NJ march commemorates Workers’ Memorial Day

Militant/Tamar Rosenfeld

Carrying signs in English and Spanish saying, “We came here to work, not to die” and “Not one more death,” more than 100 people marched in New Brunswick, New Jersey, April 23 as part of Workers’ Memorial Day, an international event that commemorates workers who have died on the job. Similar actions took place April 28 across Canada, the U.S. and beyond.

“We demand safe workplaces and the right to organize,” Maria Luisa Almanza, a member of New Labor, a group that initiated the action, told the Courier News. The march was endorsed by the Middlesex/Somerset Central Labor Council, United Steelworkers District 4, and more than a dozen other unions and organizations, including the NAACP and immigrant rights groups.

Forty-five workers were killed on the job in New Jersey in 2016, nine more than the year before. According to the most recent figures available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4,836 died on the job nationwide in 2015. On average, at least 11,000 workers are taken to the emergency ward every day from injuries at work in the U.S.

In New York City the majority of the 25 workers who died on construction sites in 2015 were immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America.

The march here paid tribute to Daniel Comerie, a refinery worker who died after being crushed by a concrete slab in Linden; Alvaro Esteban, who lived in Freehold and was killed in December by a trash compactor; and others killed on the job.

Marchers also protested immigration raids and deportations. “We are going to stand hand in hand, side by side against these vicious attacks on people who come to this country, who work hard and try to work safely,” said Steelworkers official John Shinn at the rally.

— SETH GALINSKY