Workers’ Memorial Day Reminds Us To Fight For Safe Workplaces

Each year on April 28th, labor unions celebrate Workers’ Memorial Day. The holiday was created in remembrance of the  hundreds of thousands of workers who are killed and injured in the workplace each year. In spite of this holiday and government bureaucracies like OSHA within the United States, the working class is still subject to deplorable working conditions that can ultimately send us to the hospital or even to the morgue. Delivery drivers have had one of the ten deadliest jobs in the US for two decades now and line cooks have become the most susceptible workers to death from coronavirus since the pandemic began. Despite the rapid growth and profitability of the food service and delivery industry, we see yet another example of how that wealth has been hoarded at the expense of workers' bodies and lives. 

Why is this?

To put it simply, laws don’t make bad things go away. After all, robbery and murder are illegal, yet they are daily occurances. Wage theft is illegal, yet it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. The same logic applies to health and safety laws. The penalties for subjecting workers to unsafe working conditions are typically fines. Sometimes fines can act as a deterrent, but only inasmuch as they would actually prevent the workplace from functioning. In reality, fines merely help put price tags on our bodies and lives. If the fines from severing a limb or ending a life are cheaper than improving the workplace, then the employer is probably going to risk the fine and keep business as usual. Ultimately, our power as workers doesn’t lie in our ability to call the regulators;it’s in our ability to make business as usual more costly for the employer. We make this happen through direct action on the job.

What does direct action look like?

Direct actions can take all sorts of forms, but generally speaking it usually entails workers disrupting workflow or solving workplace issues directly,  without the involvement of third parties like inspectors or representatives . A common direct action tactic is a walkout, where workers simply stop what they are doing and leave the workplace until management fixes the problem. Members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union at Ellen’s Stardust Diner in New York City used this tactic to address issues with the heat and carbon monoxide leaks at their workplace. They brought their demands to management and when the problem wasn’t solved, the workers walked off the job until it was safe to come back. Another example comes from a group of IWW baristas at Starbucks. The shop didn’t have air conditioning and it was getting hot. The workers asked the manager to buy a fan but he said it would be too expensive, so the workers walked off the job and left him there by himself to deal with the long lines of angry customers in the sweltering heat. When they returned, they had a fan which they had bought with their union dues, which had “Courtesy of the IWW '' written on it. The last thing the company wanted was for the union to appear more competent than they were, so Starbucks had fans brought in immediately and installed air conditioning as soon as possible. 

“Mourn the dead; fight like hell for the living!”

Mother Jones famously said “Mourn the dead; fight like hell for the living!” As the 2022 Workers’ Memorial Day approaches, let’s keep our martyrs in our hearts and minds, but let’s also remember that we possess the collective power to bring forth a new world from the shell of the old. Let’s put that power into action!

Historical Events and Holidays:

April 1      -    New York City Brewery Strike (1949)

April 2    -    30,000 Las Vegas workers strike at 50 hotels and casinos (1984)

April 6    -     IWW members picket at Chicago Liquors in Minnesota (2013)

April 14    -    Bussa’s Rebellion (1816)

April 21    -    Waiters strike in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia (1853)

April 21    -    Sip-In at Juluis’s Bar (1966)

April 22   -    “Occupy the Farm” begins (2012)

April 27   -    Great Mustache Strike (1907)

April 28   -    Workers’ Memorial Day 

April 29   -    Arby’s workers strike for pay, PPE (2020)