2025 Workers Memorial Day
Greetings UAW Family,
On this Workers’ Memorial Day, we gather as one to remember those in our UAW family and those in our extended Labor Movement family who went to work one day and did not return home to their loved ones.
This day is also the anniversary of the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) in 1970. The mission of the Act has been to provide safe and healthful working conditions to all Americans. This law and many of the standards adopted since 1971 were won largely in part because of the labor movement standing up and fighting for those advancements. While we have come a long way in the past 54 years, the fight for safe workplaces is far from over.
Each year, thousands of workers are killed on the job and millions more suffer injuries and illnesses due to dangerous working conditions that are preventable. Last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported 5,283 fatal injuries within private industry. That statistic averages out to mean that 14 people per day go to work and never return home. It is sickening to think that one American worker loses their life every 99 minutes. The BLS also reported 2.6 million recordable injuries and illnesses for 2023. Even though these injuries and illnesses were non fatal, some of those affected employees may never be the same again.
The job safety laws in this country are still too weak, even 54 years after the passage of the OSH Act. Corporations are constantly exploiting the weakness of the laws and the ability of the federal and state-run OSHA agencies to enforce those laws. It would take MIOSHA Compliance Officers 56 years to conduct one workplace inspection on each worksite in Michigan based on OSHA data from 2019. The people running these companies know how short-staffed the agencies are. They are constantly willing to take a chance on violating a standard knowing that the likelihood of getting caught is very low.
By the time that you read this letter, we will be three months into a new presidential administration. Every administration puts a different emphasis on different topics. The UAW has always been committed to working with every presidential administration to pass legislation that protects every working person in this great nation to ensure their right to go home the same way they came to work every single day. We will demand action from politicians on both sides of the aisle because workplace health and safety should NEVER be a partisan issue.
The UAW continues to demand stronger workplace health and safety regulations at the bargaining table and in the halls of Congress. As new hazards are introduced into our worksites daily, we must continue to express our collective voice and demand protections to be in place before any of our members are potentially exposed. We must also ensure that our members are educated on these topics. Educating working people on their rights, keeps our most vulnerable from being silenced.
Together on this Workers’ Memorial Day, let us ensure that our members who lost their lives due to unsafe workplaces have not died in vain. Continue to fight as the UAW has done for decades. Demand stronger contractual language and work with local, state, and federally elected officials to enact stronger workplace Health and Safety regulations for workplace health and safety for ALL Americans.
Let us take this final moment to remember the immortal words of Mary Harris “Mother” Jones. “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”
In Solidarity,
Shawn Fain
President and Director
UAW Health and Safety Department
