 Over 4,800 workers a year are killed on the job. 10,000 more die of occupational disease every year. Today is Work a Memorial Day, a day we remember and honor all working men and women who lost their lives on the job. And we also remember our families and friends, those workers left behind. And we recommit ourselves to the mission that at the end of every working day, every worker should go home healthy and safe. We have a wonderful panel here for you today that will demonstrate the critical importance of strong legal worker protections to prevent injuries and deaths on the job. And the terrible cause to worse are families when these protections are repealed and weakened. Despite empirical evidence that OSHA protections do not kill jobs, they prevent jobs from killing workers. In just 100 days, the Trump administration and the congressional Republicans have acted in great haste to repeal and weaken these protections. In fact, just today, the Trump administration has moved to weaken a new OSHA standard that sets better protection for workers exposed to beryllium. Despite the government's finding that workers exposed to beryllium at current allowable limits are at an increased risk of developing chronic beryllium disease and lung cancer. That is what the Trump administration did for workers today on Worker Memorial Day. So to discuss this all, we have a wonderful panel and we will just get started. Our first speaker will be my old boss, Dr. David Michaels, who has the distinction of being the long-serving Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health from 2009 to 2017. So I got a little bit about David. During his tenure, well, he was my voice, during his tenure as the head of the agency, worker safety really improved throughout the country. Just a few of his many accomplishments, I just wanna let you know what the bar's like for the next administration. During his tenure, OSHA strengthened protections for workers that work in confined spaces and construction. All workers exposed to chemicals on the job now got better training and they have better labels to show them when they are working with hazardous products. Workers exposed to electrical hazards of new protections and greater protections for workers exposed to the deadly silica dust and beryllium. But he also made sure OSHA was data driven by the best data to help the agency target the most dangerous industries and the most dangerous workplaces. So OSHA now requires all employers to report incidents that involve amputations and hospitalizations as well as work related deaths to the agency. And they also require the most dangerous employers now to send OSHA their injury records. And now I introduce David Michaels. Thank you, Debbie. Thank you all for coming and my gratitude to NELP and EPI for holding this event. The purpose of Workers Memorial Day is twofold. We mourn the workers killed on the job every year and recognize the millions of workers injured or disabled and whose lungs or backs have been destroyed by work. But it's much more than that also. This is when we reaffirm our commitment to stopping this carnage. We can't let it go on. And I think, as you'll hear today, we've made some progress. In 1970, before the OSHA Act was passed, there were 37 people killed, 37 workers killed every day in the American workplace. Now we're at 13 deaths every day. That's 13 too many, 13 families who've lost loved ones. It's easy, but when we talk about these statistics, it's easy to forget that we're really, we're talking about individual people, people not statistics. Irving Selikoff, the physician who made such great progress on helping us understand the asbestos and the terrible impact of asbestos on people's lives. Selikoff taught us that statistics are people with the tears wiped away. Here with us there are families who shed those tears, who remind us that every workplace death rips a hole in the universe that can never be filled. There are literally millions of workers injured on the job every year as well. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates it's somewhere around three million and we know that's really an undercount and we know, and they'll tell you, in fact, it's four million or maybe five million workers injured on the job every year, five million workers. But, and we don't know the number. We don't know the number of workers who die from work-related disease. There are some very good estimates based on exposures that occurred in the past that probably 50,000 workers every year dying from cancer and the chronic diseases caused by older exposures. But we don't know what's going on the workplace now. Hopefully there are fewer deaths, but we don't know. And the fact that we don't know is a sign of how little workers are valued, how little their lives are valued in American society. You know, when there's a catastrophic event, like the upper big branch explosion which occurred in April 2009, which killed 29 miners, those deaths are front page news. But almost all of those 13 workers who died day after day, they're killed without any national recognition. They're mourned by their family, by their friends, by their coworkers. But they don't drive national outrage, but they should. You know, I'm sure everybody here has read about the Takata airbags. And that's certainly front page news. Congressional hearings, their criminal investigations, their recalls involving hundreds of millions of dollars. You know how many people have been killed by Takata airbags? 14, 14 around the world. That's 26 hours in the American workplace. Yeah, we're losing 13 workers every day. And when workers are on the job and they're hurt, they either simply bear the cost themselves of the lost wages, the medical costs, the setbacks in their career, or they go into a broken workers compensation system where states right now are competing with each other who can reduce benefits faster than each other. We know that employers in the workers comp system pick up probably about 20% of the actual costs of work-related injuries and illnesses. Most of that cost falls on the backs and the wallets of workers and their families. And a substantial portion is picked up by taxpayers through the safety net programs like Social Security Disability Insurance. And that means the taxpayers are subsidizing the most dangerous employers in the country. Think of that, the irony of that. So, and we know what we can do to stop the carnage. What we could do that would stop throwing workers out of the middle class or holding workers, low wage workers back from entering middle class. And the first thing we need to do is have a strong ocean enforcement program. Ocean inspections save lives. We know that. There are study after study that show that. OSHA has to use a randomization system to actually choose where to inspect in many of its programs. We actually can look at the OSHA, the impact of OSHA inspections and compare it to other companies that are just the same but didn't get chosen. It's like the same sort of clinical trials the FDA looks at. And we've studied after study that show that after OSHA makes an inspection, the injury rate goes down. People's lives are saved, their lungs, their limbs are all saved because of those OSHA inspections. But OSHA has never been funded at a level which would allow it to fulfill its mission. As the new AFL report calculates and you'll hear more about this from Peg Seminario and I want to thank Peg and Rebecca and Eunice and the group at the AFL that turned out this death on the job report is the most important document that we see every year about worker safety. The current estimate and every year it gets worse that federal OSHA has enough inspectors to visit every workplace once every 159 years. As long as that's the case, we're going to have a great deal of difficulty reducing that carnage saving those lives. The German workers' compensation system just the workers' compensation system has more inspectors to cover their factories than we do for OSHA and our state partners have. And that's, it's outrageous. So OSHA has to impact workplaces without inspecting and obviously one thing we did a great deal of when Debbie and I worked at OSHA was to issue press releases. To remind employers that OSHA actually is out there doing inspections, that OSHA can issue fines and we would issue dozens every month and they had an impact, there's no question. Well, since January 20th, OSHA has, as far as I can tell, issued depending on how you count either one or two press releases. So it's invisible. How are employers supposed to know that OSHA's on the job? There's no talk about. The other thing we have to do is fix the workers' comp system. If employers don't bear the cost of injury, they have far less incentive to actually do something about it. And that's a very long struggle but we have to keep on that road. There's something else notable about this workers memorial day that Debbie mentioned. Today on the White House website is the notice that OSHA is beginning the process of rolling back the brilliant standard. Weakening or limiting protections exposed to this deadly metal. For those of you who are familiar with beryllium, it's really an amazing metal. I mean, it's stronger than steel, it's lighter than aluminum but it has very, very toxic properties and extremely low exposures can result in chronic beryllium disease which is a progressive and sometimes fatal lung disease. When I was the energy department, we had cases of chronic beryllium disease after exposures that were miniscule. We had one accountant who was sent from Washington to the Rocky Flats plant where nuclear weapons used to be assembled and he was sent to a building where beryllium had been used previously but had been decommissioned and the beryllium was all gone and he was there to pull some files and after two weeks working there or a few weeks working there, he developed chronic beryllium disease. So if you want proof that this administration doesn't care about the lives of workers, we certainly have that. So let me wrap up here. I want to just talk about one thing. You know, I'm back teaching at George Washington University and my students are all talking about sustainability. You hear a lot about that now. We all want our businesses to respect the earth and to have good values and you go to meetings and firms are very proud that they've reduced their carbon footprint or they recycle water and they're basically issuing these sustainability reports and you go into stores and you see more and more products that people are talking about. The goodness of those products, they're sustainable products and you see the cage-free eggs and the free-range chickens but no one's talking about the workers who slaughter those chickens. Who do that work. Who work on those farms where the eggs are produced. And in many of these cases, these are terrible jobs. And when ocean inspectors go into chicken factories, they just see case after case of workers whose arms and shoulders are destroyed by that work. We had NIOSH went into one poultry processing plant where they found more than 40% of the workers had carbone tunnel syndrome. So we have to change this conversation when we're talking about sustainability and we're talking about these products that people wanna buy and they have a good glow to them. We have to insist that sustainable products that the sustainable movement include worker safety. That we can't be building buildings. There is lead buildings and workers being killed building them. We can't be buying cage-free eggs when the workers who are helping to collect those are being injured. We have to insist that workers get at least as much respect as we respect the chickens. Thank you all so much for being here. Thank you, David. And now our next speaker is Peg Siminario who is the Director of Worker Safety and Health for the AFL-CIO. Peg began her work at the AFL-CIO in 1977, just a few short years after the law was passed. Since then, she has been a tireless fighter for worker rights. She's been a leader for all of us for decades in the field of worker safety and health who seek to prevent deaths and injuries on the job. And she really was the power behind some of the more crucial rights that workers have in the workplace when it comes to health and safety, including probably the most fundamental right and is the right to know the chemicals that we work with in the workplace and what the hazards are, the right to copies of medical records and exposure records. And she really led the battle when OSHA proposed rules for carcinogens and cotton dust and other very toxic chemicals earlier in its tenure. And she led the battle to sort of make sure that those regulations did not disappear during the Reagan administration and the state on and workers benefit from them now. She is also the primary author behind what, as David said, the best annual report on worker safety. And her staff is there, Rebecca. And in the 2016 version of which is being, was issued a few days ago and she has a copy there. The 2017 version, right? The death on the job based on 2016 data. And so now I introduce you Peg Siminerio. Good morning. So nice to see all of you. I know so many of you and many of you I've known for a very, very long time. So thank you all for coming today. So workers Memorial Day. A little bit of background on the day. This is the 29th year that we in the US have observed workers Memorial Day. The first workers Memorial Day was back in 1989. And it actually came from the idea of rank and file union members a couple of years earlier who were at a safety and health conference. And it was during some of the tough times fighting for worker safety thinking there had to be some way to bring more attention to the fact that so many workers were being killed and injured on the job and said, we need a day. And the demand was we need a general strike. Well, we didn't end up with a general strike but the day came about was that it was really important for people to understand just the scope and the scale of the disease and the injury and the death. And when we were thinking about when to hold this day, what to call this day, we found that our colleagues brothers and sisters in Canada and the trade union there had started observing a similar observance a couple of years before and their day was on April 28th. And they had chosen that day because that was the day that their national workers compensation law had been instituted. Well, April 28th here coincidentally so happened to be the day that the Occupational Safety and Health Act went into effect. And so, and that workers actually had the rights that were guaranteed by that law. And so April 28th and started this in, as I said, in 1989. And I think it's also important to note that it's now an international day in dozens and dozens of countries around the world. In some countries it's actually a formal observed holiday, not necessarily time off from work but an observed day. And so I think it's really a testament to the fact that so many people come together on this day but also throughout the year to really focus on these issues. But as David said, most importantly to recommit to make workplaces healthier and safer for working people. So as Debbie said, and David said, so we put out our annual report. This was something that came about in 1992. So not quite as old as workers Memorial Day. And this was one of those ideas here. Well, how can we let people know what's going on here and not go the day. And so my colleague Lynn Reinhart and I were there at the FLCIO, she said, well, let's do a report. And we, first year we had state by state data and nobody had actually ever pulled this information together before. And so, we have done this every year. And while Debbie was very kind to say that I'm the primary author, I'm happy to say that my colleagues, Rebecca Rindell and Eunice Salcedo and our colleague Patricia Baravan have really been the ones, the labor of love for months, pouring over data and pulling it all together. So just a few comments about the state of workers' safety and health. But most importantly, and I think most critically right now, what are we facing? What do we do about it? Because that's really the questions that we have to answer today. And as you've heard, still very, very large numbers of workplace fatalities, 4,800 workers killed in the United States last year. And when you look over time, you see progress. But in recent years, you've really seen sort of a flatlining of the fatality numbers and the fatality rates. And that was the case for this last year. But there's some really disturbing things that are going on when you look at who's impacted. And this has always been the case. There are certain groups of workers that are at much higher risk of injury and death. And this year is no different. And this year, what we saw was while the numbers and the rates stayed about the same overall, that there was a major increase amongst fatalities in Latino workers. And the rate for fatalities for Latino workers went up. But when you look behind it even further, you see that the entire increase amongst Latinos was among immigrant workers. So I think that, which isn't surprising, but the fact that all of it came from amongst immigrant workers, I think is very telling and facing a political environment and an environment with immigration policies and enforcement, targeting individuals in their communities, in their workplaces. I mean, the terror that people feel or the fear they feel always and being in a vulnerable position is now, you know, they're terrorized. And the idea that workers here, if they were gonna speak out before about these hazards, they're certainly not gonna speak out now. And so this is something that I think really is gonna need not only our attention, but engagement and involvement in a community provides support to these individuals who do face the dirty, most dangerous jobs. The other thing we saw was that in as far as industries, the rates went up in construction. And in construction, it's always been high-risk industry, but this year the rates went up. And a lot of that again is amongst Latinos because many of them work in construction. But again, if there's the money coming out in infrastructure, we're gonna see more people working in construction. And obviously the push for production and the safety council just came out with a survey which they were releasing yesterday or today which surveyed workers and found that workers, you know, particularly in construction, felt that their employers really did value production much more than worker safety. And so that's an area here that again we need to not only watch, but get engaged with and make sure that the workers are protected. And job injuries, musculoskeletal disorders still are the biggest source, about one-third of all injuries. And for those of you who have been around for a while, you know that the first standard overturned of the Congressional Review Act, and it was until recently the only one was the ocean ergonomic standard when we went from President Clinton to President Bush. And OSHA has never recovered from that. They will not go forward to do an ergonomic standard. And so essentially all progress in that area, you know, overall, you know, stop we've seen backsliding and poultry and other industries has been, I think a little bit of progress in healthcare, in nursing homes, safe patient handling at a state level, but a huge, huge problem. The biggest cost driver in workers' compensation, and again, it is something that no overall regulation were increased in enforcement in this under David Michaels, but still a huge problem. And amongst women workers, huge problems with workplace violence, which we see continuing to increase, particularly in healthcare, social services, assaults from patients being the number one cause of injuries, serious injuries from workplace violence. So that's some of what is going on in the workplace today. And as Debbie said, we owe a great deal of thanks to David Michaels, Jordan Barabdebi and the whole team at OSHA for the huge amount of work that got done during the Obama administration. And it was hard. I mean, there wasn't quite the support that we had wanted always. From the president and the White House, I think particularly in the midterm of the first term when we had the Republicans take over and essentially for three years, all regulatory activities stopped, but then a lot of activity at the end. And so one of the things we did in this report was to put in one place the major accomplishments of the Obama administration of worker safety. And it is really quite impressive. I mean, it really is amazingly huge amount of work that it took to move these huge initiative, major initiatives and two that I wanna talk about in just for a minute, the silica standard. Silica is a hazard we've known about for thousands of years, known how to control it for 100 years. And finally, a final silica regulation issued in spring of 2016. And it is such a significant standard because not only does it lower the level, but it actually puts in place some very practical control measures that'll be easy to enforce for workers to see if employees are indeed controlling. I mean, are they using what methods? Are they using ventilation? Is there dust? And if they're not, then it's a violation of the law. So I think a very powerful tool that is gonna change practice and really be just revolutionary in the kind of protection that is brought to working people in this country. So I wanna thank David Michaels and thank our colleague Alan White, the steelworkers union, the building trade unions, all who participated to make this reality because it's a monumental victory for working people in this country. And the other regulation that we won was that was particularly important was a rule on injury reporting, of injury information from employers to the government that also included strong anti-retaliation protections for workers who report injuries. And so it makes that a violation of a regulation that can be enforced. Now, I am happy to say that we won that, but I'm also sorry to say that these protections are in danger. They were not in the Congressional Review Act window, but they certainly are a target for the Chamber of Commerce and the NFIB and the construction contractors. You look at their wish list and all these rules are on there. And I would expect to be seeing here as we move forward now that we have a Secretary of Labor that there's gonna be some attempts to do some real damage to these protections. Alex Acosta became Secretary of Labor yesterday and he, unfortunately during his confirmation hearings would not commit to seeing that these standards and these protections were fully implemented and enforced. Because he said he had to review them under this executive order, which Trump issued, which is true. So I think these in the next few weeks, we watch out for that. We look at brilliant what's coming out. That's another target. The other place to be looking here is the budget. We saw the outlines of the budget come out in March. The details will be out in May. And we already know a huge proposed cut in the Labor Department. There's a huge proposed cuts at NIOSH, job research. Elimination of all worker safety and health training at OSHA, right? Because we care about workers. Elimination of the Chemical Safety Board, which investigates chemical accidents. And so what do we do, right? Well, we don't just sit by and make the list and put out the report. We get ourselves organized. But it's important that we educate people because people don't know this is going on. So we need to let them know and we need to put it in terms that they understand and get them engaged, you know, in the fight back. But we also need to get ourselves, you know, the fact of the matter is that, you know, unions aren't as strong as they were, right? We don't have as many members organized. So we've got members, but to all workers, and get people, you know, engaged. Get them politically engaged. Get them engaged in their workplaces. You know, get more workers, you know, under the protections of a collective bargaining agreement into unions. It's going to be a really, really, you know, tough time and a tough slog here. But, you know, the one thing that I have learned is you just don't give up. You keep on going because you have to. And because it is up to us. I mean, it's going to be somebody else that's going to be us working with all of our allies, you know, working with our members, reaching out to unorganized workers to come together to fight back, to make sure, indeed, the promise that was made, you know, those many decades ago of a right to save job may be finally fulfilled. Thank you. Thank you so much, Peg. And as Peg mentioned, you know, the rollbacks have started. We, both EPI and NLPVN op-ed in a piece out there about what's already been repealed in the first hundred days in rollback. But one probably of the most important accomplishments of the last eight years was that OSHA was able to propose and pass new protections for workers exposed to silica dust, which is incredibly deadly. And, you know, it took almost 20 years. OSHA to write standard. Employers knew it was coming. People were getting ready to start implementing the standard. And one of the first actions that the Trump administration did was delayed enforcement of the rule in the construction industry. And according to the government's own data, that means 160 workers will now die because these protections are now in place. So Alan White comes to us from Buffalo, New York. We are very, very grateful that he is here. He has a very powerful message to deliver to you and to all policymakers, including our new secretary of labor, who was just confirmed. So with that, I'm gonna introduce you to Alan. Good morning. My name is Alan White, and I'm honored to be here. And I thank you for your time. I'm 52 years old, and I live and work in Buffalo, New York. I'm also a member of the United Steel Workers, Local Union 593, and last but not least, I have silicosis. About eight years ago, I went to a doctor, and after a series of tests, he told me that I would die from my exposure to silica in my workplace. I worked in a foundry for 16 years. I saw the foundry from a vantage point not seen by visitors, or those who listen to management describe what goes on. We clean up for days before visitors come, and then they leave, and after a few minutes or hours we go back to normal, dirty, filthy, and dusty. The dust settles everywhere, only to get stirred up again by brooms, forklift exhaust, and other things. In my 16 years as a general helper in the foundry, I performed every job in every step of the foundry process, and I was known as a good worker. I worked with or around silica-containing products without knowing the dangers or any precautions to take. We were taught that while cleaning or doing other jobs that if we were overcome by dust or smoke, we should go outside and get some air and then come back in and continue when we felt better. In our safety training, there was always hearing and vision checks, forklift safety, accident provision, and of course slip, trip, and fall classes. Three years after I left the foundry, there was a brief, and I mean brief, class on respirators, and then the next year there was a watered-down discussion of silica. I was in good health. I don't smoke, I don't drink, and I eat organic foods, but then I noticed I was being out of breath sooner than I used to be. It was a big surprise during the conversation with the first doctor when I found out that I have silicosis and that I will lose my job. He and the other doctors all agreed that the diagnosis is silicosis. Watching your wife and other loved ones cry as they figure out what silicosis is and its effects was a big hit. And then shortly afterward, there was a pay cut from a transfer out of the foundry to a job where I knew nothing because I chose my health over money. Let me tell you about my life now. I can pick stuff up, but can't carry it far. Now, walking while talking on a cell phone is very exhaustive, as well as walking upstairs, but we just saw that this morning. Walking upstairs even from my basement to my second floor apartment is difficult. I had increasing difficulty on my current job, so I transferred to another lower-paying job for my health. Also, certain irritants like air fresheners, potpourri, and cleaners, whether at home or in the supermarket, make life increasingly difficult. And I was told that it's downhill from here for both work and home life. The progression of silicosis reduces my physical endurance over time. It's easy to think that there was a stricter OSHA standard for silica in place. When I got hired, I might not be sick. And you're absolutely right. What happened to me is preventable. And with this new OSHA standard, the standard that unbelievably the Trump administration has now delayed enforcing, well, because of this delay, at least 160 workers per year will lose their life or be disabled because of exposure to deadly silica dust. I was at the Department of Labor almost four years ago when OSHA announced a new proposal to protect workers from this terrible disease. This is a bit of what I said then, but what a different ending. Mankind is known that silica is a serious health hazard for thousands of years. Employers know how they can control silica exposure to workers. This is not rocket science. My health will not improve, but there are hundreds of thousands of workers who do not have to suffer the same fate that I do. Workers' lives matter, and Congress and the President should move forward to enforce the silica standard that was passed in 2016 and save lives and prevent illnesses. All my brothers and sisters exposed to silica and foundries and in construction and other industries deserve to know that when they go to work. They don't have to pay for it with their health. Thank you. Thank you. Next, to focus a little bit more on sort of why you need OSHA and that there are workplaces that really do cut corners, and then sort of a difference that union workplaces really make. I have Dr. Sylvia Johnson, who is the Deputy Director of the Legislative Department of the Automobile Workers Union. Some of the legislative issues that she works on in addition to health and safety are healthcare and civil rights. Sylvia, though, has a strong background in worker health and safety. Prior to coming to DC to work on legislation, Sylvia was a member of the United Order Workers' Health and Safety Department because she is an occupational epidemiologist and was there for many years in Detroit, similar to Dr. Michaels. So now I'm gonna introduce to you Sylvia. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, or maybe it's afternoon, still morning. I wanna start by thanking Economic Policy Institute in the National Employment Law Project, NELP, for putting together this event. As Deb said, prior to coming to Washington, I worked as an epidemiologist for the UW. And for me, there were more than one to three occasions where I would have to go out to a plant where a worker had been injured or died on the job. And I can tell you firsthand, it is a very difficult and depressing situation to walk into because often people are panicked and wondering, you know, am I gonna get sick? Is this gonna kill me? What can you tell me? What can you tell me? And often we don't actually know the answer right away and so you have to kind of delve in and figure all of that out. But like I said, I've had more than my share of days where I'd be at my desk and get a call where there were a half dozen workers having respiratory problems or 95 people are sick or two people died. And you know, when duty calls, you go and you do it. So for me, Workers Memorial Day is a day where all of us should recommit ourselves to protecting workers and making sure that when they leave home in the morning, they come back home the same way that they left. And that is near and dear to my heart because like I said too many times, that was not the case. So I wanna talk a little bit about the importance of unions as it relates to worker health and safety and kind of contrast non-union worksites to unionized worksites. And there was an article that appeared in Bloomberg back in March, I believe it was. And the name of the article was Inside Alabama's Auto Jobs Boom. Sheep wages, little training, crushed limbs. The South's manufacturing renaissance comes with a heavy price. And if you haven't read the article, I think it would be good for folks to read it. And one of the things that the article talked about is the price that workers pay in order to simply have a job. I don't know how many of you know about manufacturing in the South, but at one time textile manufacturing was big in the South and it is no more. And so as a result of those textile manufacturing jobs going away, now you have a few automotive jobs and part supplier jobs in Georgia and other places in the South. And so now you've got people who are working these jobs and these are some of the best paying jobs around, but also some of the most dangerous jobs around. People get their limbs crushed, they have other types of musculoskeletal diseases and respiratory diseases and all the rest. And so this is, you would think that, well, we've created this manufacturing boom in an era where it got decimated by textile, but I think that in fairness to the workers that we owe it to them for them to be able to have good and safe working conditions. And interestingly enough, even though this manufacturing is happening in the South, there is still this race to the bottom because these workers are competing with low wage workers in places like Mexico and so forth. And they have these very demanding schedules and deadlines that can't possibly be met. And so they're rushing and trying to get the work done so the company doesn't get fined or they don't lose their job because minors, they don't even have permanent job status. And so they're fearful about their job safety or the job security rather. And they're doing what they can do. And oftentimes when you are under that kind of pressure, you're more prone to have an adverse event happen. And so I was struck by one of the people in the article who talked about how he had worked at a plant in Alabama. And then he felt like it was too big a price to pay in terms of the working conditions. And so he got a job at a GM facility in Spring Hill, Tennessee which coincidentally is a UAW facility. And he joined the union and he actually was quoted in the article talking about how as a result of moving from Alabama to the GM plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee that he was taught the right way about safety. And that is one of the things that I think that as a labor movement, we do well. And Peg talked about how our density is declining and that is indeed true. But even with our density declining, as she pointed out, we have an obligation to educate all workers about the dangers of the job and that it doesn't have to be that way because there are things that can be done to protect people on the job. And if you look at the BLS or Bureau of Labor and Statistics data, these workers down in Alabama, they make about 70 cents for every dollar earned by an auto parts worker in Michigan. So that brings me to my next point. Unions matter and they make a big difference. Most of the work sites in the South are non-union and there are sufficient data to show that unionized workplaces are safer than non-union workforces or non-union work sites. And even though the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed and hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved, it's not in our best interest to move backwards. And I don't think that, I think I'm probably preaching to the choir with this group. But the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA is one of the most well-regarded federal agencies out there. I saw some data a few years ago where people were asked their opinions about various federal agencies and OSHA was one of the most regarded. And I think that OSHA has earned the reputation of being a federal agency where workers feel like they can turn to in their time of need if there is an issue at work. And we, again, we need to keep that going. OSHA needs to remain strong. It doesn't need to be rolling back protections for workers. It needs to be able and equipped to do even more. And, you know, in cases where a worker's employer is slow to do anything about an issue, workers feel like they can rely on OSHA. But again, I think as David pointed out, OSHA does not have enough inspectors to inspect all workplaces. And so for workers who are employed in a non-union facility, that makes the need for OSHA even bigger. And unionized workers have collective bargaining agreements and the power of collectively bargained contracts to protect them. And, you know, internally at the UAW, I've seen how we've been able to negotiate internal standards that are even more protective than OSHA. Case in point, the OSHA standard for a chemical or a group of chemicals that we use in automotive industry called metalworking fluids is five micrograms per milliliter. And through our own internal research, we found that workers were getting sick at levels lower than that. And we sued OSHA and lost. But as a result of that, we used collective bargaining. It's like, okay, well, OSHA is not able to lower the standard. This was during the Bush years. And so we negotiated our own internal standards. So our workers are more protected because of collective bargaining. And that's the power of having the union on your side. And it's not about trying to bankrupt a company or in any way harm a company, but it's about keeping workers safe. And we believe that workers in America should go to work every day with full confidence that when they come home, they will be intact and like they were before they left going to work. So the moral of the story is that unions matter in creating a safety culture because nowhere in America has that been more visible than in Michigan and in Ohio. And there's no doubt that the union has been at the forefront of making the auto industry safer and I say that because in the 1970s and early 80s, the UAW along with Chrysler, Ford, and just developed what were called joint programs. And within the joint programs, health and safety was a big issue. And so basically you have a person from the union and a person from management working together, identifying and ameliorating health and safety issues on the job. I had talked about the ergonomic standard that went south when President Clinton left office and President Bush signed an executive order to eliminate the OSHA stand. The ergonomic standard that people had worked on, scientists had worked on for many, many years. Well, after that happened through the joint programs, we were able to develop ergonomics committees with labor and management. And so we have our own internal ergonomics teams that go out and assess work sites or workplaces and work, excuse me, work stations to make sure that they are ergonomically sound. And so again, this is yet another example of why unions matter. And without the union, OSHA can't keep up on its own with all of the bad things that happen to workers. And so this is the case for workers in Alabama, Georgia and any other low-wage non-union state. And so I just want to wrap up by saying that we have to be vigilant, we have to hold Congress accountable because a few weeks ago, Congress passed a piece of legislation that killed a rule that requires companies to hold on to their safety data in logs five years. And so now that has been reduced to six months and you might wonder, well, what's the big deal? Well, the big deal is now you don't have the ability to really observe trends and see what might be causing an injury or what might be causing an illness. And so we're moving backwards. And there has been so much progress made since the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed in 1970, and for us to now be almost 50 years later and we want to move backwards. That seems unfair to workers. It seems unwise for companies because at the end of the day, it is your workers who are the ones who are making your products great and if they are not well, they can't make a good product for you. So, and the other thing that this will do is it really hamstrings researchers in terms of putting out solid data and solid science. And that's a problem because it is research that drives how we make policy decisions and how we make decisions about even engineering decisions in a workplace and what needs to be done. So as advocates for working people and in honor of those who lost their lives at work, we owe it to them to keep up the good fight. And today is a day for all of us to recommit ourselves to those brave souls who gave their lives trying simply to support themselves and their families. Again, thank you for the opportunity to participate and I'm happy to answer any question. All right, so as Sylvia mentioned, Congress did roll back and the president signed the rule that requires companies to keep accurate injury records but also is now allowing companies that do contract with the government to do work, allowing them now to steal wages and have unsafe workplaces. So those were two big losses. So our next speaker, Ross Eisenbray, is an EPI's vice president. And there are a whole lot of legends on this panel right now. And Ross is definitely one of them. For almost 40 years, you know, Ross has really made such a difference to all workers in not just health and safety, but in many, many different areas. I think I met Ross way back when he was working on the house for a representative Ford where he helped pass critical labor protections for agriculture and migrant workers, a minimum wage increase. Hello, that was a way back when and the family and medical leave act. And then in the mid 1990s, he worked for the wonderful Ted Kennedy before. And then he worked also for the Department of Labor and OSHA, and then he came over to the Economic Policy Institute. And during his time here at EPI, he has really been involved in many, many successful policy initiatives and many, many, much of the fight back to improve working conditions. Most recently, he was really involved in the DOL's rule on overtime protections to ensure working people have the right to receive the overtime pay they deserve. And so with that, I introduce the wonderful Ross Eisenbrink. So yes, we should mention the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order. This is one other thing that the Trump administration and Congress have overturned. It was a rule that said we will not give government contracts to companies that repeatedly violate wage and hour laws and safety and health laws among others. And that was overturned. And now those companies can expect to get contracts no matter what their record is. And it's a terrible thing. So I'd like to just put a little perspective on this. David mentioned this, but OSHA has made a huge difference. What we're talking about in protecting the agency and its abilities to set standards and enforce those standards is really important. The two years before the act in 1970, 14,000 people a year were killed on the job. That was in those two years, more than were killed in the Vietnam War in 68 and 69. In 2015 with a workforce twice the size, 4,836 Americans were killed on the job, which means that they're five times less likely. A worker is five times less likely today than back then to be killed on the job. This is an enormous improvement. And obviously we have a long way to go when 5,000 people are still being killed. But the number of lives saved over that period of time as a result of OSHA and the work that the AFL-CIO and others have done would fill a city, a medium-sized city, 500,000 people's lives saved. So how did they accomplish this? It's a combination of education, standard setting, compliance assistance to businesses that really wanna do better. And then enforcement, including fines. And I wanna do what others have done in salute, Peg, for her leadership over all of these years. It's really been remarkable. She's been a really passionate advocate for bigger budgets, for more enforcement staff, for the education grants that Trump administration says it's going to eliminate, and for stronger penalties, including criminal penalties for companies that willfully violate the act and lead to the injury or illness of a worker. And they have advocated for better budgets. The Trump budget will cut the Labor Department, the preliminary budget by 21%. And when you hear that OSHA already has one inspector for every 160 workplaces, I mean, yeah, one, one, four, help me. They can inspect you. One, yes, one out of 160 workplaces can be inspected in a year with the staff they have. So a cut is gonna be disastrous. And David touched on this, but OSHA inspections are not bad for businesses. The Chamber of Commerce hates them. The organized business lobby in Washington hates them. But the evidence is that they lead to, unsurprisingly, reduced injuries in the companies that are inspected. 9% lower injuries, injury rate, and they lower medical expenses by 26%, which in each case averages $350,000. So add that up for the whole country. You have $20 billion that you save because of OSHA inspections. This is a win for everybody. But when he was asked by, I think by Senator Warren, whose staff is here in the nomination hearing, the secretary, now secretary, said he couldn't commit. He wouldn't guarantee that they wouldn't cut the budget for OSHA enforcement. So the other big force for improvement in addition to the labor movement and OSHA had been the families of people who have been killed. And there are a lot of them. And we have several of them here today. We have several families and a couple of them will speak to us. I'm going to call the name of the loved one of the families who are here. And before I call up two of them to survivors to speak. So when I do, please stand and be recognized. One was Mr. Richard Brady, who died in 2008, the age of 35 when he was struck by a vehicle while working for Stavola Contracting in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Sherry Sanji, I don't see her sister. She had to leave. Her sister was killed at age 23 in a laboratory explosion at the University of California. Sean Boone, here's a picture of the weekend. Sean Boone, he died at the age of 33, also very young, killed in an aluminum dust explosion while working in Huntington, Indiana. And then five people who will talk on the job injury. First, Ms. Angel Sharon Brock, whose husband, Russell, was killed when he got caught inside an injection molding Nana Mann, whose husband, Russell, was killed in a boiler explosion in Winwood, Oklahoma. Let's start with, nope. So this is a photo of my husband, Russell Sharon Brock. He was 34 when he was killed. I have to bring up my notes, I'm sorry. He worked for a plastic injection company in Grenfords, Michigan. He was a process technician. He worked his way from the bottom. He started as a assembly operator. Worked his way to a team leader, a trainer. He was everything in the company. He was known as a great employee. On June 27th, Russ was called in to work early, which was quite typical for him. He was the only person that would actually go in when called and did his job. He left that morning after working 16 hours the night before. He was home for seven hours. He got a phone call to come in. He kissed our children goodbye and he left for work. At 2.44 that day, he called to let us know that he would be home early. He was gonna be home to spend time with his kids to go swimming and to just enjoy the weekend because he had already worked 70 hours that week. At 4.44, exactly two hours after the phone call, Russ was crushed inside a 1500 ton press because someone cycled the machine not knowing he was in there. The person that cycled the machine was a trainee that was training to be a process technician. They had no reason over there by themselves cycling a machine. Russ was sent over by his supervisor to maintenance a machine that needed, I don't even know if we remember exactly what it was we haven't gotten the answer, but either way, he was working on a machine and a supervisor demanded him to go over there, the trainee to go over there and start the machine and the trainee walked over it and started this machine and had no knowledge that my husband was in there. He had no knowledge because the company did not enforce proper protective equipment to their employees. No lockout tag outs were issued to a single employee to do their job properly and safe. Industry of this company, OSHA had inspected them dozens of times. They had over 50 violations within a period of five years. They were citated 30 days prior to my husband's death for not enforcing lockout tag outs and not issuing them to their employees. And 30 days after this, my husband was killed because lockout tag outs were not used. The general industry safety and health division conducted three inspections of Grand Rapids Plastics. The first investigation was of the fatality on June 27th. They were advised an employee was crushed to death inside a horizontal injection molding machine because the employer did not enforce the use of lockout tag out on the machine prior to employee entry. The mode cavity is where Russell was working. The machine was left in automatic mode while the employee was inside and another employee cycled the machine. The inspection initiated on June 30th was a comprehensive companion inspection of all five buildings at the site. It was open because my OSHA discovered a pattern of employees entering machines while the machines were still energized and many other serious safety hazards were observed. The third inspection was a complaint inspection opened on September 3rd. The complaint alleged the employer wasn't requiring pedestrians to use designated walkways. Two of the three inspections met the criteria for inclusion a severe via enforce program. And I think is wise to note that the company was already on this program. The company had already been incited so many times that they were in the program. The fatality inspection had at least one willful violation based on a serious violation related to the death of the employee. The comprehensive companion inspection has two or more willful violations also based on high gravity serious violations related to the high emphasis hazard of amputations. As a result of these three inspections a total of 32 serious citations and nine willful serious citations and 14 other than serious citations were being issued as a result of my husband's death. This does not include the prior 50 violations that they had within a handful of years. Grand Rapids Plastics encouraged employees to act in accordance with putting more importance on the desire for profit over the safety of employees. Intentional acts and omissions by the company led to my husband's death. Now three years out from his death and we came to DC this week with Tammy Meiser with United Support Memorial for Workplace Fatalities to try and protect our workers and protect OSHA and keep this funding because we don't need more families like us that have their loved one go to work whether it be their husband, their brother, their father or their son and nephew in any case going to work should never be a great mistake. Thank you all for letting us be here today. It really is an honor. It is really part of the grieving process where you can tell your story and you feel like people are listening. Me and my husband had been together since we were 16 years old and this year, this month, we would have celebrated our 32nd anniversary and he would have turned 50 this month. When he was 40, he had been accidentally four years at the Winnie Wood Refining Company out of Sugarland, Texas for years that had been violated and served with violations in 1907, 1908 and 1909. They chose to not fix those problems. Part of the problem was that the Corps of Engineers had told them that they, on this steam boiler that was from approximately 1959 and it was so archaic that it had never been updated happened. So what they did was the recommendation of the Corps of Engineers had suggested that they come in with a new line and of the valve, but what they did essentially instead of paint below the valve, all the dirty gas settled in that line and they never could get gas to go through that line so they capped it off and went back to the original archaic plan on that valve. So with that, what they did was my husband's worker, Billy Smith, who was killed instantly, he was doing a cowboy stance in front of a sight glass looking for the ignition for the flame. My husband was approximately 20 feet from him on that very valve to one another. And both of Billy and my husband had to look at the supervisor and because it's the refinery and it's very loud, they couldn't hear one another. Of course, they've got ear protection on and the supervisor is giving sign language for what each one of them had to do, up with the gas, down with the gas, try to light the igniter, let's see what we can do. And in the process, there is what is called a control tower away from this steam boiler and the men, there are two men in that control room, the company inconveniently decides that they need to do something else. And because the $5 valve pressure gauge right beside it, or not valve, but pressure gauge right beside where my husband's working, my husband can't tell how much gas is going in there because they won't replace the pressure gauge. So they have to radio up to the board room to find out what they need and to be told what to do. So it's these two guys up here telling the supervisor that's giving sign language to the two men that are running the flame and the gas. So that is archaic. That is what you call a grandfather clause. And I will never support a grandfather clause for anything. So what happened was, was because they were not able to watch the board, they could not tell the supervisor, the supervisor could not tell the men what to do. So when they realized, the men on the ground realized, okay, hey, we've got a problem, we are flooding. My husband was told to turn the gas off. Well, as he is closing that line, the oxygen, the flame and the gas are in perfect numbers for it to explode and it exploded. So as Billy is down and looking in that sight glass, a the 500 pound plate that secures that boiler detaches and falls on top of him, killing him instantly. With my husband's back to Billy, the cinder blocks, the metal, everything that blew from that hit my husband. He was in the hospital for 18 days in OU Medical Center and he never made it out. So my question always was, how can a company that had been cited for so many severe violations? Obviously the company did not have the men on the grounds best interest at heart and their family because if they would have, they would have fixed the problem by what the Corps of Engineers wanted them to do. OSHA had already cited them and asked them, recommended to them that they replace the boiler. Well, after they destroy two men's lives, they come in with a new boiler and that has a boiler management system on it that you can remotely start from 40, 50 yards away, depending on how they set that up. So those men or women will not be injured. That boiler system, because I have my ways, costs the company $150,000 for a new boiler and boiler system. So in essence, my husband and Billy Smith were worth $75,000. Do you know what I would have done? If I would have known, me and Carrie both would have said, you know what, let's finance $75,000 each and we'll keep our family. I'd have put a note on it. I'd have sold everything I own to keep this man. Our children had, our last son had moved out six months prior and it was mom and daddy time. We were looking forward to, we had almost all of our debt paid off. We were fixing to get an RV and start traveling. We were in the prime of our life. We had raised our kids, college. We started getting grand babies. We had two granddaughters whenever he was killed. Now I have five grandchildren, four girls and a boy. Three of them he will never see. He will never get to see milestones. He'll never get to see any of our grandchildren graduate or marry or have their children. I was asked one time, are you a crusader? No, I'm not a crusader. I'm compassionate because what we have went through, we don't want anybody else to go through. So we want OSHA funded. We don't want that cut and we will do, I'm speaking for family here, for Danielle and Kent and Jeff and Tammy. We say whatever we can do, please let us know. We are willing, we will be an advocate and I promise we will be compassionate because of our lives being destroyed and now we are left to rebuild and get a new normal. And I appreciate the statistics. I appreciate you guys doing your jobs. I appreciate what you do every day. I appreciate that. But just like Alan, Alan, before you got sick, what was your life? It was beautiful. Mine too. But because companies decide to cut corners, they don't suffer. They get a slap on the hand and they go on and keep doing the same thing. We, on the other hand, pick up the pieces as they are scattered everywhere. Thank you for letting me be here today. So we have a little time for questions for, and we have people with microphones, I believe. Margaret and Liz, each have a microphone. So if you have a question for any of the families or any of the panelists, please just say your name and try and keep your question brief. We have a question from Dan Esrow, an EPI staffer. Hello, thank you everyone for sharing your work and your stories. One question I have about the silica rule. What does the silica rule actually require? What is the mechanism by which it improves the situation? Is the resistance to it purely about costifying respirators or whatever it is, or is it about work or power or both? Yeah, I think I can respond to the silica rule. Actually, it's a rule that lowers the allowable exposure level and also requires employers to provide certain other protections if there is exposure, essentially, and that includes medical monitoring and regular industrial hygiene monitoring as well. But what's unusual about this rule is it essentially, it has a lot of ways construction employers can meet the rule. Most of the workers covered, most of the employers covered are in construction, the exposures in construction are really very widespread. Anytime you take a really a power tool to silica containing building material, you release silica and that could be done using a saw or using a jackhammer. But we know so much about what the exposure levels are that we know that if employers follow certain pretty straightforward guidelines, they won't over expose their workers. So it is straightforward and I think the opposition to it is this visceral instinctive opposition that primarily trade associations have to every OSHA rule. When OSHA issues a rule, and this is true, whatever the rule is, and this goes back to the 1970s, employers always say it's medically unnecessary, it's technologically infeasible and it will kill thousands, if not millions of jobs. And that's always the response. And then when the rule goes into effect, employers see that they can meet the rule and it's even forgotten that the reason they're doing it is because of an OSHA rule. The best example is the OSHA bloodborne pathogen standard that OSHA issued at the height of the AIDS epidemic to protect primarily healthcare workers, but other workers as well from HIV and hepatitis B and other exposures. And the rule requires things like hospital rooms to have sharps containers. And no one remembers that OSHA, the reason they have those is because of them. But when the rule was coming out, many people in the healthcare industry said, we can't really meet this rule, it'll be impossible. Dentists testified that they wouldn't be able to practice dentistry if they had to wear gloves or masks, I mean, it's really, they made them do it. And what we're already seeing in terms of the construction industry, if you go to the big trade association meetings, safe, not expensive, and the transition is already occurring. And even though the big trade associations and the chamber commerce have taken OSHA to the court, the changes already take already meeting that standard. And I think that's what we'll see in Silicon and we'll see that in other standards as well. Good afternoon, I'm Marcy Goldstein-Gill, the executive director of National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, and I too lost a relative to a workplace occupational illness. And as many of you have said, this is the one time of year where we come together and really low light, not highlight, the toll of these fatalities. But what would be valuable is to know how we can move forward together to continue to shine a spotlight and tell these stories. And I'm wondering with some of these rollbacks, what might be some upcoming sort of opportunities to share these stories with the administration as they delay some of these rules? Well, unfortunately, we may have more opportunities than we want. I mean, one of the difficulties that we have faced in the first 99 days is sort of a fast and furious, shock and awe of the Trump administration of throwing out a lot of stuff. From now on, the rollbacks of rules will have to go through a process. I mean, it's a God awful long process here, but it is a process and it's a public process. And so one of the things that I think we need to do here is a couple of things. As soon as these things come out, is call them out on it and get that information out as quickly and loudly and as widely as we can and not be shy or subtle about it. And then also as the forums for having these coming together and demand hearings, which we can have, yes, we're here, you can get one under OSHA, bring people in, but also do that in a way that's not just at the Labor Department, but it takes it to the Congress as well and with folks up there. And it's got to be with the people who are impacted and affected. We do this regularly ourselves as spokespeople and representatives, but people have some response to us, but really it's the people that are impacted that are gonna make the difference. So thank you for coming today and thank you for all the work that you folks did educating people on the Hill. It makes a huge difference. I think it's the only way that we're gonna stop the onslaught from moving forward. And let me add that the budget is gonna be an opportunity to make a difference. If I wouldn't wait for the appropriations hearings, I would go to the Secretary of Labor right now in his first day and say, you cannot let this happen. We don't have enough now. You can't let the Trump administration and the Congress cut the budget for OSHA. We need the worker safety grants. They can't be eliminated. We need enforcement. We need more enforcement, not less. That's what these families have told us. It's absolutely true. Okay. Hello, I'm Jane Nicholson. And I'm here today in part because my husband was murdered on the job. So seven people lost their lives that day at the University of Iowa. It was an event very similar to what happened at Virginia Tech. My concern is that as I listen to all of the policy details, is that the human factor comes up over and over again. And yet it's not sufficiently addressed whatsoever. A culture of safety was mentioned by Dr. Johnson. And I think that is really crucial to respect one another and to actually have accountability teams, sharing of stories at work sites as often as possible. And so I think something like internal negotiations become very important, but they're very labor intensive because we don't have something that's more global. I personally left my position at a university where I taught the area I'm trained in, comparative literature. And I now work in an area called restorative justice. And I'm very concerned about all justice issues. It's something that is concerned with criminal justice, so violations, but also with community justice. And I quickly find myself involved in community building. So when I look at this and I say because my loved one died at work, I would like his legacy to be human, fully human. He was the most considerate person I knew and did basic physics research. But how do I value him? I don't value his life more than any other life lost. I don't. I cannot bring myself to do that. And I was asked over and over again. Oh, he's a theoretical physicist. And I said he was my husband, was a son and an uncle, and beloved of his students and a helper of two strangers. The safety culture is a human culture. Thank you. So with that, we'll close today's program. Thank you all for coming and let me just ask you all once more to thank the families and people who spoke about their loss.