[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 63 (Tuesday, May 7, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S3153]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          WORKERS MEMORIAL DAY

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, this past week we observed in this 
country Workers Memorial Day--when we pause and remember those 
Americans who lost their lives on the job.
  For generations hard-working people have left their homes every 
morning or for second or third shift to earn an honest living, to 
provide for loved ones, to put food on the table. For generations too 
many would leave for their jobs but return home from work injured or in 
far too many cases not return home at all; they died operating heavy 
machinery on late-night shifts; they died working in coal mines; they 
died building roads and bridges; they died in far too many cases from 
lack of basic fire safety, ventilation systems, and lighting.
  I have shared with my colleagues before that over the years many 
times I will wear a depiction of a canary in a bird cage on my lapel 
that reminds me why we honor these workers and why honoring these 
workers' lives matters. One hundred years ago, a mine worker took the 
canary down in the mine in a cage. If the canary died from toxic gas or 
lack of oxygen, the mine worker quickly left the mine, understanding 
that he had no union strong enough to protect him nor a government that 
cared enough to protect him.
  In those days 100 years ago, when they took the canary in the mine, 
the life expectancy for a child born in this country was only 45 or 46 
years. Today we live three decades longer because we understand 
everything from Medicare, to civil rights, to Social Security, to 
workers' compensation, to minimum wage, to prohibition, to child labor, 
to auto safety, to safe drinking water and clean air laws.
  This pin symbolizes people who work hard and play by the rules. We 
have taken significant steps in this country to keep American workers 
safe and to provide them with fair wages and benefits. We know more 
work needs to be done.
  Since the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards 
Act were enacted into law in the 1930s, workers in this country were 
guaranteed the right to form a union and bargain collectively. They 
benefited from a minimum wage and from overtime pay.
  Today we see vicious attacks on unions and collective bargaining from 
State legislatures at the behest of their corporate and far-right 
benefactors. We see obstructionists in this body who block even the 
most reasonable and clearly necessary nominations to the National Labor 
Relations Board.
  Yes, there is more work to be done. Even as OSHA--the Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration--works to ensure safe working 
conditions, job fatality rates have not changed in the last few years. 
More than 4,600 workers--think about that: 4,600 workers--were killed 
on the job in 2011. That is more than 10 a day. And 4,600 American 
workers went to work and didn't come home that night. About 50,000 more 
died from occupational disease. That is almost 1,000 a week who died 
because of exposure to chemicals or something that happened to them in 
the workplace.
  Given the progress we have made over the last several decades, 
nonetheless, Americans live longer and enjoy a better quality of life, 
but there is more work to be done because too many are still denied 
fair wages and benefits, and, equally important, too many are still at 
serious risk of injury or death on the job.
  Just days ago, on May 4, two workers in Ohio were killed when part of 
a crane fell on them at a steel mill construction site in Stark County, 
OH, in Perry Township. Brian Black, Mark Tovissi, and their families 
and all the workers of the Faircrest plant deserve better and deserve 
answers.
  So too do workers in McLennan County, TX, where a fertilizer plant 
exploded recently and was a major story in the national news. That 
facility in West, TX, had not had a health and safety inspection since 
1985. This disaster shows the tragic consequences of not conducting 
regular workplace inspections.
  Fewer American miners died or were injured in 2012 than ever before, 
but in the first 3 months of 2013, 11 miners were killed in accidents 
that the Mine Safety and Health Administration called ``preventable.''
  Stephen Koff, a reporter at the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, documented 
some of the problems the government has faced--the agency in charge of 
protecting miners' safety--the problems they have in levying fines 
against coal mine owners who have violated public safety rules. Yet, in 
an interconnected, globalized society, we can't turn away from these 
workplace disasters--not just in our country but overseas. The struggle 
to ensure that workers are treated with the dignity and respect they 
deserve is an international, universal, fundamental right.
  We have recoiled from the stories of hundreds of garment workers in 
Bangladesh who died in a factory that collapsed a few weeks ago and 
others who died in a factory fire last year. Several brand-name 
retailers contract work in Bangladesh. They have a responsibility, once 
the label of their retail establishment is sewn into these clothes, 
whether they own the factory or whether they are an American retailer 
or an American textile maker that owns the factory or whether they 
subcontract to others and try to wash their hands of responsibility, 
they have a responsibility to work with the Bangladesh Government, to 
work with nongovernmental institutions, and to work with the workers 
themselves to improve their working environment. Anything less is 
unacceptable.
  The United States has a moral duty to lead by example. We should 
examine contracts with companies that sell products manufactured by 
workers who have been denied in these countries--similar to the way 
they used to be in the United States and occasionally still are--who 
are denied even basic worker protections.
  Let's not forget the American rescue workers who put their own lives 
in jeopardy to save hundreds of people over the past few weeks in Texas 
and in the home State of the Presiding Officer, the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts. First responders across our country deserve to know that 
we are doing everything we can to keep them and the people they protect 
as safe as possible. These are, generally, public employees. They 
generally carry a union card. While bystanders and others tend to run 
from disasters, they run toward those disasters.

  Let us always remember those whom we have lost over the years. 
Whether they are public sector or private sector workers, we have lost 
them due to their labor. On Workers Memorial Day, particularly, 
remember them, but on every day.
  Let us honor those workers who have died by renewing our commitment 
to protect hard-working American workers who get up, who go to work, 
who try to provide for themselves and their families.
  I yield the floor.

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