(The Center Square) – A ceremony held Monday in Springfield honored the trade and labor lives lost in Illinois.
Members of trade and labor unions used the anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Act, also known as OSHA, for the memorial. Nick Yelverton is president of the Springfield and Central Illinois Trades and Labor Council.
“On this Workers Memorial Day, we honor and remember those who lost their lives on the job and affirm every worker’s basic right to a safe and healthy workplace,” he said during the ceremony.
Illinois AFL-CIO President Tim Drea also honored fallen workers, and the creation of OSHA.
“Yet today, we see that oversight is being eroded. Senate Bill 1976 in the Illinois General Assembly is our promise to everyone, anybody who works in Illinois for a living, that the Illinois labor movement will continue to advocate for safe workplaces,” Drea said.
Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs remembered his father’s jaw being wired closed one Thanksgiving. Frerichs reflected on his father, as a truck driver, getting into a wreck near a train track and barely escaping before a train hit the truck.
“This was in early November and I remember him eating his Thanksgiving meal through a straw. It was tough,” Frerichs shared with the crowd in attendance. “Broke a rib, lost his gallbladder, there were a lot of complications. But we were lucky. He eventually did make it back home from the hospital. Too many don’t because of neglect.”
Frerichs said the wreck was caused by a lack of cleanup and signage around railroad construction. He says that highlights the need for persistence in workplace safety regulations.
Union members placed roses in honor of fallen laborers at the base of a repolica workers memorial monument that is being stored during construction at the state capitol.
