mania sweeps the country, budgets are slashed, and with them the number of public employees who do America’s most important and most dangerous work. Those public employees who are left are finding their wages stagnant, their benefits slashed and their working conditions deteriorating. The only thing saving them — and the America we believe in — is public employee unions.
You at CSEA have always stood up to those attacks and fought for better working conditions, pay and benefits for the important — and dangerous — work that you do. And now we’re seeing teachers in the reddest of red states stand up, walk out and strike for more education funding. Is that great or what?
But now, the Supreme Court — at the behest of corporate America and right-wing ideologues — may be poised, with the Janus case, to severely undermine the power of public employee unions and with it, the entire labor movement. If that happens, I can guarantee you that not only will the quality of life in the United States suffer, but more workers — especially public employees — will get hurt and die in the workplace.
Sure, you have a right to a safe workplace. But ultimately your health and safety is safeguarded by your union.
So stand by your union! Fight for your union! And fight for your right to come home safe and healthy at the end of every day!
This blog was originally published at Confined Space on April 28, 2018. Reprinted with permission.
About the Author: Jordan Barab was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor at OSHA from 2009 to 2017, and spent 16 years running the safety and health program at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
