Worker advocates are steeped in the debate to bring about real immigration reform. The possibility of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, work authorization, driver licenses and other essential benefits are on the table. Safer workplaces is also a core element to bringing about real reform that honors the contributions of our immigrant brothers and sisters… and is a matter of life or death for thousands of hard working immigrants in America.

The American dream for some immigrant workers fatally ends on their first day at work. Irresponsible employers and unsafe workplaces are the main reason behind those deaths. In 2011, 4,609 workers died in on the job, 16 percent of those fatalities were foreign-born workers. A broken immigration system leaves workers unprotected and allows unethical employers to abuse these workers to fatal extremes.

Hundreds of the fatalities are reported as "NN" (an unidentified immigrant worker that dies in the workplace), while family members wait in their home country with no knowledge of the tragedy. Many fatality reports are recording with sparse information about the victim such as: “male” and “cause of death: fall from roof”

In 2013, a Raani Corporation worker, 50 years-old Carlos Centeno, died after falling on a 500-gallon tank filled with acid solution, as reported by Chip Mitchell on WBEZ. According to the Occupational Safety and Heath Administration of the Department of Labor, employers are required to protect workers from known hazards. The argument “he knew or reasonably should have known of the possible risks of personal injury” should apply to employer. Deaths in the workplace should never be explained as involuntary suicide as Raani Corporation put it by saying: “by voluntarily undertaking to work with such substances, [Centeno] elected to accept such possible risks.”

But not only immigrant workers die in the workplace; from the 4,690 fatalities in the U.S. in 2010, 774 were foreign-born workers.  According to the Occupational Safety Health Administration regulations, employers are required to protect ALL workers from known hazards.

Let’s join hands in prayer on Workers Memorial Day today for all those workers whose lives are taken by unethical employers and unsafe workplaces. Let’s keep up the fight to protect all workers from wrongful occupational injuries and fatalities. Let’s keep up the fight to make employers accountable for those deaths.

Click here to download a Litany in memory of those who have died on the job and in hope for strong workplace safety regulations and enforcement for the safety of immigrant and native workers all across the U.S.

Click here to download a Prayer remembering those who have died on the job, especially our immigrant brothers and sisters.

In the U.S., the rate of fatal work injuries has not decreased for the last three years, even though employers are required by law to provide a workplace free of known hazards. This week, we remember all those workers killed or injured in the workplace. 

 We will remember fallen workers like:

• Two 14-year-old girls were electrocuted in a field by a pivot irrigator in Tampico, Ill.
• Two brothers, 16 and 22, died from exposure to fumes in a confined space while working at a compost center in Lamont, Calif.
• In Illinois, two teenage boys, 14 and 19, suffocated when trapped 30 feet deep in corn; the teens were “walking down the corn” to make it flow while the machine was running.
• In Oklahoma, two 17-year-olds suffered leg amputations after they became caught in an inadequately guarded grain conveyor while cleaning out a grain storage structure.

This week, we will do as Mary Harris “Mother” Jones said, “pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

Construction, transportation, warehousing, agriculture, forestry are some of the most dangerous industries. Most of the occupational fatalities are preventable due to:

• An employer’s negligence to establish effective controls
• Lack of proper training on how to perform the job
• Safe use of tools and equipment, and on health and safety; long working hours
• Employment of teenagers under 18 to perform hazardous jobs.

Interfaith Worker Justice offers OSHA funded workplace health and safety trainings during the year. Workers from around the country can know their workplace rights and train their coworkers.

The path to safer workplaces includes new regulations, stricter enforcement of existing regulations, and employers and employees training among other actions. 

Saturday, April 28, is International Workers Memorial Day, and unions, worker justice organizations, activists, religious groups and worker centers are organizing and participating in actions to continue the fight for safe workplaces. Join IWJ affiliates and allies this week!

Maria E. Gutierrez is Interfaith Worker Justice’s national Health and Safety Coordinator. She coordinates and leads IWJ’s OSHA funded workplace safety trainings. Contact Maria for information regarding IWJ's next health and safety training.

At the beginning of IWJ’s train-the-trainers workshop yesterday, I asked workers, “Que haces para ganarte la vida?” meaning, “What do you do for a living?”

As usual, their responses were some of the most dangerous jobs out there, typical for immigrant and low-wage workers.

Then, I asked them another question for which I didn’t need an answer—just their reflection, “Que haces cada dia que te ponga en riesgo de perder tu vida en el sitio de trabajo?” I asked, “What do you do everyday that can make you lose your life while at the workplace?”

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration provides funding for these trainings each year. Yesterday's session was the third training session for 2012, and more are set for later this year. The nine community leaders and organizers from Chicago and Cincinnati who attended the workshop are now ready to spread the word among their coworkers, and to advocate for health and safety in the workplace.

Training topics include:

• Hazard identification in the workplace
• The hierarchy of hazards control,
• Worker health and safety rights
• How to take action and negotiate for safer working conditions.

Workers should not die on the job; their jobs should not make them sick or leave them disabled. A good job is a safe job that pays fair. Often, employers of immigrant and low-income workers keep this information from workers even though they are required by law to provide the safest possible workplace, communicate any possible hazards workers might encounter in their workday and to help them be protected from any risks.

It still amazes me that workers in the U.S. need to be taught that they have the right to a workplace free of known hazards. Workers should not die on the job; their jobs should not make them sick or leave them disabled. A good job is a safe job that pays fair.

Maria E. Gutierrez is Interfaith Worker Justice’s national Health and Safety Coordinator. She coordinates and leads IWJ’s OSHA funded workplace safety trainings. Contact Maria for information regarding IWJ's next health and safety training.