Remembering Fallen Workers

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

The clear, lonely toll of the bell rang out across the newly-laid sod at the National Worker’s Memorial Wednesday afternoon as the names of 187 workers killed on the job rang out. Josh Osbourne…Andrew Reed…Curtis Fowler, Debbie Byrd, Ray Gonzalez. “We just come to work here, we don’t come to die here,” raged United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts, pacing amid the somber crowd gathered to dedicate the new memorial. Dark clouds raced by overhead as a chill breeze tossed the trees and the mourners hunched in their coats and paid tribute to the recent victims of the mining tragedy in Montcoal, West Virginia, the Tesaro Refinery explosion in Washington State, the Deepwater oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and the more than 5,000 American workers who die on the job every year. Wednesday’s dedication launches a weekly moment of silence at the Memorial, on the Silver Spring campus of the National Labor College, as well as an annual commemoration inducting bricks (r), benches and pavers bearing the names of fallen workers. “Every brick tells a story,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, “stories of families and of dreams that will never be realized. And as we work to create jobs for America, the jobs we create must be good jobs, and good jobs are safe jobs.” Added Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Rich Fairfax, "Change has come, but more is needed. We need to carry this struggle further." Two of this year’s names were CWA 2108 members Jim Gowin, who died on May 28, 1987 and Richelle Brisbon, who died on August 19, 2003. “I knew Jim well, and I remember the day he died as if it were yesterday,” Local 2108 President Les Evans told Union City. “But over time, we tend to forget the faces of those we’ve lost. This gives us the chance to bring them back, to share the stories.” - report/photos by Chris Garlock; photo: Holly Shaw (and her son) with a photo of her husband, Scott, who died on the job at age 38