April 28th is an international day of remembrance: Workers’ Memorial Day, a day to stop and take a moment for those who have lost their lives while working.
As the Legislature in Ohio prepares to introduce further reform limiting the rights of injured workers based on national efforts to put profits over people, it also is important to stop and make ourselves aware of the devastation created by these changes.
Just recently in West, Texas, an explosion at a fertilizer plant claimed the lives of 15 people and injured at least another 200. Texas, a state that has often embraced the idea of “reforming” workers’ compensation laws, allows employers such as the one at issue to opt out of mandatory workers’ compensation coverage for employees. The result has left hundreds of families without an avenue to cover the losses for what was likely a preventable disaster.
Workers’ compensation laws were started in America over 100 years ago. While no employer enjoys another expense on the balance sheet, the system is the result of a great compromise: A compromise that left workers’ with basic protection of medical benefits, wage replacement and minimum recovery, in exchange for employers having less exposure and eliminating lawsuits for injuries that were seemingly unpreventable.
If we are a country that respects life and places value on families, we have to continue to protect the lives of those who walk out the front door to work every day in an effort to make life better for their family. In 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, 4,693 of those same workers did not get to walk back in through that same door.
“Every day in America, 13 people go to work and never come home. Every year in America, nearly four million people suffer a workplace injury from which some may never recover. These are preventable tragedies that disable our workers, devastate our families, and damage our economy. American workers are not looking for a handout or a free lunch. They are looking for a good day’s pay for a hard day’s work. They just want to go to work, provide for their families, and get home in one piece.”
– U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, Workers’ Memorial Day speech, April 26, 2011
