CWAers Join in Blitz of Health and Safety Activisim

To mark Workers Memorial Day on Saturday, April 28, CWA and other unions have spent the week honoring fallen workers and raising awareness about the startling toll of deaths and injuries on the job. Nationwide, 5,734 workers died in 2005, according to the latest AFL-CIO workplace fatality report.

Among the CWA locals that organized activities and vigils, Local 6301 in Springfield, Mo., continued its 10-year tradition of distributing trees to members at the Wentzville Verizon center to plant in honor of workers killed and injured on the job.

At a Capitol Hill hearing, workers, labor leaders and health and safety experts blasted the Bush administration for wiping out many Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations, including killing the ergonomics rule as its first order of business in 2001.

"The people at OSHA have no interest in running a regulatory agency," Dr. David Michaels, an occupational health and safety expert at George Washington University in Washington, D.C, said, quoted in the New York Times. "If they ever knew how to issue regulations, they've forgotten. The concern about protecting workers has gone out the window."