Labor Honors Connecticut Workers Who Lost Their Lives on the Job

 

At noon on Monday, April 28 workers, elected officials, and students gathered at the Workers Memorial in Bushnell Park for the annual Workers Memorial Day ceremony honoring workers who have died or suffered illness or injuries on the job.

In Connecticut, 33 workers lost their lives to work-related injuries in 2023, the latest data available. An additional 31,000 workers suffered on-the-job injuries or illnesses.

According to the AFL-CIO’s annual report, Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect, 5,283 workers nationally were killed on the job and an estimated 135,000 workers died from occupational diseases in 2023.

That means 385 workers died each day due to job-related injuries and illnesses.

“We are in the fight of our lives to retain health and safety standards throughout our country,” said Kyle Zimmer, co-chair of the Connecticut AFL-CO’s Health & Safety Committee. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in construction, general industry, healthcare or municipal workers. Everyone is affected by the cuts.”

Worker safety and union density “go hand in hand,” said Connecticut AFL-CIO president Ed Hawthorne. Connecticut has the third lowest worker fatality rate and the fourth highest union density in the country.

In accepting her Health and Safety Legislative Award State Senator Martha Marx recounted that, as a union member and working nurse, she has a deeper perspective. She leads the fight for legislation to protect visiting nurses like herself, following the recent killing of a nurse on the job.

“I am the rank and file,” she said. “Rank and file needs to be at the table.” Referring to the quote on the stone monument by Mother Jones, “mourn for the dead but fight like hell for the living,” she said “I have a little bit of Mother Jones in me.”

The ceremony concluded with a bell toll for each lost worker as their name was read. A delegation from the executive board of the Connecticut AFL-CIO then went into the Capitol to deliver a letter to Governor Ned Lamont in favor of SB 8 that would allow workers to receive unemployment insurance after two weeks on strike.