International Workers Memorial Day Honors Workers Who Died From Workplace Incidents

This Saturday, April 28, is International Workers Memorial Day 2023—a time to honor, remember, and recognize the workers who have lost their lives due to a work-related accident, illness, or disease, as well as those they left behind.

On the same date in 1970, the United States observed the first Workers Memorial Day, at a time when an estimated 38 people died on the job in the nation each day. Today, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), work-related injuries claim the lives of approximately 14 people daily—one life lost every 101 minutes. This year, families, friends, and coworkers will gather on at events across America to honor these workers mortally affected by workplace incidents.

“On Workers Memorial Day, as we remember the people whose jobs claimed their lives, we must recognize that behind these numbers, there are people who mourn each loss. For them, these statistics are loved ones: they’re parents, children, siblings, relatives, friends, or co-workers,” said Doug Parker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. “On this day of remembrance, we should reflect on what might have prevented their loss and recommit ourselves to doing all we can—and all that can be done—to safeguard workers and to fulfill our moral obligation and duty as a nation to protect America’s workers.”

Parker and Christopher Williamson, assistant secretary for the DOL’s Mine Safety and Health Administration, will host a national Workers Memorial Day ceremony via an online broadcast from the department’s Washington, D.C., headquarters on Thursday, April 27, at 1 p.m. ET. They will be joined by AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler and United Support & Memorial for Workplace Fatalities (USMWF) vice president Wanda Engracia, whose husband, Pablo Morillo, was one of three workers killed in a 2005 industrial explosion in New Jersey.

“On Workers Memorial Day, we come together to remember those workers we have lost, including those who suffered toxic exposures at work that led to fatal illnesses which were entirely preventable,” said Williamson. “Repeated and prolonged exposures to unsafe levels of coal dust, silica, and diesel exhaust can slowly strip a miner of their livelihood and dignity, and eventually their life. We must honor their loss by doing all we can to protect the health and safety of our nation’s miners.”