Working Together: We Just Come to Work Here

"Working at this job is dirty and dangerous and I'm taking risks anyway. Oh, if I had the time and the proper equipment I could do the job safely each day. Everybody here says they're sticklers for safety, And I'm not here to say that they lie. I'm saying we just come to work here, We don't come to die."

This classic song, written by Oregon longshoreman Harry Stamper and sung with updated lyrics by songwriter Anne Feeney, says it all: we just come to work here, we don't come to die.

Sadly, that's still not the reality for workers in the United States. Everyday, 16 workers in the United States go to work and don't come home. Everyday, 16 workers in the United States are killed on the job.

When the Occupational Safety and Health Act was enacted in 1970, it was a huge step forward in providing workers with a safe and healthy workplace. Workers finally had the legal right to a safe and healthy workplace, to report unsafe working conditions, and to request and receive information related to their health and safety.

The OSHA law opened the door to more safety and health protections — regulating dangerous chemicals, safety standards for health care workers, and a "right to know" about hazardous substances, among other gains.

But we still have a long way to go. Despite more than 20 years of work by CWA and other unions for an ergonomics standard to help prevent crippling workplace injuries, workers continue to suffer repetitive strain injuries and illnesses at an alarming rate. In the final 30 days of the Clinton administration, an ergonomics standard was put in place. Just a few weeks later, that rule was thrown out by the Bush administration. And when the government refused to collect data on ergonomic illnesses and recognize the real toll of these injuries across every sector, many employers cut back their programs too.

Under the Obama administration, the Department of Labor and OSHA are back to enforcing the law that promises a safe and healthy workplace.

That's not good enough. We need to improve the law, to cover workers and workplaces that now are excluded from OSHA protections: public workers, flight attendants and others. We need to prevent illnesses and injuries, not levy fines after the fact, after a worker has been injured, made sick or killed. We need penalties and criminal prosecution that are a real deterrent to employers' willful violations.

Not surprising, our brothers and sisters in Canada have more extensive job safety and health protections, just like they have stronger collective bargaining rights and a health care system that works for everyone.

In the United States, we have a lot of work to do to catch up. CWA will work for real improvements in OSHA that are included in the Protecting America's Workers Act, H.R. 2067 and S. 1580.

But it's the work we do together that moves us closer to the safe and healthy workplaces that American workers have a right to by law, and deserve. This issue of the CWA News is filled with examples of how CWAers in all sectors of our union are making our workplaces safer and healthier.

In upstate New York, for example, CWA members used the CWA Triangle to put in place a new workplace standard for lifting patients within the Kaleida Health system and are working to extend that new standard for health care workers across New York State.

CWAers in California are determined to win new lab safety policies and training to prevent worker injuries and death.

These actions and the real results we're achieving are what will help make sure that everyone comes home after a day on the job.